What is the best Analytical Method to measure a project progress and enabling the high management to take corrective decisions base on it ?

The best and well documented method to measure project Progress is Earned Value Management, where you calculated the SPI & CPI. Even though EVM has been around for a long time it is unfortunately not always understood by top management. Thus kPI's need to be added to highlight when thing start going wrong.

The best effective method to measure a project progress,

- EVM

- CPI

- SPI

- Installed Quantities and Expended Manhours.

We must determine successively:

- The various project tasks

- The links between the tasks defined by the rank of each task

- Dates at the earliest and at the latest each task

- The degree of freedom in time of each task

- The critical path that limits the duration of the project.

For each task we must establish a table:

- The name of the task

- The duration of the task

- The date of execution at the earliest

- The date of execution at the latest

The margin of a task is the difference between the beginning of the spot at the earliest and at the latest.

If we want to reduce the duration of the project, those are the tasks critical path  that must be accelerated, with time limit of non-critical paths.