Plan and run a project

The project header, baselines, and each tab: Overview, Tasks, Gantt, Board, Risks & decisions, Team, Health.

The header

• Phase, set for you: Initiation until the charter task is 100%, Planning until you set a baseline, Execution after that, and Closing once every task is done.
• % complete, beside where the plan says you should be today.
• SPI and CPI, once a baseline exists. CPI appears once you record the actual cost to date on the Overview tab.
• Forecast finish, with the baseline finish and the slip in days.

Set baseline freezes today's plan as the reference for slip and earned value. Use Re-baseline only after an approved change. Each baseline logs evidence for 4.5.4 Time.

Overview

The next three weeks of unfinished work with critical tasks marked, the milestones against the baseline, the activity across the project, and the project details, including the actual cost to date.

Tasks

The work breakdown and schedule, grouped by stage. Edit a cell in place; the change saves when you leave the field.

Start and finish dates come from the dependencies; you never type them. To add a task, fill in the row under the table and click Add task.

Gantt

Bars are tasks, darker where complete. Red bars are on the critical path. Thin bars under a task show its baseline dates, diamonds are milestones, and the line marks today.

Board

Four columns: To do, In progress, Review and Done. Drag a card, or use the menu on it. Moving a card to Done sets it to 100%.

Risks & decisions

• Each risk has probability and impact from 1 to 4. The score is P × I: 12 or more is critical, 8 to 11 is high.
• Add risk logs evidence for 4.5.11. Mark reviewed today records a risk review; the register goes stale after 60 days without one.
• In the decision log, enter what was decided and who decided it. A decision by a steering committee or board counts for 4.3.2 Governance; any other for 4.5.10 Plan & control.

Team

The roles from the project type. Name a person for a role and the tasks that role owns move to them. Open work shows the days of unfinished work each person holds.

Health & artefacts

Whether the project is ready for its next gate, out of 100. The artefacts the phase requires give up to 80 points: current counts fully, stale counts half, missing counts nothing. The five Perspective checks give up to 20.

• Most artefacts update themselves from your work, such as the baseline schedule once you set a baseline. For the rest, click Mark updated after you update the document.
• Anything older than 60 days becomes stale; the decision log after 45.
• Click a Perspective check to mark it evidenced. That logs evidence for its 4.3 element.

Team members can update task progress. Only project managers and owners change the plan.