Project Delivery Framework (PDF)

project assurance
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-success-through-project-assurance-114

key elements required to set up an IT project

Outline business justification and stakeholder needs

List of requirements and project objectives

Project scope statement

List of deliverables and estimated due dates

Detailed project schedule

Risk assessment and management plan

Defined roles and responsibilities

Resource allocation

Quality assurance (QA) plan

Communication plan

What is a project artifact?

A project artifact is the documentation a company produces that defines and supports a project's
process. Artifacts typically relate to project management and include documents, outputs, specific
deliverables, objectives and templates. They help align projects with the objectives of an organization,
address the needs of stakeholders and define a team's expectations. Common artifacts include project
charters, customer analyses and business cases. Management may often update artifacts to reflect
changes in the scope of a project.

10 project artifact types

Here are ten kinds of project artifacts that are helpful to consider when planning a project:

1. Strategy artifacts

Strategy artifacts entail documentation that relates to a project's initiation. Creating these artifacts is
usually the first step of a project, as they help guide a team's work moving forward. These artifacts often
remain the same throughout an entire project. Common strategy artifacts include project proposals,
project charters, vision statements and road maps. These documents define key elements of a project
such as its description, scope, resources, schedule and responsibilities.

2. Communication plan
An effective team working on a project often creates a communication plan to agree on optimal ways to
convey important information. For example, they can develop strategies to communicate effectively
about meetings, issues, document reviews, access to deliverables and the status of a project. A team
usually creates their communication plan at the beginning of a project.

3. Logs and registers

These artifacts refer to project management logs and registers that team members analyze daily, as it
helps them gauge a project's process and determine their tasks for a particular workday. Logs and
registers include risk registers, assumption logs, backlogs and stakeholder registers. A project manager
may update these documents frequently.

4. Release specifications

A team uses release specifications to test raw materials, units in development and end products. These
specifications allow a team to measure the performance of a product before its use or release. Release
specifications typically include vision statements and evaluation criteria, while vision statements often
include the contract between a developer and a buyer. Evaluation criteria refers to the requirements
management personnel may use to determine whether a project met its goals.

5. General plans

Another important project artifact is plans that managers develop to determine how they can optimally
ensure a project's progression and efficiency. This artifact may be in one or several documents and
include both textual and visual elements. You may encounter general plans related to logistics, quality,
releases, scope management, iteration and tests while working on a project.

6. Reports

Effective project management also often involves a series of reports. Some typical reports may cover the
quality, status and risks of a project. Another piece of documentation that you may include in this
category of project artifacts is formal records for stakeholder use.

7. Hierarchy charts

Hierarchy charts describe the relationships between different parts of a project in detailed sections.
They include breakdown structures of work processes, organization, products and risks. Depending on
the project you're completing, a manager may create various versions of each breakdown at an
accelerated or slowed pace or omit certain hierarchy charts. You might consider elaborating on these
artifacts frequently.
8. Visual data and information

This category refers to anything that a manager might not consider to be a traditional document. This
includes flow charts, dashboards, requirements traceability matrices and velocity charts. Visual data
sources can make it easier for a team to understand information about a project. A project manager
may create visual information sources after they complete data analysis and use tools to update them
automatically.

9. Baselines

Baselines represent approved versions of the plan to which they relate. Common examples of baselines
include budgets, scope baselines, milestone schedules and performance measurement baselines. A
manager usually creates and updates baselines throughout a project's duration.

10. Agreements and contracts

This category refers to any legally binding agreements that apply to a project. Some projects include
contracts, while others may not require the use of these types of documents. Fixed price contracts, time
and materials contracts and cost reimbursement contracts are all common agreements you might
encounter while working on a project.

Purchase Requisition vs. Purchase Order: What’s the Difference?

The main difference between a purchase requisition and a purchase order is that a purchase requisition
is for getting internal permission to buy goods or services, whereas a purchase order is for actually
purchasing the goods or services. These documents are created and approved internally within a
company.

