THESE ARE THE DISCUSSIONS OF THE PEOPLE CAN YOU PLEASE PROVIDE THE REPLIES( I MEAN PROVIDE REPLIES FOR EACH DISCUSSION 1 & 2).

Discussion-1:

It is extremely vital to maintain the communication within the project and reporting the updates to the stakeholders is mandatory for smooth execution of the project. As each stakeholder has a different set of expectations from the project, the reporting process should be tailored according to their needs. For example, Executive stakeholders might only want to see the numbers or high-level information on a monthly/biweekly basis and anything much more than that would not be useful. Some stakeholders might be interested in monitoring the project more closely and might need every detail and in such cases daily or weekly reporting would be effective.

I would start by gathering information on their interest and power level and also ask questions to find out their expected communication plan. Once a communication plan is developed and delivered to stakeholder, it is also vital to take their feedback and make changes if required. (Gina, 2013).

Earned value is highly effective and makes it very easy for the stakeholders to understand the progress of the project and identify any lag. Results of Earned value analysis could be included in both the high level and much more detailed reporting.

It is also extremely vital to categorize the intended audience and develop the report writing strategy. For example, I would develop a separate report writing template for external stakeholders and would only share relevant information or the updates that impact their work or interests in the project. In my case study, the business users are divided into 3 categories based on their operational area and I would only share the information relevant to their area. Similarly, I would keep a separate template for the developers and testers.

Discussion-2:

The purpose of performance reporting is to understand and communicate important aspects of a project that could be beneficial or harmful to the progress of the project. Being able to give accurate information and solve critical issues is the goal of performance evaluations. This information is always required by stakeholders, they require it to make important decisions for the project. When a stakeholder interests for a project are high, this most likely means the performance reports need to contain more details regarding the project. If the stakeholder is able to understand technical aspects of the project it is important to also include such information in the reports.

Earned value adds value to a project because it provides numerical data that shows the actual performance of the project against what was initially planned. Earned value analysis provides six variances that speak directly to the performance of the project. They are as follows; Cost Variance (CV) this shows the difference between the budgeted cost of work performed and actual cost of work performed, Schedule Variance (SV) this tells us if we are under or over budget and if we are ahead or behind the schedule of the project, Estimate at completion (EAC) this provides a forecast for the total cost required to complete a project, and we have Estimate to Complete (ETC) this provides the expected cost required to finish all aspects of work. We also use the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) and Cost Performance Index (CPI) ; these indicators simply show whether or not cost is being used efficiently in a project.

Earned value analysis is great when it is being used in a project but it doesn't tell us the necessary actions that need to be taken to solve the problem. As a project manager it is important to be aware that there isn't a one-size fits all approach to making a project successful. We have to make use of multiple tools that would compliment the weakness of another tool. A tool that I would use would be root cause analysis. Simply because it tells us the problem in a situation as well as informs us on how to solve the situation.