Understanding the Milestone Trend Analysis (MTA) – Part 2 of 2

In this podcast, Ricardo continues to talk about the Milestone Trend Analysis (MTA), a very good graphical tool used in executive reports. Today, he explains how to analyze the graphic you built last week, understanding the evolution trends of your project.

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Episode transcript

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the five minutes BM podcast today. I like to continue the Podcast. How about the Milestone Trend Analysis or MTA the last week I spend most of the time explaining how, how to build the graphic, the vertical line, or this triangle. And then you put all the dots for each Mark along the timeline. Now I want to analyze the results. So imagine that you have in front of you, this triangle with three, four, five, five milestones over time.

So with three, four dots for each the status report of that milestone, and you know, the one to one, a life, what does a normal from a line? The normal line means it's something parallel to the horizontal line, normal line mince. You came to evaluate your project on day one. And you saw that the milestone we'll be releasing it on the 12th. Then you'll come back on day five in Czech is the Milestone is still good forecast for a day 12.

Yes. It's day 12. Daniel come back on day 10 and check its day 12. What has happening with this three dots? This three dots make a straight line. The line mince you were delivering. It's exactly as planned. This second is what we call rising line. This is a very common it's when you see some delays in your project. So let's suppose on day one or a cast was 12 days. Then the day five you came back, it was not 12 days for that Milestone any more.

It was 15. And then on day 10, it's not 15 anymore. It's 18. So what you see 12, 15, 18. It's a rising line. When you connect this dot, you see the dots going up. So it's showing you a forecast of the Lake. Hey, in your project, do y'all do that. The one it's a very, very important it. What we call a turn off ramp lines, turn off Trend Minutes up to a certain point.

The Milestone seems to be perfect. You know, follow your perfect the schedule. Then when it becomes very close to the end or to deliver, then we start to rise. This is very common. This is what we call syndrome of 99%. So let's suppose that on day one, you scuttle the Milestone four a day 12. Then one day, if five, you scuttled the Milestone for a date. 12. When do they tell you? Cheque is still in the 12th on day 11 then is not the 12 anymore.

Is they 13? Then when you go Today 12, it's not 13 anymore. It's they 14. So very close to the end because what happened when the Milestone is coming to an end, it's exactly when the Milestone reached the diagonal line on the graph. So what happened? He'd start to become paralleled to the diagonal and going up. So this is the same, the drum of 99% do your daughter is what we call the police Virgin diverging lines.

The Virgin line is a very simple concept too. Let's suppose you have Milestone a and B and you know, that milestone a and B are related. So they are pretty much predecessor of a, for example, a B is a successor of Milestone eight, and then you see that Milestone eight is, is starting to become late. So you see a rising line, but Milestone is flat. So you'll see. Oh, it doesn't make any sense because if Milestone eight is become a late how Milestone B that depends on a sec.

Is this still on time? So that way you can track does in a very simple graphical way. The other concept is what we call follow up. And the lines falling lines is the opposite of rising lines. When you see, for example, you met her on day one, the Milestone is forecast for a day 12. Then on day five, it's not day 12 anymore. Is that right? 10. So you are saving two days then. And on day 10, you see that the Milestone was already the year in your own data.

So you see what you see a fall in line. So the line is going down, comparing with the horizontal line last but not least is what we call that the zigzag line, this exact line is when you have no forecast it something else. And so on day one, you see a Milestone on day 12 forecast for a day 12 on day five. The forecast is on day 25 and then on day 10, the forecast is on the 15th. You know, it's, it's going up down, up, down, up down, it's a clear sign up or that you have some problems on your plan because you can knock have a really good, a liable forecast even to this fits bad or good.

You have just know forecast. And it's a very simple in my final message about the MTA is that, of course we don't do this by hand. We always use a software. So you can use Microsoft Excel to do that. But a for example, I use a very simple program that is sold called TPG MTA, and it seems to be a German company called the project group. So is a bit the very simple program that I attached to my Microsoft project, a software, and then I generate this automatically and you base it on the Milestone of my projects in a very simple weight.

I can track this. It's very important. You cannot track a hundred milestones, but five, six, seven. And its a very simple, it's a, I know it was very hard for me to explain this in English, without showing you, so you have access to the PowerPoint I create. So you can just download it to have an idea of what I'm talking about, but it's trust me. It's a very simple graphic maybe to not so easy to explain using the Podcast, but I want just to raise your awareness and your interest, learn more about the MTA.

So take a look on your computer, use your search engine and try to find more it's something extremely and the valuable for your projects. I hope you enjoy this podcast and see you all next week with another five minutes BM Podcast.

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Understanding the Milestone Trend Analysis (MTA) – Part 2 of 2

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