What is a Purchase Requisition?

A purchase requisition is an internal document created by your employee to request the purchasing of
goods or services from an outside vendor. Once the document is approved by the department manager,
finance department, and is three-way matched, the actual purchasing of goods or services can now
happen with the use of a purchase order.
Purchase Requisition Workflow

What is The Difference Between a Purchase Requisition & a Purchase Order?

Standardizing the process of ordering within an organization requires documentation. Putting a

procurement system in place controls costs and creates a paper trail for easier auditing. Obtaining a
purchase order vs purchase requisition are both key processes in acquiring items a business needs to
survive. Every buying policy and procedure is different, so it’s important to first understand these two
systems and how they can streamline your operations.

Purchase requisitions are more interdepartmental forms that allow larger organizations to handle their
accounting and finances better. The bigger the business, the more the need for a procurement process.
You simply cannot track the flow without putting it on paper.

Purchase Requisition Workflow

The 10 steps in the purchase requisition workflow.

The purchasing request forms are documents developed by the purchaser and submitted to the finance
department. It’s a means of getting permission to start the procurement process with an outside
vendor. You’re waiting for the “thumbs up” to buy goods or services needed to complete a job.

You can’t go crazy with company cash. You need an approval process for validation purposes. This serves
as the first step in creating an efficient audit trail with transparent records. It shows the IRS you care
about keeping track of business finances.

The purchasing department will only look at a purchase requisition form over a certain dollar amount.
Every company differs, but the average cost is anything $5000 and over. Each requisition order requires
certain information.

Information on a Purchase Requisition Form

Name of the department requesting

Purchaser’s location and mailing address

Exact amount of items

Description of items

Legal name of the outside supplier

Expected price of purchase

The more information the accounting department has, the more it facilitates the purchasing process. A
good purchase requisition example would be when an employee needs equipment or ongoing services
for their job.

Why Do You Need a Purchase Requisition?

When a proposed purchase exceeds a certain amount, you want to document that for tax purposes.
Every organization needs to buy things, but without a paper trail, the likelihood of fraud vastly increases.
A business must maintain some form of control over their pocketbook. To prevent this, a procurement
department serves an important role in the supply chain. They are a second set of eyes on the money
going out. This is an essential strategy for small businesses where every penny counts.

Sample Purchase Requisition Form

What is a Purchase Order?

This is the next step in a purchasing system. Once a requisition is approved, it is assigned a purchase
order number and sent to the vendor. This external document initiates the sales transaction and is a
binding contract for all parties involved. The purchase order system is designed for organized
recordkeeping. The PO number that is assigned generally matches the requisition number, and they are
filed together. Just like a purchase requisition, a PO requires certain information, like:

• Name of the purchasing office

• Items to be purchased

• Payment terms

• Invoicing instructions

• Ship to address

• Purchase order number

Purchase orders serve as key documents in the entire accounting system and expedite recordkeeping.
They help companies properly prepare for audits. You don’t want to be scrambling last-minute for a
receipt from 10-months ago. Efficient processes save a business money.

Purchase orders can also be requested for internal transactions. This happens when one department in
a business wishes to purchase goods or services from another. In this case, an interdepartmental
purchase order is required to track the exchange of goods and services. This can be particularly helpful
for larger businesses that have departments with separate operating budgets.

Why Do You Need a Purchase Order?

A business should never be satisfied with a verbal commitment. There is a great amount of legal risk
involved. Purchase orders put things on paper. When new posts are made, they help to avoid duplicate
orders. This is particularly important as your business scales up. It will be harder to track purchases
without an assigned number like a PO.

Certain financial audits also require you turn in purchase orders. This serves as evidence a manager has
approved a purchasing decision. It’s quicker and more efficient than digging through a drawer of
receipts. It also keeps you from losing track of funds or complicating accounting practices.
Purchase orders can help a company avoid surprise price increases. If a supplier changes its cost
between the date of order and the date of delivery or invoice, a PO will clarify the original price. The
vendor must hold to the contract since a PO is a legal document. This clears up any potential for
miscommunication or misappropriated funds.

