Choose the right tracking method for your project
So far, you've learned about the importance of tracking project progress. You’ve also reviewed some of the different
tracking methods used by project managers, like project plans, Gantt and Burndown charts, and Roadmaps. This
reading will explore and compare these popular tracking methods in more detail so you can feel more confident
choosing the best method for your projects.
Gantt charts
The Gantt chart is one of the most popular tracking methods and can be used for all types of projects. Gantt charts
typically live in your project charter and are updated as the project progresses.
Gantt charts are useful for:
Helping a team stay on schedule
Projects with lots of tasks, dependencies, and milestones
Projects with large teams, because ownership and responsibilities are explicitly laid out visually
Asana, one of the work management software tools featured in this certification, has useful resources for getting started
with Gantt charts. Practice working with Gantt charts on your own with a free Asana trial or by downloading a free Gantt
chart template from Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.
Want to learn more? Check out these resources:
Asana help article: New to Gantt charts? Start here.
Roadmaps
Roadmaps are another common tracking method. Like Gantt charts, Roadmaps also track both individual and project
progress toward milestones. However, Roadmaps are best suited for tracking big milestones in your project.
Roadmaps are useful for:
High-level tracking of large milestones. Roadmaps outline the project as a whole and provide an overall
snapshot of key points—just like an actual roadmap contains points of interest and mile markers.
Illustrating to your team or key stakeholders how a project should evolve over time
Roadmaps can be built using different tools. You can create a Roadmap in a document (like this example).
Smartsheet has useful resources for getting started with Roadmaps. Practice working with Roadmaps on your own with
a free Smartsheet trial or by downloading this Roadmap template created with Google Sheets.
Want to learn more? Check out these resources:
Smartsheet help article: Everything you need to know about Project Roadmaps
Free Product Roadmap templates from Smartsheet
Burndown charts
Burndown charts are typically used by Agile Scrum teams. Burndown charts reveal how quickly your team is working by
displaying how much work is left and how much time remains to complete the work. The main uses of a Burndown
chart are to keep the project team on top of targeted completion dates and make them aware of scope creep if it
occurs. The chart should be displayed so everyone can see it and needs to be updated regularly in order to be effective.
Burndown charts are useful for:
Projects that require a detailed review of tasks
Projects where finishing on time is the top priority
*Note: If you'd like to learn about Agile and Scrum, which are popular project management approaches, check out
Course 5 of this certificate, Agile Project Management.
A Burndown chart helps you, as a project manager, understand how your team works and what influences their ability
to complete tasks on time. This way, you can address issues right away, before they become major problems. They also
help you plan more efficiently for the next project by identifying potential problem areas.
Jira is a work management software tool that has useful resources for getting started with Burndown charts. Practice
working with Burndown charts on your own with a free Jira trial or by downloading this Burndown chart template
created with Google Sheets.
Project status reports
In this lesson, you are learning to identify and compare various types of tracking methods. This reading will cover
project status reports and how you can use them to track and communicate common project elements in a snapshot.
Key components of a project status report
A project status report gives an overview of all of the project’s common elements and summarizes them in a snapshot.
It is an efficient communication tool to convey the latest status in one place for the team and stakeholders.
Most status reports contain the following components:
Project name: The project name should be specific to the purpose of the project so that the overall goal of the
project can be understood at-a-glance.
Date: You will create project status reports many times during the course of a project’s implementation phase.
Reports can be created weekly or monthly—it all depends on the stakeholders’ needs and pace of the project.
Adding the date to each status report acts as a reference point for your audience and also creates a history log
of the project’s status over time.
Summary: The summary condenses the project’s goals, schedule, highlights, and lowlights in one central place
for easy stakeholder visibility. Usually, the summary section will be followed by, or grouped with, the timeline
summary and the overall project status.
Status: As you can imagine, status is a crucial piece. The status of the project illustrates your actual progress
versus your planned progress. In project management, a common way to depict this is through RAG (red,
amber, green), or Red-Yellow-Green, status reporting. RAG follows a traffic light pattern to indicate progress
and status. Red indicates that there are issues that need resolution and that the project may be delayed or go
significantly over budget. Amber/Yellow means that there are potential issues with schedule or budget, but that
the issues can likely be resolved with corrective actions. And green means the schedule and budget are doing
fine and that the project is on track. You can use RAG to indicate the overall project status, as well as milestone
status. Every project team and stakeholder may have a slightly different perspective on what the colors mean
and how urgent it is to escalate issues when they see an amber/yellow or red status, so it’s important to make
sure everyone understands what the different color statuses mean for your project.
