1. A variance monitoring system that comprises: memory that stores variance monitoring software; and a processor coupled to the memory to execute the variance monitoring software, wherein the variance monitoring software configures the processor to: gather baseline effort data and revised effort data associated with specific projects, wherein the revised effort data is actual effort data for past times and forecast effort data for future times; determine for each of the specific projects a variance between the baseline effort data and the revised effort data, wherein the variance is determined at each period for a plurality of periods of time; categorize the specific projects into a hierarchy having a plurality of levels, at least some of the plurality of levels comprising a placeholder category and a work-in-progress category, wherein the at least some of the plurality of levels comprise an enterprise level and a business unit level, wherein the placeholder category comprises the specific projects that are being modeled and are waiting to be worked on, and wherein the work-in-progress category comprises the specific projects that are currently being worked on; and present a total variance of the specific projects for each period for the plurality of periods of time for each of the placeholder category and the work-in-progress category at one of the enterprise level and the business unit level, wherein the total variance indicates actual variances for past months and forecast variances for future months.