The PO process will also keep your orders and invoices in check. It makes it easy to identify which
products are coming in at any time and aids inventory management. If you have repeat orders, it helps
to sort invoicing down the road.

Sample Purchase Order Form

A reclass or reclassification, in accounting, is a journal entry transferring an amount from

one general ledger account to another. This can be done to correct a mistake; to record that long-
term assets or liabilities have become current; or to record that an asset is now being used for a
different purpose (e.g. land's becoming investment property intended for resale, rather than
as property, plant, and equipment used in production).

Example[edit]
A $500 purchase of office supplies was charged to building maintenance by accident. The correcting
entry would be handled in one of at least two ways:

1) If your system recorded the $500 to Building Maintenance, it needs to be reversed out, as this is
the most common method:

Office supplies Dr. $500

to Building maintenance ... -$500

2) If your system records final values only, in which case you are now updating the original record:

Office supplies Dr. $500

to Building maintenance ... $0

Reclass Entry

Accounting for business also means being responsible for adjustments and corrections. One such
adjustment entry is ‘reclass’ or reclassification journal entry. The process of transferring an amount from
one ledger account to another is termed as reclass entry.

It is most often seen as a transfer journal entry & is a critical part of the final accounts of a business.

Uses of this entry

For correction of a mistake.

For reclassification of a long-term asset as a current asset.

For reclassification of a long-term liability as a current liability.

To change the type & purpose of an asset in the financial statements.

Example – Reclass Entry

Though there are quite a few reasons to perform a reclass entry however we will illustrate one of the
most common scenarios i.e. correction of a mistake.

The finance department booked payment of Rent expenses for the current month using the below
journal entry,

(Error journal entry)

rent debit by mistake

The above entry was posted to Rent A/C in error as the original payment related to Telephone expenses.

After finding the error a transfer entry was used to reclass the ledger amount of 5,000 in rent account to
telephone expenses account.

(Correction reclass entry)

reclass entry in journal

Debit – Debited telephone expenses account to increase expenses by 5,000 in its ledger balance.

Credit – Credited rent account to decrease rent expenses by 5,000 in its ledger balance.

contingency based risk assessment

It is a detailed strategy for protecting your business against external risks and emergencies, such as
natural disasters. Creating a contingency and risk assessment plan involves identifying the potential risk
areas to create an effective response should those problems develop.

A contingency plan is executed when the risk presents itself. The purpose of the plan is to lessen the
damage of the risk when it occurs. Without the plan in place, the full impact of the risk could greatly
affect the project. The contingency plan is the last line of defense against the risk.

What is a Contingency Plan in Project Management?

A contingency plan in project management is a defined, actionable plan that is to be enacted if an

identified risk becomes a reality. It is essentially a “Plan B”, to be put in place when things go differently
than expected. The Project Management Institute defines contingency planning as, “involv[ing] defining
action steps to be taken if an identified risk event should occur.” Contingency plans in project
management are a component of risk management, and should be part of the risk management plan.

When to use a contingency plan

Contingency plans can only be created for identified risks, not unidentified or unknown risks — if you
don’t know what your risk is, it’s impossible to plan for it. It should be noted that contingency plans are
not only put in place to anticipate when things go wrong — they can also be created to take advantage
of strategic opportunities. For example, say you’ve identified that a new training software should be
released soon. If it occurs during your project, you may have a contingency plan on how to incorporate it
into the training phase of your project.

The difference between a contingency plan and a mitigation plan

A mitigation plan attempts to decrease the chances of a risk occurring, or decrease the impact of the risk
if it occurs. It is implemented in advance. A contingency plan explains the steps to take after the
identified risk occurs, in order to reduce its impact. Think of a contingency plan as the last line of
defense.

