In this screencast I’ll discuss Macro Mapping, which is a planning technique we use to organize a top-level macro plan. This mind-mapping approach causes a team to look holistically at a program from beginning to end... from a macro perspective. This way of looking at a program from the top-down is a key characteristic of fast teams we’ve worked with over the years.
Read MoreMicro Macro Roll-up is a planning philosophy based on the best practices of fast teams. In this screencast we’ll discuss the concept and show you how we’ve implemented it using fastProject.
Read MoreWe have been using this checklist to assess the effectiveness of team Refresh Planning. The checklist identifies 24 aspects or practices used in the Refresh Planning process. These include Timing, Participation, Pre-Refresh, Update, What Changed?, Pull-in, Post Refresh, Analysis, Follow-up, and Reporting.
It is designed to be used as a learning tool. Score your team and use it to improve.
Critical Path Method (CPM) Scheduling mistakes we observe in many schedules, those built prior to lateralworks FTTM Scheduling training. These include 1) no contiguous critical path, 2) negative float, 3) date constraints, 4) wrong updates (of actual progress), and 5) no successors. Each individually or together result is inaccurate / wrong critical paths, and therefore potentially wrong dates for key milestones. The result is a schedule that can’t be used as a management tool and can not be trusted. This post discusses each problem.
Read MoreThe Lookahead report is used to, 1) Gather update information for the Refresh and 2) List the coming tasks until the next Refresh. This post describes the Lookahead report.
Read MoreDescribes how to customize a Lookahead report.
Read MorefastProject behavior can be customized be setting various options.
Read MoreThis out describes how to import a PreFresh Lookahead Report.
Read MoreSummary task durations in Microsoft Project can sometimes be confusing. This post explains how to interpret them.
Read MoreWhen updating a schedule; the task owner must respond with answers to the update questions, even if you (Program Manager) know the answer.
Read MoreThere are three types of targets; a standard target date, a challenge date, and a target window (a range of dates with an early and late bounding of the window).
Read MoreMore on the different forms of Wigglecharts.
Read MoreWe are often asked, what the difference between a Touchpoint, a Checkpoint and a Deliverable.
Read MoreOnce a resource pool has been built and resources assigned to tasks, the next step is to analyze the schedule for overallocation. Where overallocation exists, it is necessary to level the resources in order to reduce the overallocation.
Read MoreA new feature introduced in fastProject 4.7.3 and above is a simplified window function at the end of the Update to review the changes to each of the targets as a result of the Update.
Read MoreA new feature introduced in fastProject 4.7.3 is a dynamic status indicator in the Inspector. As the schedule changes, this information is updated in real-time. So after an Update, you can very quickly see:
Read MoreA new feature introduced in fastProject 4.7.3 are baselines are now easily accessible within the Inspector.
Read MoreNew feature in fastProject 4.7.3 is the ability to quickly add Action Items into the notes on specific tasks.
Read MoreWhen you have a Touchpoint or a Checkpoint with a date in the past, you now are required to put a new (future) date in, i.e. you can’t just reschedule.
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