MSFC-HDBK-3684, PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL HANDBOOK (26-FEB-2013)

MSFC-HDBK-3684, PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL HANDBOOK (26-FEB-2013)., Flight Center (MSFC) executive management is to achieve the greatest success possible in the execution of MSFC programs and projects. Success is measured as safe project execution, while meeting or exceeding technical quality objectives, within cost and schedule budget commitments. The Program Planning and Control (PP&C) discipline can contribute to project success through detailed programmatic and mission support analysis and the communication of analytical results to the project manager and other stakeholders responsible for making project decisions. Other ways that PP&C analysts can contribute to project success include: a. Helping those in the management chain to better understand and utilize analytical results to predict future outcomes and influence risk mitigation decisions. b. Share data, include and collaborate with all organizations and disciplines supporting the project to ensure optimum communication exchange. c. Work with supervisors and other members within the PP&C community to seek ways to learn and share knowledge, with a goal of continuous professional improvement. d. Maintain an awareness of daily technical events within the project that might impact cost and schedule baselines, and/or project risk. Help project co-workers to better understand the interrelationships between technical and programmatic events and how this communication and awareness can positively impact project success. Proper integration and analysis of such programmatic and mission support data may alter decisions that would have been made in the absence of such inputs. The reader of this handbook should look for the data interactions associated within the various discipline discussions and also look for opportunities to question events that occur over time that might have a current or future impact. This handbook is intended to support the PP&C analyst’s job of being involved in a host of activities, led by various disciplines, and to distill and define information in programmatic and mission support terms. This handbook is also intended to serve as a “how-to” and reference guide for PP&C analysts supporting a project or mission support organization. In addition to published information, this handbook identifies MSFC organizations with resident subject matter expertise that PP&C analysts may contact for additional information and assistance. Finally, this handbook is intended to highlight the programmatic and mission support interfaces, inputs and outputs of the many functions and disciplines that support MSFC programs, projects, and mission support activities, and show how this programmatic data can be used to support quantitative and qualitative analysis. The ultimate goal of analysis is to provide management with timely information to assess performance and support decision making. A key objective for PP&C analysts is to determine the current technical and quality performance of project or mission support activities relative to cost and schedule, and use performance trends and identified risks to draw conclusions on future performance expectations. This data will help analysts assist the management team in answering key questions such as when the program/project/activity will finish and how much it will cost; and in the case of projected over-runs, determine the amount of technical content that should be removed from the project, or the amount of reserves that should be utilized, to meet budget, schedule, and minimum success criteria. Mission support analysis and strategic planning is critical to ensure that MSFC is providing the optimum workforce, facilities, and infrastructure required for current and future Center projects, and to identify and mitigate cross-cutting risks to mission success. Managing the development and operations of the Center’s missions with limited resources is one of the most significant challenges facing MSFC today. The result of effective project management and mission support execution is the delivery and successful completion of the program / project / activity within the specified limits of cost, schedule, technical, and risk management. The manager for the given area is responsible for the outcome, and is closely supported by a deputy manager, and possibly a technical manager (or chief engineer, lead systems engineer, etc.), a Chief Safety Officer, and a project business manager (or Project Control manager, PP&C Manager, etc.). These leaders must work very closely together, such that all are aware of any changes in the technical, schedule, or cost baseline; proposed and agreed to project scope changes; proposed or agreed to risks and associated actions; etc. MSFC-HDBK 3173, Project Management and Systems Engineering Handbook, was developed to provide guidance and best practices for the project management and systems engineering disciplines. This companion handbook provides PP&C guidance and best practices for the business discipline (including project and mission support). In the context of this handbook, the “PP&C Team” and the “Business Team” are considered one in the same. The term “Mission Support”, as used in this handbook, includes all of MSFC, with the exception of the project directorates, and “Institutional Support” is the subset of Mission Support that is Center Management and Operations (CMO)-funded.