Project Status: Complete / Condition: On Target?

[SusanPf]

Greetings ~ Does anyone else find it odd that when a project is completed that the condition still shows whatever state: on target, at risk, or in trouble. Am I missing something or is there not a completion status for project condition? Thank you, Susan Susan

[VicAl]

Yeah. It also says In Trouble when I first create a project. It's been like that for the 6 years we've had WF. So basically we don't use that field at all. We change the Condition Type to Manual and the Condition to On Target. And we use a custom field to display our project condition.

[jessicaf4515285]

I use a Manual Condition Type as well. I read a help article on Understanding Project Condition and then Understanding Progress Status of Tasks which affects the Project Condition and it was a bit confusing. We are in the early stages (~6 months) of WF and I want to keep task setup as simple as possible until they are more familiar with the system. Vic - You say you use a custom field to display the project condition. Can you expand on that a bit more? Is that something that your team manually updates? Thanks! Jessica Frahm

[VicAl]

Hi Jessica, Sure. We have a Project Status Reporting form attached to each project that the PM is to update once a week. It contains the items that have the opportunity to move each time the PM updates their plan (i.e. forecast – both time & cost, etc.). In that form we have the (Green, Yellow, Red) Scores for the PM to update. Scope Score – if the Scope has changed or is constantly changing, the PM has an opportunity to raise a flag. Schedule Score – If the new Planned Implementation Date (from a milestone task in the plan) has slipped past the Target Implementation Date, the score must be changed to Yellow or Red. Budget Score – If the Planned Forecast from the plan has slipped past the Project Budget, the score must be changed to Yellow or Red. We have an API job that will send us a comment if the Schedule Score is Green, but the updated Planned Date is past the Target Date. So we can keep them honest �� . And the PM has the option to turn any of them Yellow or Red if they see danger that they want to raise up (i.e. Project Sponsor not responding, etc.). Then we have calc fields that change the overall project health color to Yellow if any of the three scores above are set to Yellow. Same for Red. We use that field on our project reports. Let me know if you wish to have any further detail.