Project Management and Program Management depends on "corrective actions" at the granularity needed to "keep the project inside the white lines." This means sampling the progress to plan at intervals needed to make corrections. To answer the question
How long am I willing to wait before I find out I'm late?
When the measurements of project performance are reported as "good," then there is little information available to make corrective actions. So when we get "good news" all the time, there is little or no information to make corrective actions. The project cannot be "managed" in the sense of the verb "management."
We need variance to make corrective action. We need variance to discover root cause failures. As program managers we are expected to:
...assess & control program performance in order to better anticipate and prevent potential failure conditions.†
† DEVELOPING EXTRAORDINARY LEADERS: RE-SHAPING EXPECTATIONS OF LEADERSHIP CAPACITY, Robert M. Tobias, Director, Public Sector Executive Education, American University and Patrick K. Barker, Technical Director, Project Solutions Group,Senior Program Manager Certificate Program MCR,LLC.
When we hear of methods of project management that do not include, measures of varaince to plan, then we should be skeptical they are in fact "management" processes and more along the line of "observing" process. This is called Level of Effort in our domain. "Train Watching."
