Milestone Trend Analysis (MTA) 

Use

Milestone trend analysis is a simple method for analyzing the dates in a project and comparing them with planned data. You use it to recognize trends and deviations from the planned schedule quickly .

The scheduled dates of the milestones, which are relevant for the course of the project, are compared at various points in time. Deviations from the planned schedule are made apparent. In the graphical form a MTA chart is used, which is triangular where the sides are the times axes. The milestone dates are plotted against the report dates.

If the project runs according to plan, the curve remains horizontal. If the project deviates from plan, the curve rises (delay) or falls (in advance) with time.

Prerequisites

Flag the corresponding milestones as being relevant for Trend analysis.

On the chosen report dates create project versions, which also have the Relevant for MTA indicator set (at least one version is necessary for MTA).

Reschedule if you want to use data from the operative project or a simulation version and update this data.

Features

You can call up the milestone trend analysis from either the information system or the project planning board. It displays the dates of the relevant milestones in a project (or part of a project) at different report dates both in graphical and tabular form.

In the Information System you can limit the number of milestones to be displayed by using the usual selection facilities.

Either basic dates or forecast dates are used. Actual dates have priority over scheduled dates.

The information about the previous states of project is taken from the project versions This is compared with the current milestone data. In the project planning board you can use data from a simulation version instead of from the operative project.

In the milestone trend analysis, you can choose between two views:

This standard view displays those milestones that have the MTA indicator set at the time of the current report.

These milestones are displayed across the entire reporting period, also when the indicator was not set for them at an earlier reporting time.

In this view, those milestones for which the MTA indicator was set at an earlier reporting time are displayed. The indicator is not set for them for the current reporting period.

After selection, you can restrict both the milestones and the reporting time for the display.

In the tabular display the report dates and the dates of the relevant milestones are shown. You can go to the milestone detail screens directly from this table.

For more details about the function, refer to Executing the Milestone Trend Analysis

You can print the milestone trend analysis using the print command in the context menu.