During the end of last year we started an extensive pre-study about what we want to do with work planning and tracking. One of the conclusions was that we needed to support different time horizons and create a way to make the overall goal clearly communicated.
We have started design on the overall master plan time horizon. This is where we define the overall goal or goals of the project and the milestones that will take us there. This view should be available to everyone in the project and should include motivation for the team to work towards the goals. We are currently thinking about having some sort of visualisation at the top of all project views that will include the overall goal, milestones status and dates.
We want to make it easy for the project manager to enter and share the goals of the project in a way that feels natural and is inspiring for the team.
We want the project manager to be able to do this without knowing the exact dates.
We want the view of this to be easily accessible for all team members and give them understanding of what the goals are.
We want the whole team to see what the next milestone is.
We want the whole team to share a view on where we are at the moment and where we need to go next.
We want the design of this to be both intuitive and appealing.
This is what our design team is working hard on at the moment. I have seen some cool designs and I’m very excited to see what we’ll be able to do. Right now, if everything goes as we wish, we plan to release a beta of the new master plan functionality in June.
Ideas, Tips and Thoughts 
Susanne
April 6, 2011
Are you then aiming to communicate the milestones and the progress of these on the Project Overview (displaying what goals the resources are working on to accomplish) rather than the tollgates/decision points* (displaying upcoming dates where the steering group decides about the project) or both?
*Tollgates are the sponsor’s tool to monitor and manage the project. A tollgate is usually a meeting where reached goals are evaluated and the project’s future destiny is determined.
Karolina
April 6, 2011
Hi Sus,
Good reflection! In the designs that we have seen so far, you will be able to select different types of markers on the timeline. This means that the project manager will have flexibility to communicate both milestones and decision points if they are relevant. It will be up to the individual project manager to decide what is relevant to show as markers. Sprint meetings, milestones, steering group meetings, or team activities for example.