How to prepare your contingency plan

When preparing your contingency plan, consider these four guidelines:

Identify what specific event or events need to happen to trigger the implementation of the plan.

Cover the five bases in each step of your plan: who will be involved, what do they need to do, when
does it need to happen, where will the plan take place, and how will it be executed.

Have clear guidelines for reporting and communication during the implementation of the plan. How will
internal and external stakeholders be notified? Who will draft and send the notice, and how soon after
the incident will it be released? How often will updates be provided?

Monitor the plan on a regular basis to ensure it is up-to-date.

In addition, you should be aware of these four common challenges that project managers face with
contingency planning:

Contingency planning is viewed as a low priority: Since the plan may never be needed, there can be a
tendency to put off the creation of it. However, not having a properly planned out contingency can lead
to project failure.
Team members may be overconfident or overly-invested in Plan A: Therefore, they may not be
motivated to create a detailed, actionable Plan B.

Lack of enterprise-wide plan awareness and buy-in can hinder implementation: Projects do not happen
in isolation. If all stakeholders in the organization are not aware of and invested in the plan, there may
be delays in enacting it.

Not spending enough time identifying all risks: If a risk has not been properly identified, it’s impossible
to prepare a viable contingency plan.

What Is the Triple Constraint in Project Management?

So, what is the Triple Constraint? That’s easy, it’s a model of the constraints inherent in managing a
project. Those constraints are threefold:

Cost: The financial constraints of a project, also known as the project budget

Scope: The tasks required to fulfill the project’s goals

Time: The schedule for the project to reach completion

Basically, the Triple Constraint states that the success of the project is impacted by its costs, time, and
scope. As a project manager, you can keep control of the triple constraint by balancing these three
constraints through trade-offs. We’ll explain how these trade-offs work in the section below.

While it’s true that the Triple Constraint is an important part of any successful project, it doesn’t
determine success. Projects are made from many parts, more than the three that make up the Triple
Constraint. That’s why some project management experts have added three more constraints to the
model, to better reflect the most critical areas of a project. Here they are:

Quality: There are quality standards for every project, whether its final deliverable is a tangible or
intangible product. Project managers need a quality management plan to control quality.

Risk: Risk is inherent to any project. That’s why project managers need to create a risk management
plan to explain how project risks will be handled

Benefit: There are different types of benefit obtained from a project. Project managers must ensure
that project stakeholders get the best financial benefit possible.

How Does the Triple Constraint Work?

As stated above, project managers can increase or reduce the cost, time and scope of a project with
trade-offs to keep it on schedule and under budget. Let’s see how these project triangle trade-offs work
with some examples.

Time and Scope: You can reduce your project scope to also reduce your project duration if you’re
running behind schedule. In the opposite case, you can increase the length of your project timeline in
case the project stakeholders come up with extra project activities.

Cost and Scope: By reducing the project scope, you’ll need to execute fewer tasks, which means
lower costs. In the opposite case, a larger project scope means higher costs.
Cost and Time: In some projects, time and cost can be directly related. For example, the costs of
renting equipment or labor are directly proportional to the time you need them for.

All these scenarios are applying the Triple Constraint for managing the project, but there are many more
possible trade-offs that can occur in a project, which also involve quality, risk and benefit.

By using a project management dashboard, a manager can keep sight of the project as it progresses.
Metrics such as the schedule, cost and scope of the project are easy to track. With this information, a
project manager can identify issues and adjust the Triple Constraint to prevent those issues from
developing into problems. ProjectManager features a real-time dashboard that presents all the critical
project data that impacts the triple constraint.

How to Manage the Triple Constraint

The Triple Constraint appears simple, but that’s only on the surface. Each of the three points of this
triangle can be unpacked to reveal deeper meaning.

Cost

The financial commitment of the project is dependent on several variables. There are the resources
involved, from materials to people, which all include costs.

