Plan, Sprint, and See What Really Happened: Goals, Gantt and Agile Sprints in nex-orbit

This is part 2 of 4 on nex-orbit, Nexcubator's project management software. Part 1, Stop Chasing, Ask the Project, covers the board and its workflows. Part 3 covers the daily standup and the lessons that come back, and part 4 how nex-orbit works with nex-help.

Why is this project running at all? When the plan slipped, did anybody see where, and why? At the end of the sprint, is the review a conversation, or a shrug?

Most teams make a plan at the start and never look at it again. The plan was not wrong to make. It is just that nobody compares it with what happened, so the same overrun comes back next time, and nobody can say which goal the work was for.

The solution: a plan you can compare with what happened

• Every project serves a goal, on four rungs from Leadership to Individual, or it is flagged until somebody decides.
• A Gantt you can drag. Move a task and the tasks waiting on it move after it.
• Plan against outcome. Under every bar, a line shows what really happened: inside the plan, waiting on somebody else, or past the plan.
• Agile sprints when a project wants them: a goal, a backlog, story points, a burndown chart, velocity and a review.
• A status update in three words: On track, At risk or Off track, with a line saying why.
• A goal that closes with a verdict: Met, Missed or Abandoned, in writing.

About the visuals: there are no screenshots in this post. The diagrams are illustrations drawn to explain the ideas, not product screens, and the screens themselves may change. The company, people, projects and figures in them are invented.

Why plans stop being useful

A plan is made in week one with care. By week three it is out of date, and by the end nobody opens it. The review, if there is one, starts from memory: "It took longer than we thought." Longer where? Waiting for whom? Nobody can say, so nobody learns.

A plan is not there to be right. It is there so you can see afterwards how reality differed.

The people and figures in our examples are made up. The pattern is not unusual.

A quarter at Harbour Works: an illustrative case study

Harbour Works is an invented design and build studio, and Northwind Bakery an invented customer. Nora Byrne, David Wilson, Emily Hart, Liam Farrell and Aoife Byrne are invented people, and every figure here is illustrative.

At the start of the quarter Nora sets a Leadership goal under Projects › Goals: Grow online sales. David's team sets a Team goal that serves it, Launch the online shop, and the Harbour app project serves that. The office move has no goal. David chooses No goal for now (flagged), and it appears under Not tracking a goal (1) until somebody decides what it is for.

David opens the Harbour app's Gantt. Payment integration cannot start until Payment provider keys is done, so he drags the dot from one bar to the other. When the provider is two days late, he drags Payment provider keys along, and the Gantt tells him "2 tasks waiting on it moved after it". The ◆ for Beta live sits at the end, and he can see at once whether it still fits.

A month later the Gantt has a story to tell. On Hero copy, the line under the bar is blue while the work ran inside the plan, then red where it ran past it, and the task reads 7.5 h of 10 h. Its finish date slipped though the hours did not, which is worth knowing next time. Payment provider keys has an amber stretch: the time it sat waiting on the payment provider, not on anyone in the studio.

The Northwind Bakery fit-out works in sprints. Liam turns them on under Set up › Sprints, with Use sprints on this project, two-week sprints and story points. He presses Plan the next sprint, gives it a name and a sprint goal, "Ovens and counters in, staff trained", and presses Plan it. The dates follow the length he chose. He drags tasks in from the Backlog, in order, until 19 points are committed, and presses Start sprint. The board now shows the sprint goal, the days left and the points done, and the burndown chart shows what is left each day against the ideal line.

In the second week Aoife tries to add a small task to the running sprint. "Only the project lead can change what is in a running sprint." It goes on the backlog instead, and the commitment still means what it meant on day one.

At the end, Complete sprint shows 8 points done against 19 committed, and the two tasks not done. Liam sends them to the next sprint, writes "Counters arrived late from the supplier." as the note, and leaves Post it as the project's status update ticked. The project's status reads At risk, with his note under it. Velocity adds the sprint to the team's history.

At the end of the quarter David opens Launch the online shop and presses Close this goal. He picks Met and writes the verdict: "Shop live two weeks late; payments held us up, not the build." He presses Close with this verdict. The goal's page shows the hours that went to it, project by project, never person by person. Then it offers David one more thing: Write what you learned. Part 3 shows where that goes.

