Project History Diagrams

The New Way to Look at Milestones and Interpret Project Progress
Everyone knows that slipping milestones are a sign of project problems. Project Observatory 2 introduces a whole new way to look at milestones which we call the Project History Diagram.

It is a fact of life that projects are like individuals, some are always on time and some are chronically late. Interpreting the true state of a project requires that you understand what the history of the project has been up to the current time. This is the purpose of the Phd diagrams.

This unique presentation displays the lifelines of the milestones of a project. Each milestone is shown as a lifeline connecting the dates at which it was forecasted. Schedule adjustments show as lateral shifts in the lifelines. This is a powerful diagnostic tool that helps program managers understand projects that have had a history of problems.

INTERPRETING A PHD
A project history diagram shows the lifelines of each milestone in the project. In a perfect project, each milestone would be drawn as vertical line. In an accelerating project, the lines would shift to the left. In a slipping project (such as the one shown), some or all of the milestones would shift to the right as they ascend up the page.

When new milestones are added to the project in the middle of its life, they will appear partway down the history axis and extend upward. It is also possible that a milestone can be removed from a project during its life, in this case the life line will end before it reaches the top. A solid diamond is placed at the point in historical time when the milestone is first reported to be completed. Then a dotted line is extended upward to another milestone to show its place on the current timeline.

CHART ELEMENTS
Project Timeline: The top bar is a timescale that will span the entire date range of the project.
Milestone Symbols and Lifelines: Each milestone has a start point that is represented by a triangle and an endpoint that is represented by diamond. If the triangle or diamond is a solid shape, then that milestone is completed. If it is hollow, then it is not completed. Every project has at least one milestone that is named [project end]. It will always be the one that is the furthest to the right.
Historical Timeline: The left bars show historical time, starting with today on top and extending downward to the first date of observation for the project that is available in the observatory data.
Observation Markers: Along the lifelines will appear black dots. These represent the times of the project reports in the observatory. Normally these will be spaced weekly if the project is being reported on a weekly basis, but after a while the system purges some of the reports so that the older points may be more widely separated.

CHART CONTROLS
You can double click into any part of the timescales to expand that period to fill the respective axis. So if you want to see year 2000 only, double click in the top header on the 2000 block. Double click to unzoom. You can also drag the mouse over any part of the area to expand it. Buttons on the lower left change the line colors and appearance.

Getting your own PHD
You can create one of these diagrams by clicking the the PHD action button that appears on the top of every project report. When you do, Observatory searches its database for all historical milestones of a project, and combines these facts with the current project report. The diagram is presented using an interactive Java applet which loads automatically. PHD's will also appear in briefings.