This repository stores formulae and data for the Project Rescue Plan that I use when working with companies to save failing projects from certain doom. Primarily this is where I store some formulas for Google Sheets, but also some of basic information on the philosophy and implementation of the plan will be saved here as well.
Following is an overview of the tabs in the Project Rescue Plan Master Spreadsheet. More information, including definitions of terms, is available throughout this repository. This is a work-in-progress and will be updated as the plan evolves.
Ten-Thousand foot view of the project's overall health and status. This view is used by Stakeholders to get a "real-feel" for the project's current state. This view is also useful to post on a TV or monitor near where teams sit so that they have visibility into the current project state.
This tab in the spreadsheet includes the deliverables, estimates and proposed dates for task execution. It also includes resource comparisons and calculations, current task status, risk and debt indicators and call-outs for blockers. This data can either be manually entered by the project team, or it can be imported from JIRA directly.
This tab catalogs events that happen throughout the lifecycle of a project that impact the team's ability to meet goals and perform work. Incidents are not project-specific, but are rather environmental, organizational or technological events that block a team's ability to be productive. Examples include internet outages, VPN issues, resource availability, dependency failures, etc. Incidents are tracked on the Incidents tab in the master spreadsheet and log issues in order to identify common problems or recurring issues that need further root-cause analysis.
This tab is a filtered view of the Release Plan that shows tasks marked as having some level of Technical Debt. This enables teams to visualize which tasks have to be revisited in order to clear the debt.
This is a Sprint-by-Sprint view of available team resources and the number of hours that each team member will be available. Times marked are in productive time only with the expectation that most resources will only be productive for five (5) to six (6) hours each day, depending on their meeting load and allotted schedule.
Retrospective data for each Sprint is captured here along with a few key metrics that help us determine if the Rescue Plan is on-target and if the team is making progress toward their goals.
This tab stores data about the Sprint schedule, duration, current Sprint and some configuration settings that help to drive the spreadsheet.
This tab helps managers understand the cost of the current project from a resource and personnel perspective. It allows one to see the impact of overhead and of team resources across the life of the project.