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Project constituents always have two big questions:

1. How is the project going?
2. When will we finish?

While the Gantt chart doesn't answer those two questions, it is a great conversation starter. The Gantt chart sets the context for engaging others to shape assessments about the project. A Gantt view quickly conveys a whole perspective — high level — of the work required and the work accomplished. Speaking with a Gantt helps you collect the attention of the people in the room. It is a prop for bringing focus to the project while aiding the participants to put aside their coming-in concerns. By the way, people expect to see a Gantt chart. Starting a project review or planning update without one might distract your participants.

The purpose of planning is getting that work done that should be done.

But you'll need more than the conversation starter if you intend to answer the two big questions. You'll also want to know how good your planning is. There are three easy-to-calculate measures of planning effectiveness (reliability). They are

1. How often can you do the work that should be done?
2. How often do you promise to do the work that can be done?
3. How often did you do the work that you promised would be done?

These are easy measures. There are only two acceptable answers for each question. "Yes" or "No". You answer the question for each work item on your plan. "For the most part," isn't a helpful answer. Neither is, "We're nn% complete." The simplicity of the measure allows you to make well-grounded assessments that directly relates the work that is getting done back to the work that should be done. That is the purpose of planning…getting that work done that should be done. You'll want to trend each measure to get a sense of whether or not planning is improving.

You'll also need estimates and budget of the work remaining and the effectiveness of the team doing the work. These are typical project measures.

Let's look at the two big questions. How is the project going? With the above three measures you'll be able to say,

"xx% of the work items are ready when they should be ready. Of those items we are promising to complete yy% of them. This is better (or worse) than it has been over the last four weeks. zz% of the promised work is getting done as promised. Based on that we should be able to make the next two milestones."

These measures help the team focus their planning actions on getting more of the right work ready and getting that work done. Combining Gantt snapshots with measures of planning reliability serves as a solid basis for making assessments to answer the two big questions.

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