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Activity health

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Overview

The health of an activity is assessed using two indices: SPI and CPI (See SPI and CPI thresholds for more details).

CPI calculated as follows:

1) If Hours left = 0:

index_formula_cpi.jpg

2) If Hours left > 0:

index_formula_cpi_HLnotzero_sm.png

SPI is calculated using the formula:

index_formula_spi.jpg

where

  • StartDate, EndDate, Progress, EstimatedHours, HoursLeft, and ActualHours are activity parameters, and
  • CurrentDate is the current date.
Activity whose start date is today has SPI=1 even if its progress is zero.

 

"Definitely bad" index

SPI is 'definitely bad' when the end date is in the past.

CPI is 'definitely bad' when Actual Hours > Estimated Hours and Hours left = 0.

 

Health color coding

The chart explains the color coding being used to show what health a given activity has:

CPI/SPI Values Color Code Comment

Both indices are at or above their thresholds.

 evagreen.jpg Healthy activity (when one of the indices is good and the other is unavailable*, or both SPI and CPI are good)
One index is below and the other is above its threshold or N/A. evayellow.jpg Activity is at moderate risk (CPI is good and SPI is bad, or vice versa)
Both indices are below their thresholds. evared.jpg Activity is at high risk (both CPI and SPI are below the threshold, or either SPI or CPI is definitely bad (DB))
* The conditions under which SPI and CPI are not calculated (not available) are given in the notes below.

 

CPI/SPI threshold

The default threshold for both CPI and SPI is 1.

The threshold is a value you set to match CPI and SPI against.

Generally, the higher the threshold the stricter your requirement for activity cost or schedule performance is.

However, setting the thresholds needs to be done with care. For example, 'having a CPI that is very high (in some cases, very high is only 1.2) may mean that the plan was too conservative, and thus a very high number may in fact not be good, as the CPI is being measured against a poor baseline. Management or the customer may be upset with the planners as an overly conservative baseline ties up available funds for other purposes, and the baseline is also used for manpower planning.' (a Wikipedia article on EVA).

 

Calculating CPI and SPI individually

Use 'Allow calculating CPI and SPI individually' (Settings > General > Advanced settings > Project Health (Earned Value Analysis) settings) to make sure one of the indices is calculated when the other one is unavailable.

If an activity has no actual hours, its CPI is not calculated at all. Such an activity is 'green', if its SPI is above the threshold. If SPI is below the threshold, the activity is 'yellow' (at risk) if it is on schedule, or 'red' (troubled) otherwise.
Only activities with the following characteristics are used in the calculation:
1. Their start date is less than the current date so the activity is current.
2. Their status is "Open" or treat-as-open.

 

When activity health is NOT calculated

Health is not calculated for the following activities:

  1. Whose start date is after the current date, i.e. the activities have not yet started;
  2. Their status is "Closed", "On Hold", or any treat-as-completed or treat-as-hold (see Status types).
  3. Their project's status is "Closed", "On Hold", or any treat-as-completed or treat-as-hold (see Status types).

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