On-Track and Off-Track Projects

In Etho, Projects have start dates and deadline dates. Within each Project are Tasks which have their own start and end dates. Looking at the Project as a whole, you’ll see we calculate the percent of the tasks inside a project in progress or complete so we know how far along the project is. We also automatically calculate whether that project is “On-Track” or “Off-Track.” There’s a reason we don’t want this status to be a “gut instinct,” but let’s dig into how that math works.

The short answer is, a project in Etho is considered “Off-Track” if its percent complete is more than 20% behind the amount of time left in the project. So, if your project is 60% complete, but 90% of the time available for the project to be completed has already passed, that project is considered “Off-Track.”

…a project in Etho is considered “Off-Track” if its percent complete is more than 20% behind the amount of time left in the project.

The Math: TL;DR

For the mathematically-inclined, here’s a simplified algorithm you can walk through. If you prefer an example, jump down to that here.

$tasksNum = Total Number of Tasks in Project
$tasksInProgress = Number of tasks in the Project marked "In Progress"
$tasksComplete = Total Number of tasks in the Project Marked "Complete"

Now, we need to calculate what “percent complete” the project is. To do that, we give tasks “In Progress” half-credit and then come up with the ratio, like so:

$percentComplete = (($tasksInProgress * 0.5) + $tasksComplete) / $tasksNum

Great. Now we need to calculate “percent time” that’s been used by the project already. If the project was 12 months long and it’s half-way through that time period, we’d say our “percent time” is 50% (6 / 12). We are going to break it down into weeks, not months though.

$startDate = The date the project started
$endDate = The date the project should be completed
$now = today's date
$weeksTotal = number of weeks between $startDate and $endDate
$weeksToDeadline = number of weeks between $now and $endDate

Just need to calculate the the amount of time that has passed. That’s also the inverse of the amount of time remaining. We get that value like so:

$percentTime = 1 - ($weeksToDeadline / $weeksTotal);

Because we want to build in a little “wiggle room,” we’re going to call this project “On-Track” until the percent of tasks inside it are more than 20% behind the percent of time remaining before the deadline. So, our IF/ELSE looks like this.

IF ($percentTime < ($percentComplete + 0.2)) = "Off-Track"; ELSE "On-Track"

There’s more to it than that to prevent any division by zeros and other things, but that’s the gist. How about an example?

Example Project

Let’s say we have a project with 5 tasks in it (total). 0 of the tasks are in progress and 3 are already complete. That means the project is 60% complete (3 / 5 as a percent).

The project is set to start and end over a period of 10 weeks. Today, it’s already 2.2 weeks until the deadline. That means, we’re already 78% of the way through the time we have to complete this project.

While you might assume that if you’re 78% of the way along, you should have about that percent of the tasks in the project complete, but you only have 60% complete. So, this project would calculate as “Off-Track.” However, Etho puts in “wiggle room” of 20%. So that bump puts our percent complete higher than the percent of time that’s already elapsed. That is: 0.78 < (0.6 + 0.2) = “On-Track.”

Now, if you went all week the next week without completing any more tasks (changing that 78% to an 88%), the amount of time that’s already passed will quickly be larger than the percent complete of the project. That would put it “Off-Track.” That is: 0.88 > (0.6 + 0.2) = “Off-Track.”

Why Can’t I just Set a Project as On or Off-Track?

Great question! Many systems allow for that. However, Etho is all about accountability and transparency. If a project is more than 20% behind where it should be, that project is Off-Track. We want the system to call that out immediately.

Remember, the math is based both on time remaining and percent complete. So, if a project is taking longer than expected, just push the due date back. Of course, that’s the whole exercise that should be happening in a Project review. We wouldn’t want to just “go with our gut.”