We all hear about the importance of establishing projects baselines.  You know it is important, but often don’t know how to do it or what to do with it later.  ‘Baseline’ is one of the abstract concepts, yet when applied well is useful and will distinguish yourself from the average Project Managers.  The baseline could be broken down intp the 4 primary constraints of project management and each of has a distinct document that can be used as the baseline. 

  

Which Baselines to Use? 

  1. Scope baseline setup by >> scope statement 
  2. Cost baseline setup by > approved budget 
  3. Schedule baseline setup by > approved project schedule  
  4. Quality baseline setup by > Quality plan 

  

These 4 components form the basis of the project baseline.  There are other baselines per the PMBOK knowledge area, but these are the 4 key baselines we will report weekly/ monthly to our project stakeholders. 

  

With all the modern project management tools, ticketing system etc.  A best practice way the manage baseline and changes throughout the lifecycle of the project be opening up a change ticket for each baseline change. 

  

Baseline update  

It is common to have baseline updated a number of times throughout the lifecycle of the project.  The common points of update are: 

  

  1. Project Kickoff – 1-time 
  2. End of Discover or Requirement phase –  1-time… usually 
  3. Execution phase – multiple times… hopefully not too many. 
  4. Close out phase – 1-time 

  

  

Project Kickoff (Baseline 1.0) 

When the project is approved and officially kicked off.  Open your first change ticket and put in the:  

  1. key deliverables (Scope)  
  2. Cost baseline (monthly cost)  
  3. Project schedule (key milestones) 
  4. Quality plan (deliverables exit criteria, QA test plan etc. 

  

Requirement or Discovery phase completion (Baseline 2.0)   

We often hear project teams make a comment like ‘we know a lot more now than when we started the project’…  This happens at the end of the Discover or Requirement phase.  When the project was officially approved, there is a general concept what  needs to be delivered, the general direction.  However, this often changes after the requirements collection or discovery is completed.  It is then when the project team realize what ‘they are ‘n for’.   This often happens when business requirements are fully vetted and tech resource come back to inform the business community what is doable and what is not doable. 

  

Scope/ Cost/ Schedule/ Quality will be revised at this time… and often not to the liking of the stakeholders.  You will hear comments from stakeholders like ‘I thought this was only going to cost $1 million.  You are now telling me it is going to cost $2 million?”  Make sure you have done your analysis and give a very detailed explanation why each of the baselines are changing.  Emphasis on the dependencies, what can be achieved and cannot be achieved.  Always provide 1 – 3 options, i.e. future Baseline 2.0a, Baseline 2.0b, Baseline 2.0c.   

  

Once confirmed, file change ticket #2 to capture this baseline #2 

  

Execution phase baseline updates (Baseline 3.0 and beyond…) 

When in execution phase, there are often new discoveries, surprises and the baseline need to be updated again.  Make sure you capture the changes in a new change ticket and get your approval.   

  

Final Baseline (Baseline n…) 

The final baseline is when you complete your project and you hand the outcome/ output over to business as usual (BAU) operations.  Each project is a change to the product or services in production baseline, hopefully, improve your company’s current product/ services mix.  The bar of the product/ services is set higher, until the next project. 

  

In conclusion 

Capture project baselines changes throughout the lifecycle of the project, from start to finish.  Communicate with your stakeholders and provide informed options which the baseline is changing.  If you provide a logical reason and provide options, your project will be successful and you will set yourself apart from project managers that do not capture baselines. 

 

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