Progress Measurement System

Percent complete is usually invented

Ask three people how complete an activity is and you get three answers. Every number downstream — earned value, CPI, SPI, forecast outturn — inherits that guess and reports it as fact. Rules of credit replace the guess with arithmetic.

See how it works
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The same steel, measured two ways

Structural steel package, 40 tonnes

Delivered to site. Erected. Not yet bolted up, not yet surveyed. Ask the site team where it stands.

Estimated by eye
65%
By rule of credit
60%
Delivered
20%
Erected
40%
Five points looks like nothing. On a $40M package it is $2M of earned value that does not exist, carried into CPI, into the forecast, and into a valuation someone will later have to defend. And the 65% cannot be reproduced by anyone else — the 60% can, because delivered is 20 and erected is 40, every time, for everyone.

How it works

Four steps, and only one of them involves the site.

1

Define the rules

Fixed steps with fixed weights per discipline. Steel: delivered 20%, erected 40%, bolted 25%, surveyed 15%. Six starter sets included, twenty slots available.

Weights must total 100% — enforced
2

Register the work

Items with quantities, budget hours, WBS and the P6 Activity ID they belong to. Done once, at the start.

3

The field ticks steps

One sheet, Y against completed steps only. No percentages typed by anyone, so there is nothing to argue about and nothing to inflate.

4

Push it into P6

The update block gives Activity ID, % complete and actual dates in P6 column order — VLOOKUP against your export and import.

Fits the workflow you already use

It refuses nonsense

Any spreadsheet can average some weights. What makes a progress claim defensible is everything it rejects — these are the checks that run on every item, every period.

Progress went backwards

An item claiming less this period than last. Either this claim is wrong or the last one was — both need answering before the valuation goes out.

Steps ticked out of order

Bolted before erected. Physically impossible, so the claim is wrong somewhere.

Rule sets not totalling 100%

A discipline whose weights sum to 90% silently under-reports every item using it. Caught on entry.

Earning against zero budget hours

An item with progress but no budget distorts every roll-up it touches.

Claims with no claimant

An unattributed claim is the first thing challenged in a dispute, and the hardest to defend a year later.

Claims with no date

Without a date you cannot prove which period the work was earned in.

No P6 Activity ID

The item cannot be pushed back to the schedule, so the update is silently incomplete.

Items at 100%

Not an error — a prompt. Confirm the activity is actually closed in P6.

Where it sits in the suite

This is the upstream piece. The two tools below are only as good as the percentage you feed them.

Progress MeasurementProduces the % complete PROJECT CONTROL CENTERConsumes it as earned value Forecast EngineForecasts outturn from it Schedule QualityChecks the schedule it updates

Pricing

Progress Measurement

$199
One-time purchase
  • Rules of credit library
  • Weighted progress calculation
  • Eight integrity checks
  • P6 update block
  • 2,000 work item capacity

Complete suite

$1,399
Everything, one price
  • PROJECT CONTROL CENTER
  • Forecast Engine
  • All eight industry packs
  • Schedule Quality Analyser
  • Progress Measurement System
  • NEC4 Programme Compliance Tracker
  • Disruption & Productivity Loss Register
  • Carbon & PAS 2080 Tracker

Schedule Quality

$149
Sold separately
  • All 14 DCMA checks
  • Per-activity findings
  • Adjustable thresholds
  • 2,000 activity capacity
See the Analyser

Questions

Nobody types a percentage. The field ticks the steps that are genuinely finished and the weighting does the arithmetic. Two people looking at the same steel report the same number, because there is nothing left to have an opinion about.
Yes — that is what the P6 Update Block is for. Activity ID, % complete, actual start and actual finish, laid out in P6 column order so you can VLOOKUP it against your export and import. It fits the workflow planners already use rather than replacing it.
The rule library is yours to define. Six starter sets ship with it — structural steel, pipework, cable, concrete, equipment and earthworks — and you can add up to twenty, with five steps each. The only rule is that weights must total 100%, which the sheet enforces.
Both, side by side, switchable as the reporting basis. Where the two disagree sharply you usually have a mix of high-quantity, low-effort work skewing one of them — which is worth knowing before you report either.
No, and the tool says so plainly. A ticked step is still a claim made by a person. This makes the claim consistent, weighted and auditable — physical verification is still a site walk. Any tool claiming otherwise is overselling.
It sits upstream of both. PROJECT CONTROL CENTER's EVM and the Forecast Engine's earned value are only as good as the % complete you feed them. This is where that number should come from.

Measure progress. Stop estimating it.

Ticked steps in. Auditable percentage out. Straight back into P6.