Regulatory and validation

Project management: programs, projects, resources and risks

Plan each project as a work breakdown with subtasks, milestones and dependencies, staff it against each person's weekly capacity, plan the risks with their contingency, approve and baseline the plan, and follow it with earned value, a forecast finish and a status light, rolled up to the program.

In the portal: /app/pm

From charter to closure

A project through its life
  1. Person

    1. Open the project

    Charter: objective, dates, manager, priority, budget hours, schedule reserve

  2. AI drafts

    2. Draft the plan

    Work packages, subtasks, milestones, dependencies, risks with contingency

  3. Person

    3. Staff it

    Resources and their weekly capacity; hours on each task

  4. E-signature

    4. Approve the plan

    Review and approval; the plan is checked for feasibility first

  5. Person

    5. Set the baseline

    Dates and effort frozen; re-baselining needs a reason

  6. Person

    6. Execute

    Progress, evidence of completion, blocked and cancelled with reasons

  7. System

    7. Monitor

    Critical path, earned value, forecast finish, status light

  8. E-signature

    8. Close

    Outcome, summary, lessons; every risk closed

  • A risk that occurs invokes its contingency plan; the schedule reserve absorbs the slip the plan allowed for, and a slip beyond it turns the project red.

Open Project management. The dashboard shows every open project with its stage, status light, progress, schedule performance index, overdue tasks, baseline, forecast finish and variance; the projects needing attention with the reasons; the next milestones; and each program's roll-up. Resources shows each person's weekly load across projects and Risks every open risk by exposure.

Planning a project

  1. Step 1: Choose New project. Give the title, the type, the program it belongs to (optional), the manager from the directory, the sponsor, the priority, the planned start and finish, the budget in hours, the schedule reserve in days, and the objective. Success criteria are optional: the AI proposes them.
  2. Step 2: Attach the charter, proposal, business case or earlier schedules under Documents and choose Draft the plan (AI). The AI drafts work packages with subtasks, durations, effort and owner roles, the milestones, the dependencies between tasks, the risks with their response and contingency plan, and the overall reserve. Every item is marked as drafted by AI; check each one. Drafting again needs a reason and replaces only the open, unassigned AI tasks and risks.
  3. Step 3: Under Work breakdown and schedule, open a task to edit it: dates, effort, owner (a person or a role), deliverable, milestone flag, dependencies (finish to start, start to start, finish to finish, start to finish, with a lag in days) and assigned resources. Add tasks and milestones by hand with Add a task or milestone. A task is never deleted: cancel it with a reason.
  4. Step 4: The timeline shows each task on its dates, the critical path in orange, done work in green and milestones as diamonds. Drag the orange divider to read the whole task list, or all the way left to see only the bars; the width is remembered on your browser. A task dated earlier than its dependencies allow is flagged with the days it must move. Gantt chart, Calendar and Kanban board open the schedule page: the Gantt chart with collapsible work packages, day, week or month zoom, the baseline, dependency arrows and today's line; the month calendar with each task across its days and milestones on theirs; and the kanban board with a column per status, where a task is dragged (or moved with its menu) to another status under the same rules as on the record: evidence before Done, a reason for Blocked or Cancelled. Filter any view by owner or search, hide done tasks, and open a task for its details and the way to edit it.
  5. Step 5: Under Resources and allocation, add the people (from the directory) or the roles, teams and contractors, with their weekly capacity and availability, then assign hours on the tasks. The weekly load shows every week over capacity.
  6. Step 6: Under Risks and contingency, score each risk (probability and impact, 1 to 5), choose the response, record the mitigation under way, the trigger to watch, the contingency plan carried out if it occurs and the schedule reserve held for it. High risks need a trigger and a contingency plan.
  7. Step 7: When Ready for review shows no blocker, route the plan for Plan approval under Review and approval. Submission is refused while a task has no owner or dates, a dependency is circular, a task is dated earlier than its dependencies allow, a risk is not fully planned or anyone is overallocated.

Rule: After approval, changing a stated value (a date, effort, an owner, a risk score, the charter) needs a reason, recorded in the audit trail. Progress and evidence are recorded freely.

Executing and monitoring

  1. Step 1: Once the plan is approved, choose Set the baseline under Monitoring: the dates and effort are frozen as the reference the project is measured against. Re-baselining needs the change control or decision that allows it.
  2. Step 2: On each task record the progress (the first progress starts the task), the evidence of completion (the document, record or reference that shows it is done), and then Done. Blocked and cancelled need a reason; reopening a done task needs one too.
  3. Step 3: When a risk's trigger is observed, set it to Occurred with the reason: its contingency plan, which must be recorded first, is what is now carried out. Close risks with what happened.
  4. Step 4: Monitoring shows the status light and why, the task and milestone counts, earned value (planned effort, planned value, earned value, SPI), the planned, scheduled, baseline and forecast finish with the variance and the reserve used, the critical path, and the tasks that moved from their baseline dates.
StatusWhen
Off track (red)A critical-path task overdue, a milestone missed, the forecast finish beyond the schedule reserve, SPI under 0.8, or a circular dependency
At risk (amber)SPI under 0.9, tasks overdue or blocked, a risk occurred, a high risk without a complete response, someone overallocated, a task dated earlier than its dependencies allow, an open task without an owner
On track (green)None of the above; a slip the reserve absorbs stays green or amber

Q Agent raises alerts for overdue tasks, missed milestones, projects off track and overallocated resources on approved projects, with the same rules.

Due-date reminders

Once the plan is approved, each task owner is emailed ahead of the planned finish, on the day, and while the task is overdue, with a link to the task. An overdue task past the escalation threshold is escalated to the project manager; tasks due without a named owner are reported to the manager instead. The dashboard lists your own open tasks across every project.

  1. Step 1: As the project manager (or an administrator), open Reminders on the project and choose Change the reminder settings: the days before the planned finish (for example 7 and 2), whether to remind on the due day, how often to repeat while overdue, when to escalate to you, whether milestones are included, whether you are copied on every reminder, whether reminders start only after plan approval, and the local hour and time zone they go out from. The change is recorded in the audit trail.
  2. Step 2: The panel shows the reminders of the next 30 days as things stand, and the log of every reminder sent: the task, the occasion, who received it and when. A task completed before its date drops out; a task moved to a new date is reminded afresh.
  3. Step 3: Administrators switch the reminders on or off for every project under Q Agent › Alert rules › Projects › Task due reminders to owners (the Email box).

Rule: Reminders inform the owner; they never change the record. Progress, evidence and completion are recorded on the task, and a change of date needs a reason.

Programs and closure

  1. Step 1: Choose New program for a set of projects that deliver benefits together. State each benefit with its measure and target; record it as realized, or as not realized with the reason, before the program closes. The program's own risks have the same register as a project's.
  2. Step 2: Projects join a program when they are created (or from New project in this program). The program shows each project's stage, status, progress, overdue tasks, forecast and high risks, and rolls them up.
  3. Step 3: Close a project with its outcome (Delivered, Delivered with exceptions, Stopped), the summary against the objective and the lessons learned, once every task is done or cancelled and every risk is closed; a stopped project may close with open work. Route it for Closure approval. A program closes once its projects are closed and its benefits recorded.

Every project and program downloads as a controlled PDF copy: the charter, the work breakdown with dates, owners, dependencies and status, the completion evidence, the resources and their load, the risk register with contingency plans, the status and earned value, the baseline comparison, closure, signatures and the full audit trail.