I referred to my vacation in one of my recent post. We left NYC on a Monday at around 19h. That was fun. Thanks to my GPS.
It reminded me my father who, 20 years ago, got lost while attempting to leave NYC. He ended up in the Bronx (or was it Harlem?). He luckily got assistance from a police man, who told him something like "follow me I will escort you out of here, do not stop if you do not want to loose all you have with you". He was driving a shiny mini van full of bells and whistles. A quite scary moment for a unilingual Quebecois.
This made me realize that we have several tools at Macadamian that serves the same purpose to a team than a GPS to a driver.
The most important is probably what we refer to as the "Remaining Effort" graph.
With the assumption that:
In the case of the project above, the team has been beating the estimates throughout the project. The remaining effort - red line - was always below the budgeted effort - green line.
When this happens, we are in for a nice and smooth ride. Obviously, we also have cases where our estimates are wrong. It is then, that we - and our customers - get the most value out of our project progression monitoring technology.
Obviously, this graph is not telling which direction to take but it is at least telling you that you are on the wrong track and this, sooner than later.
It reminded me my father who, 20 years ago, got lost while attempting to leave NYC. He ended up in the Bronx (or was it Harlem?). He luckily got assistance from a police man, who told him something like "follow me I will escort you out of here, do not stop if you do not want to loose all you have with you". He was driving a shiny mini van full of bells and whistles. A quite scary moment for a unilingual Quebecois.
This made me realize that we have several tools at Macadamian that serves the same purpose to a team than a GPS to a driver.
The most important is probably what we refer to as the "Remaining Effort" graph.
With the assumption that:
- All substantial tasks are recorded in the tasks system
- Tasks life cycle is followed
- Time spent on the project is recorded in the time sheet system
In the case of the project above, the team has been beating the estimates throughout the project. The remaining effort - red line - was always below the budgeted effort - green line.
When this happens, we are in for a nice and smooth ride. Obviously, we also have cases where our estimates are wrong. It is then, that we - and our customers - get the most value out of our project progression monitoring technology.
Obviously, this graph is not telling which direction to take but it is at least telling you that you are on the wrong track and this, sooner than later.
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