Milestones and tasks: A summary of the project’s major milestones thus far and current tasks helps the team
and stakeholders easily visualize the progress of those elements. In a project plan, you will typically depict the
tasks and milestones as ‘not started,’ ‘in progress’ or ‘completed’ at an item-by-item level. But, in the project
status report, it is common to summarize these items into two categories to better communicate the status.
You’ll use key accomplishments to detail what has happened, and upcoming to detail what big milestones you
will accomplish next.
Issues: The issues include your project's current roadblocks and potential risks. Status reports are an important
opportunity to set expectations with your stakeholders. If your project status is red or amber, you can flag what
is preventing you from being where you planned to be. You can also use this opportunity to state your plan to
get the project back to green, and ask for any resources or help you may need to do so. You will learn more
about communicating big risks and issues in the upcoming videos.
Project status report types
With those key elements in mind, you can format your report in a variety of ways depending on your audience and what
you need to communicate.
If you need to share a status report with your team for a project that contains multiple layers of complexity, it may be
best to format the report in a spreadsheet in order to keep track of all the moving parts.
If you simply need to communicate updates to senior stakeholders, your status report may be best formatted as a
slideshow, like the one below, containing only an overview of the most key points.
Key takeaways
To recap, project status reports are a
powerful tool to:
Improve and simplify
communication across the team.
Keep everyone, including key
stakeholders, informed.
Request more resources and
support (if needed).
Create structure and transparency
by recording the project status in
a centralized place.
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Case study: Using risk management tools
Thus far, you have learned that risk management—the process of identifying, evaluating, and addressing potential risks
and issues that could impact a project—is a core part of a project manager's role. You also learned about techniques to
identify potential risks and address their effects, including creating risk registers and building mitigation plans. In the
following case study, we will imagine how a project manager might utilize these tools.
The project: Paw Snacks Puppy Treats
Paw Snacks is an online retailer of tasty and nutritious pet treats. Over the course of three years, the business has
grown from a small startup to a 350-person organization. Paw Snacks wants to expand its offerings even further by
adding a new line of treats for puppies.
The issue
Six weeks before the new product line is scheduled to debut, Naja, the project manager leading the launch, receives a
frantic phone call from a manager at the commercial bakery hired to produce the treats. The bakery manager informs
Naja that the bone-shaped cookie cutters required to shape the treats have not yet arrived. Naja knows that baking
needs to start the following day in order to stay on schedule for the launch.
Naja thanks the bakery manager for the warning and asks her teammate, Abe, to call the cookie cutter manufacturer to
check on the status of their order. Abe learns that the order is delayed due to a product shortage and that the cookie
cutters are now expected to arrive at the bakery two days after the original expected delivery date.
Naja recognizes that this delay threatens her team’s ability to launch their product on time. Even worse, her team
doesn’t have the option to push the launch date, since the Paw Snacks marketing team has already purchased
nonrefundable advertising placements for the day of the launch. Luckily, Naja and her team are already prepared for an
issue like this one.
Planning for risks ahead of time
Months earlier, long before the team started work on the project, Naja and her team brainstormed potential risks that
could impact the project. They created a risk register, a table or chart that contains a list of risks and is often paired
with a probability and impact matrix. During the process, the team determined that a delay in the cookie cutter order
had a medium probability of occurring and would result in a high impact on the project. Naja added the risk to the risk
register and assigned Abe to create a mitigation plan, which outlines steps to decrease the chances of a risk occurring
or decrease the impact of a risk if it does occur. This plan would indicate how the team would handle an issue if it were
to materialize. The mitigation plan was then approved by the project sponsor and other stakeholders.
Managing the issue
Now that the cookie cutter issue has occurred, Naja and Abe consult the mitigation plan for this particular risk. In this
case, Abe identified two options for handling the risk: The first option is to work with the bakery to slightly decrease the
number of treats produced in order to make up for the two days they have lost due to the cookie cutter delay. The
second option is to place an order with a second bakery to help speed up the pace of production. Naja and Abe discuss
the two plans and settle on option one to avoid the work of bringing in a second bakery.
