Performance Information (WPI), Work Performance Measurements (WPM) and Performance Reports is a common cause of confusion among many

PMP Certification aspirants and professionals. Therefore, I am writing a series of two blogs in which you will find detailed description about them. In first blog I will discuss the difference between Work Performance Information (WPI) and Work Performance Measurements (WPM), and second blog will be devoted to Performance Reporting. OK Lets begin

Work Performance Information (WPI)

Work Performance Information (WPI) is the raw data of project status, or we can say that it is as of now status of the processes from each knowledge areas. It refers to what work has been completed, or how much time has been elapsed, or the cost incurred etc. It provides us information about current status of project deliverables. This information is utilized in creation of Work Performance Measurements (WPM) and Performance Reporting. Work Performance Information (WPI) includes, but not limited to:

Scope: How much of scope of work has been physically completed? Time: Schedule progress; e.g. status of activities; i.e. how many activities has been completed and how many have been started and their current status etc. Cost: How much cost has been incurred till date? Quality: Here technical performance measurements are noted. For example, characteristics of product; i.e. physical properties, quality metrics, number of defects and rejection rate etc. Human Resource: Work Performance Information can also include performance, or requirements of team member; e.g. if any kind of training given to the team member to enhance his certain skills. Risks: Risks status which includes how many identified and unidentified risks have occurred, how many new risks have been identified, effectiveness of response plan, how much contingency, or management reserve has been utilized. Procurement: Procurement related activities; e.g. seller performance including how much work has been completed from his side, and how much money is paid etc.

Work Performance Measurements (WPM)

Work Performance Measurements (WPM) is used to compare the planned versus actual performance . To generate this analysis, it used the data collected in Work Performance Information. Work Performance Measurements (WPM) includes, but not limited to:

Time: Here, plan schedule vs actual schedule performance is measured for example, you have an activity that is scheduled to be finished within five days, and

in Work Performance Measurements you can see that in actual how long it took to finish that activity. Cost: Here, plan vs actual cost spent is measured; e.g. to complete certain activity how much cost was planned and how much in actual you have spent to complete the task. Quality: Here, plan vs actual technical performance is measured. Here you will measure that how much defects, tolerance and threshold was allowed and how much it is in actual. Based on this you might take corrective, or preventive action. Human Resource: For example, here you can see what kind of training was planned to be given to some team members versus training given to them. Risk: Here, you will see that till date how much you had planned to spend contingency reserve versus how much is really spend, also you will see how many of risks have been occurred versus your identified risks. Procurement: Here you will compare seller performance against planned performance.

In brief:

WPI is as of now status of deliverables and WPM is a comparison between actual status vs planned status. WPI is only a raw data, which provides current status of project, on the other hand WPM is a comparison between plan and actual statuses and created by using WPI. Examples of WPI time elapsed, money spend, and examples of WPM cost variance (CV), schedule variance (SV), cost performance index (CPI) and schedule performance index (SPI) etc.

This is all about difference between Work Performance Information (WPI) and Work Performance Measurements (WPM), I hope that now you have a clear understanding about it. Now you can safely move to second part of this series of two blogs at Performance Report in Project Management to read about the Performance Reports.

Read more: http://pmstudycircle.com/2012/03/work-performance-information-wpi-vswork-performance-measurements-wpm/#ixzz1rBrCOkXt