Our Approach
Good communication is critical to the success of any information technology project.
At Catapult Systems, we provide our clients with regular, clear and unambiguous feedback to ensure that all requirements are met and all expectations are managed.
During our consulting engagements, we provide clients with a project status report every week.
The status report consists of four parts: the Project Summary Report, the Cumulative Completions Chart, the Project Summary Chart and the Project Budget Chart.
The Project Summary Report provides the following information:
Summary of the tasks completed the previous week. Project progress and completions are reviewed. The detail identifies the specific deliverables that have been completed.
Summary of the tasks to be completed in the coming week. Charting a course for the upcoming week. Expected deliverable completions are reviewed and dependencies are re-assessed.
Action items for the team and the client. Action items may include decisions that must be made, resources that are required and the investigation of new features that change the scope of the project.
Risk assessment and update of the risk management plan. The risk management plan is addressed as new risks are encountered and existing risks are mitigated.
Major milestone dates. The major milestone dates are updated as deliverables are completed and scheduled milestone dates change.
This is a mechanism for the client and the Catapult project team to determine the relative health of the project.
In the chart, the top line (Scheduled Finishes) represents the total number of deliverables completed by the team if they finished all deliverables on the earliest scheduled date.
The bottom line (Latest Finishes) represents the number of deliverables completed by the team if they finished every deliverable on the very last possible day without impact to the project end date. Reality generally falls between these two extremes.
The middle line (Actual Finishes) is updated weekly to reflect the progress made by the Catapult team.
Each week will vary in the level of productivity. As long as the actual finishes fall between the two extremes and the slope of the line is always trending upwards, the project will remain healthy and be delivered on time. If the project begins to falter this chart will display the early warning signs and we can adjust and recover early.
This is a summarized version of the project plan.
This view rolls up the tasks to a summary level and displays incomplete tasks (white bars), complete tasks (black bars) and project slack (black “tail” lines).
The report status date is displayed as a vertical dotted line. The status of every summary deliverable can be determined by the amount of work yet to be completed as compared to the amount of available slack for the task.
The Project Budget Chart displays the cumulative estimated payment schedule for the project on the black line and the actual cumulative project expenditure on the colored line. The goal is to provide the finished product as specified by the requirements analysis document within the agreed budget.
Change is a normal part of the project life cycle. As changes to the project plan are identified, Catapult Systems provides an analysis of the changes and proposes a solution and cost estimate for the requested change. Once the change is approved, the budget amount for the project is modified and reflected on the budget chart.