Setting Project Baselines—Exercises 

Required Data

Approving and Starting Projects

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to show you the required data that is used in the exercises below.

  1. Approve and start your project.

General exercise for Approving and Starting Projects

Executing Activities

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with the data that must be in place before you can perform the exercises below. In order to understand baseline functionality, project activities need to both have planned values and get calculated progress. The exercise below will use tasks in order to plan and execute activities.

  1. Following the main exercise below, connect some tasks to some activities. Enter planned values. 
  2. Following the main exercise below, execute your activities by reporting progress on the tasks.

General exercise for Creating and Connecting Tasks and Using Tasks to Report Progress

Main Exercise

Purpose: The purpose of these exercises is to show you how to set project baselines. You will learn how project indicators such as Earned Value and Scheduled Work are calculated depending on the value of the Earned Value Method. This lesson will help you understand how changes to the project plan can be handled with the help of baseline functionality.

Windows:
Project Navigator/Activity
Projects
Project

Setting Project Baselines

  1. Open the Project Navigator window and query for your project.
  2. Enter a task on an activity and enter values for that task in the Planned Hours field and the Planned Cost field for a cost element. (See the Required Data section of this exercise.)
  3. Click the Activity tab and then the Cost tab and the Hours tab, note that the values in the Planned column are updated from the task. (The value in the Planned Cost Driver field must be Connected Objects.)
  4. Select the highest level in the project navigator of the Project Navigator window, right-click and then click Set Baseline to open Set Baseline dialog box. This action can also be done in the Projects or Project window.
  5. Note that the project ID and baseline revision number are shown as information.
  6. Select the value Baseline from the Earned Value Method list.
  7. Optionally you can add a comment in the Comment field.
  8. Click OK. The baseline revision is created for your project.
  9. Note that the baseline revision number and chosen Earned Value Method are shown in the header of the Project Navigator window.
  10. In the project navigator, select your activity from step 2 and click the Activity tab.
  11. On the Cost tab, note that the values in the Baseline Cost column are equal to the values in the Planned Cost column. On the Hours tab the values in the Baseline Hours column will be equal to the Planned Hours column.
  12. Click the Details tab. Note that the dates in the Baseline Start and Baseline Finish fields are equal are equal to the values in the Early Start and Early Finish fields.
  13. Execute your activity by reporting progress on the task created in step 2. (See the Required Data section of this exercise.) Make sure that the value in the Early Start field is earlier than today's date.
  14. Click the Cost and Hours tabs. Note the values in the Scheduled Work and Earned Value columns.

Note: Scheduled work values shows the budgeted cost or hours scheduled to be completed at the current date if the budgeted values had been evenly distributed over the activity's work days. As the Earned Value Method is Baseline, the budgeted values are equal to the baseline values.

Note: The earned value is the budget cost or hours for the work actually performed, based on the progress. Since the Earned Value Method is Baseline, Earned Value Cost = Progress on the Task line * Baseline Cost and Earned Value Hours = Progress on the Task line * Baseline Hours.

  1. Change the planned cost value for the task created in step 2.
  2. Click the Cost tab and observe that the values in the Planned column are updated according to your changes. Note that the values in the Baseline, Earned Value and Scheduled Work columns are unchanged.
  3. Repeat steps 4-8 to create a second baseline for your project, with the difference that you should select the value Planned from the Earned Value Method list.
  4. In the project navigator, select your activity from step 2 and click the Activity tab. On the Cost and Hours tabs, note the values in the Planned, Baseline, Scheduled Work and Earned Value columns.
  5. Change either the planned cost or the planned hours for the task created in step 2.
  6. Click the Cost and Hours tabs and observe that the value in the Planned column are updated according to your changes. Note that the values in the Baseline column will remain unchanged. The values in the Earned Value and Scheduled Work columns will also be updated and are now calculated based on the values in the Planned column, instead of the baseline values.

Handling Changes to Project Plan

  1. Open the Project Navigator window and query for your project.
  2. Perform steps 4-8 described above in the Setting Project Baselines exercise, to create a new baseline revision.
  3. Change a planned value for an activity. For example, you can change some planned values for the task created in step 2 of the above exercise.
  4. In the project navigator, select this activity and click the Activity tab. Note that the Activity Changed check box has been selected because a value in the Planned column differs from the value in the Baseline column.
  5. Select another activity in the project navigator and on the Activity tab, change the value of the Early Start or Early Finish field.
  6. Note that the Activity Changed check box has been selected because a value in the Early Start or Early Finish field differs from the value in the Baseline Start or respectively the Baseline Finish field.
  7. Create a new activity in your project structure. Note that the Activity Changed check box has been selected.
  8. Perform steps 4-8 described above in the Setting Project Baselines exercise, to create a new baseline revision. Note the value of the baseline revision which you are creating.
  9. For each of the activities you changed, note in the Activity tab that the new baseline revision is the value shown in the Set in Baseline and Baseline Revision Comment fields.
  10. Note also that the Activity Changed check box has been cleared.

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