There are also the fixed and variable costs inherent in any project, such as equipment or labor, which
must be calculated. This can seriously come into play with the use of contract workers or outsourcing.

This is what project managers do to control costs:

Estimate the costs for all the tasks in the project scope

Create a project budget based on the estimated costs of the project

Use the project budget as a cost baseline, which is employed to control costs during project execution

Control all project costs to keep spending under the project budget

Adjust the project budget when necessary

Related: Free Project Budget Template

Scope

As mentioned, the project scope refers to all the project work required to complete the project.
Managing that work is critical for project success. When managing scope it’s critical that you prioritize
your tasks, enabling you to plan and assign resources effectively.

To manage scope, project managers:

Use a scope management plan to clearly define what project activities will be done

Share the scope management plan with all stakeholders, so everybody is on the same page

Use change orders to avoid scope creep and keep track of all changes made to the project scope
Manage stakeholder’s expectations to maintain the project scope

Use task management tools and techniques to keep track of all project activities in the scope

These scope management actions taken by project managers are all essential because the amount of
time each task will require is critical to the cost and quality of the final product. This can have a great
impact on schedule and cost, especially so if the project is on a large scale.

Related: Theory of Constraints: A Guide for Project Managers

ProjectManager has task management features that make it easy to assign, sort and prioritize your
tasks. This way you can delegate all the critical project tasks to the right people, preventing the dreaded
scope creep. Plus, by offering file sharing and task comments, we enable collaboration on the task level.

Time

At its basic, the project schedule is the estimated timeline allotted to complete the project, or produce
the final deliverable. Usually, this is figured out by first estimating the time that each project task will
take.

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is used to identify all the project activities. Then project
managers can use different scheduling techniques such as the critical path method or PERT charts to
determine the total duration of the project.

Here’s what project managers do to control the project schedule:

Use a Gantt chart to visualize the project schedule, define task sequences and monitor the duration of
each task

Create policies, procedures and documentation for planning, executing and monitoring the project
schedule

Allocate resources effectively using a resource schedule to avoid bottlenecks

Compare the schedule baseline to actual progress to determine if projects are on track

What is distribution list and how it works?

In email applications, a distribution list is a list of email addresses that can be mass mailed via
automation without having to add members individually. Distribution lists are used to send emails to
groups of people without having to enter each recipient's individual address.

What is POAP plan on a Page?

A Plan-on-a-Page (POAP) is a vital tool to present your project plan in an easy to understand Summary
Plan. To be trusted the summary needs to be accurate and tailored to the audience. Many projects,
programmes and portfolios manually produce such POAP summaries.
CI Initiatives in Processes

A continual improvement process, also often called a continuous improvement process (abbreviated as
CIP or CI), is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek
"incremental" improvement over time or "breakthrough" improvement all at once.

What is Continuous Improvement?

First things first, let’s define what continuous improvement means. With its roots in manufacturing,
continuous improvement is a method that strives to locate opportunities for ensuring efficiency,
continuously. This involves the assessment of current processes, products and services to ensure that
output is maximised and waste is minimised.

Continuous improvement benefits internal and external stakeholders, from employees to customers and
investors alike. But, continuous improvement isn’t a one-and-done deal that a company performs and
then forgets. If the name doesn’t give it away, let’s drive this fact home - the method is continuous, as
in, it does not have an end. It’s a method that becomes a part of a business’ ongoing operations. You can
consider it to be like a way of life, rather than something new you might try once. But, even though it
becomes a part of your business, it still requires strategy and methodology to impact change.

Since continuous improvement becomes a way of operating, this means that everyone must be on
board. So, creating a culture of improvement is a priority to make it work. This can be done by
empowering everyone within an organisation to understand that they can point out places for
development to spark positive change.

Types of Process Improvement

There are various methods for process improvement. We’ll briefly define three kinds and then move
into examples of continuous improvement.