Why there are other planning tools, and what they miss

Teams use other tools for good reasons. A spreadsheet plan is flexible and quick. A goals document gives leadership one place to say what matters. A sprint tool keeps an agile team honest about what it committed.

What they miss is the link between them:

• A spreadsheet plan is made at the start and rarely compared with what happened. On nex-orbit's Gantt, the line under every bar shows the outcome, with the hours booked in nex-track beside it.
• A goals document lives apart from the projects. In nex-orbit every project serves a goal or is flagged, and a goal closes with a written verdict and the hours that went to it.
• A sprint tool often sits beside the board rather than on it. In nex-orbit sprints are a choice per project, on the same board, so a project that does not want them is not made to pretend.

The rest of this post explains the ideas underneath.

Concept 1: Goals on four rungs

The idea: every piece of work should be able to say what it is for, or say plainly that nobody has decided yet.

Goals sit on four rungs: Leadership, Manager, Team and Individual. Each serves one goal a rung up, and each project serves a goal. A project with no goal is allowed, and flagged, so nobody forgets to decide what it is for.

A goal closes as Met, Missed or Abandoned, with a written verdict, not just a tick. Abandoned is not a failure; it is a decision, and it is written down. With nex-track on, the goal's page shows Hours that went to it, by project, as totals, never per person.

Concept 2: A Gantt that shows plan against outcome

The idea: a plan is only useful if you can see afterwards how reality differed from it.

On the Gantt you drag a bar to move a task, or drag its ends to make it longer or shorter. Drag the dot from one bar to another and the second waits on the first. Move a task, and the tasks waiting on it move after it. Milestones are marked ◆.

The line under each bar shows what happened:

• Blue while the work ran inside the plan.
• Amber while it waited on somebody else: the client, a supplier, another team.
• Red where it ran past the plan.

With nex-track on, each task shows the hours booked against its estimate, such as 7.5 h of 10 h. A task can finish late on time spent, or on time waiting, and the colours tell you which.

Concept 3: Agile sprints, when a project wants them

The idea: sprints suit some projects and not others, so they are a choice per project.

Sprints are off until a project turns them on under Set up › Sprints. You choose a length of one to four weeks, and whether work is sized in story points (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 or 21) or simply counted as tasks. Never in hours: the estimate already holds the hours, and points are about size, not time.

• Plan the next sprint asks only for a name and a sprint goal. The dates follow the length you chose, and you can change them with Edit. Two sprints cannot overlap.
• Drag tasks in from the Backlog, in order, and press Start sprint. What is in it then is what was committed.
• While it runs, only the project lead can change what is in it. The board shows the goal, days left and points done, and the burndown chart shows what is left each day against the ideal line.
• Complete sprint shows done against committed, asks where unfinished work goes, and invites a note, posted as the project's status update unless you untick it.
• Velocity shows committed against done, sprint by sprint.

Burndown and velocity are the team's numbers, never one person's.

Concept 4: A status update in three words

The idea: "how is it going?" deserves an answer anybody can read in a second, with the reason underneath.

The project lead, or anyone who can plan projects, answers How is the project doing? with On track, At risk or Off track, and a line saying why, then presses Post update. Completing a sprint can post one for you. The latest status sits on the project, so the question is answered before anyone asks it.

The principle underneath: compare, don't blame

• The plan is a record, not a promise. Moving it is fine. Seeing afterwards how it moved is the point.
• Waiting is not the same as late. Amber says the work was at somebody else's desk, so nobody is blamed for a supplier.
• Numbers about work, never about people. Burndown, velocity and the hours on a goal describe projects and sprints, never a person.

Frequently asked questions

The nex-orbit series

1. Stop Chasing, Ask the Project: nex-orbit
2. Plan, Sprint, and See What Really Happened (you are here)
3. A Standup Drafted From Your Work, and Lessons That Come Back
4. From a Customer's Ticket to Your Team's Day: nex-orbit With nex-help

Related reading

• Projects and work: the nex-orbit feature page.
• From Timesheet to Invoice the Same Day: the hours behind the Gantt, followed to the invoice and the goals.
• OKL for Business Leaders: how what you learn is kept and comes back.

Where it stands

Goals, the Gantt and sprints are part of nex-orbit, Nexcubator's project management software, and are available in the beta now. Hours on the Gantt and on goals come from nex-track.

If your plan is a file nobody has opened since week one, start there. That is exactly the conversation we want to have.

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