I was working on a newsletter article about how to see your project's progress, and got stuck. It's easier to see project progress on a project with a tangible deliverable; it's much harder for software or a service project. So, I took a break and read Esther Derby's blog entry, Start Seeing Software from 3/13/03. Esther suggests milestone reviews, retrospectives, and metrics. In addition,
- Look at the nightly builds: can you build nightly and then run an automated smoke test that passes?
- Don't forget to ask your staff about their confidence in the end date: do they still think they can meet the requested completion date?These aren't the only ideas for seeing your project's state, but it's a start.