Before moving ahead with the plan, Naja and Abe meet to brainstorm potential risks associated with the new plan.
Together, they determine that a smaller order of dog treats will likely have a minor—but manageable—impact on the
organization’s projected growth for 2021. They determine that the best course of action is to accept the risk to avoid
delaying the project further. To ensure that the project stakeholders are aware of and comfortable with this change,
Naja requests a meeting with her project sponsor to communicate the plan, outline the minor risk to projected growth,
and recommend accepting the risk. The sponsor agrees and approves Naja’s new plan.
Naja tasks Abe with communicating the adjusted plan to the bakery manager. Though baking begins two days behind
schedule, Naja’s new plan helps ensure that the team is prepared to launch the new line on time.
Pro tip: While the term mitigation plan is used more often in project management, you may also hear the term
contingency plan. These terms are often used interchangeably, but there are some key differences. A mitigatio
plan is a planned risk response strategy. If a project manager is able to identify the potential known risks that
impact any of the key project parameters (schedule, cost, or scope), they should make a plan to mitigate those
risks early in the project. A contingency plan, on the other hand, is mostly related to funds the project manage
keeps aside (outside of the planned project budget ) to support any of these known risk response plans if they
beyond the planned amount or to manage any unforeseen risks during execution.
Key takeaway
In this case study, early risk management planning enabled Naja to act quickly when an issue presented itself at a
pivotal time during the project execution phase.
By consulting an existing mitigation plan and weighing two options for moving forward, Naja and Abe were able to
make an informed decision about the best path forward. Naja also communicated the growth-related risks associated
with the plan to the project sponsor in a timely fashion.
As you manage projects of your own, issues will come up again and again. When you do the heavy lifting of risk
management planning before starting work on the project, you will be better equipped to respond to problems quickly.
ROAM Analysis
Issues Actions ROAM
designation
Issue 10% of plants are not being potted You contacted the warehouse to update the potting Resolved
1 properly. process and have had no issues for two weeks.
Your team reached out to the customers, listened to
their issues, and offered to send them a free round of
Customers are complaining. Mitigated
Issue new plants. Most customers were satisfied with this
2 solution.
There is a software issue preventing
Issue your customer relations team You assign your IT Specialist to fix the problem as
Owned
3 receiving all requests and soon as possible.
complaints.
Your team checks in with the customers and, despite
Issue Some customers are canceling their offering them a subscription promotion, they still want
Accepted
4 subscriptions. to cancel. There is nothing you can do, but the impact
is minimal.
Issue There are not enough delivery You assign your HR Specialist to schedule a hiring
Owned
5 drivers. day to hire and onboard more drivers.
Issue Your team reassessed the delivery routes, making
Plants are being delivered late. Mitigated
6 them more efficient and minimizing late deliveries.
Your Financial Analyst reassessed project spending
Issue
Your budget is tightening. and was able to increase the budget. The additional Resolved
7
money was enough to offset recent losses.
Issue 1: In response to the potting issue, you contacted the warehouse to evaluate and improve the
potting process. After two weeks with no additional problems, you consider the matter resolved.
Issue 2: Your team handled the customer complaints by listening to their issues and offering to send
them free plants. Most of the customers were satisfied with this solution. This issue is mitigated because
you reduced its impact.
Issue 3: You assign your IT Specialist to fix the issue with the customer service software. This issue is
owned because the IT Specialist has not yet taken action, but there is a plan in place to take care of the
issue.
Issue 4: Some customers have called to cancel their subscriptions. Your team offered them subscription
promotions, but cannot get them to reconsider. Since a few cancellations will not have a major impact,
you consider this issue accepted.
Issue 5: To solve the delivery driver problem, you ask the HR Specialist to schedule a hiring day to hire
and onboard more drivers. This issue is owned by the HR Specialist because they have not yet hired the
drivers.
Issue 6: Your team reassessed delivery routes, which increased efficiency and reduced the number of
late deliveries. This risk is mitigated because you have lessened its impact.
Issue 7: Your Financial Analyst reassessed spending and found more money to offset the unexpected
costs, so the issue is resolved.