LEAN Technology: Created by Toyota to optimise its production cycle, LEAN improvement is customer-
focused. It defines what customers value from the process most to determine what can be eliminated
from the production of a product to decrease waste and cut costs.

Six Sigma: Six Sigma is a method that focuses on improving the quality of business processes. It’s aimed
at limiting the variation in processes to ensure consistency and increase performance. It uses statistics to
measure deviations from a defined centre line on a control chart.
Total Quality Management: With some similarity to Six Sigma, Total Quality Management (TCM) holds all
involved parties responsible for producing quality outputs. It looks to standardise processes to reduce
errors.

5 Continuous Improvement Examples

Now that you understand what continuous process improvement is, it’ll be helpful to see the theory
applied in a business setting.

Here’s a look at five examples of continuous process improvement and where you can use it during your
day-to-day practices:

1. Ideation and Think Tanks:

Initiating regular think tanks and ideation sessions can benefit your organisation. You can choose to run
think tanks with an agenda in mind or at the very least, elicit the attendance of key personnel so that
valuable ideas are discussed. During these sessions, you can explain how processes are currently being
run to see if there are places that need to be improved and changes to be made. Often, since technology
is so intertwined with most business processes, a starting point is to discuss updates and new
technology solutions geared towards optimisation. For example, automation solutions are becoming
increasingly necessary for businesses to remain competitive.

2. Surveys and Polls:

The people who work within your organisation are the most well-versed to know where improvements
can be made. It’s not only important to gain feedback from customers and vendors, but important and
often overlooked is employee feedback. By polling your team, you can find out their pain points and find
places for improvement. As a business leader, you spend most of your time on the big picture, so the
smaller details that significantly affect your business’ outputs can go unnoticed without such insight.

3. Monthly Training:

In big businesses, especially, it is common that each employee works within a silo or “swim lane.” But,
both cross-training and automation software can contribute to process improvement. For example, if
you can train employees to know how to do multiple jobs, then if someone is absent because of sickness
or vacation, a process remains unharmed. Another idea is to implement an automation tool within your
organisation to reduce dependency on key personnel. For example, automation tools like SolveXia’s
system are designed such that processes are stored within the system and can be run by virtually
anyone with access. Not only is the process stored and will automatically run, but as the process runs,
the system documents the steps it is taking to produce its output.

4. Time Audits:

One of the most significant resources wasted within a business is time. Being able to accurately measure
and gauge how much time a process takes on behalf of your employees can offer insight into where you
can optimise a process. It’s as simple as using software to time a process. Then, you can analyse how
long processes take and find ways to eliminate wasted time. This could be in the form of automating
approvals and reducing touch-points, thereby preventing potential bottlenecks and delays from
occurring.

5. Catchball:

Within organisations, processes are rarely started and completed by a single person. As such, every
process needs to have someone who can be held responsible for its execution, but still requires the
input and assistance of multiple people. Catchball is a method of continuous improvement that requires
the person who initiated a process to state its purpose and concerns to the others involved clearly. In
this way, they can then “throw” it out to the group for feedback and ideas for improvement, yet the
single person remains responsible for its completion.

The above are just some ideas to get continuous improvement going within your organisation.

Here’s a look at some areas that breed waste within the business that often have room for
improvement:

Timeliness: System downtimes, approvals and bottlenecks of information

Errors: Manual data entry errors, invoice errors

People: Underutilised workforce, excessive management and micromanagement

Production: Overproduction of printed documents before necessary

All of the above are just baseline examples of what many businesses face. In every case, an automation
tool like SolveXia can assist in eliminating waste and helping with continuous improvement. The
automation tool is designed to be accessible to all relevant parties, and by automating data and
processes, errors are inherently reduced.
‍

Incremental vs Breakthrough Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement can be made as you go or a full-fledged approach to tackle significant issues at
once:

Incremental Continuous Improvement:

This type of process improvement is done as you recognise problems during a process. The upside of
this type of improvement is that it is relatively cheaper and faster than breakthrough continuous
improvement. Say you are running a process and notice a mistake. This could be a typo in a brochure or
an error in data. You can fix the error as you go; however, to ensure that the actual process moves
forward in its next iteration without the same error requires that you communicate the change. So,
incremental continuous improvement is beneficial so long as the person who fixes the mistake brings it
up to the rest of the organisation.

Breakthrough Continuous Improvement:

Breakthrough continuous improvement happens the other way around. Rather than making a change
during the process itself, it involves targeting the process for improvement and then strategically
approaching the change as a united front. These are typically more substantial items for correction that
require an entire team to implement.

Benefits of Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement strives to accomplish two main goals, namely, streamline workflows and
reduce waste. Together, these work to reduce costs and optimise outputs, whether that be the quality
of a product or service.

Streamline workflow:
Most processes require multiple touchpoints or parties involved. These always have room for
improvement. Whether it’s from the basis of the data needed or the communication between the
people who play a role in its completion.

Reduce costs/waste:

Project managers and executives have models and data to review the cost of every project. With
continuous process improvement, they can assess where the fees are too high and then work towards
reducing costs and waste to make a process more efficient.

How to Implement Continuous Process Improvement

As mentioned above, continuous process improvement doesn’t always have a clear beginning and end.
Instead, it works best when it is part of the company culture and involves everyone within an
organisation.

Here are some considerations for how to make continuous process improvement the norm within your
business:

1. Manageable improvements:

Set reasonable goals. When setting out for improvement, you want to break down larger projects into
smaller, measurable pieces. This will help to reduce overwhelm, as well as keep everyone involved on
the right track to succeed.

2. Elicit Feedback:

You should continuously seek feedback from customers, stakeholders and employees throughout your
operations. This feedback will not only help locate opportunities for improvement, but it can also offer
new perspectives and breed new ideas.

3. Motivate employees:

Not only should you breed a culture where each employee feels empowered to notice inefficiencies and
offer solutions, but you should also develop a rewarding culture to be motivational. For example, you
can create rewards or develop an accessible system for employees to share feedback continuously.
‍

Download ebook: A New Approach to Process Improvement

The Bottom Line

Continuous process improvement offers a method for your business to get better at any point in time.
Whether you choose to implement incremental or breakthrough changes or a mixture of both, you can
help to reduce waste and optimise outcomes. The above continuous improvement examples and
strategies can help you achieve your business goals.

Like any type of process improvement, you want to remember to track and monitor any changes to
ensure you are following towards improvement, rather than hurting any other part of the process.
Automation software like SolveXia can help to analyse current processes, as well as implement solutions
that optimise operations.

TAT towards recurring activities.

Turnaround time (TAT) is the amount of time taken to complete a process or fulfill a request. The
concept thus overlaps with lead time and can be contrasted with cycle time.

Turnaround time (TAT) is the time interval from the time of submission of a process to the time of the
completion of the process. It can also be considered as the sum of the time periods spent waiting to get
into memory or ready queue, execution on CPU and executing input/output.

Turnaround Time or TAT is a performance indicator measuring the time it takes to respond to a request.
It is a major indicator in the evaluation of system planning and scheduling algorithms.

What is TAT and WT?

TAT refers to the time taken by a process since it enters a ready queue for the process of execution till
the completion (of its execution). WT refers to the total time that a process spends while waiting in a
ready queue until it gets the CPU (for the I/O completion).

What is turnaround time formula?

Turnaround time = Exit time - Arrival time

For example, if we take the First Come First Serve scheduling algorithm, and the order of arrival of
processes is P1, P2, P3 and each process is taking 2, 5, 10 seconds.

Is TAT same as SLA?

TAT is a metric, which may form part of the SLAs agreed. TAT is usually associated with the 'timeliness'
and 'completeness' measure. The calculation for TAT for a process is defined from the beginning (or first
step) in the process to the end (or last step or deliverable) in the process.