How to Compare a Planned Project Schedule Against its Actual Completed Schedule

Showing baseline vs. actual dates in a Microsoft Project Gantt chart

At the completion of a project, it is important to conduct a post mortem, a lessons learned exercise, or a review. Comparing your baseline schedule to actual start and finish dates is an important part of this analysis.

Microsoft Project allows users to define baseline start and finish dates for task/milestone. OnePager Pro, an add-in for MS Project, and imports these dates for display on a Gantt chart alongside the current dates in your project schedule. This allows you to compare your original project schedule to how it was actually delivered.

You can download a 15-day free trial to see how it works. To visually compare your baseline project plan to your actual delivery schedule, follow these steps:

1. Make sure your Microsoft Project file has baseline start and finish dates established for the tasks you want to present. You can show your baseline start and finish dates in Microsoft Project in addition to your current start and finish dates:
   
   
   
   
2. Insert a Microsoft Project flag column to indicate which tasks and milestones you would like to present in your OnePager chart:
   
   
   
   
3. With that accomplished, click on the OnePager Pro button on the Microsoft Project toolbar or add-ins tab, and give your project a name:
   
   
   
   Several things are important to note at this point:
   • You need to select NEW Project View for the OnePager Pro launch mode and type in the desired project view name.
   • Make sure that the correct MS Project flag field is selected from the list and corresponds to the flag field you populated in your Microsoft Project file.
   • Set an appropriate snapshot (status) date as this will be the first snapshot for this project view.
   
   
4. Now click on Create new project view and OnePager Pro will create a project view that looks like this:
   
   
   In the OnePager project view above, you can see the baseline markers as small rectangles below the task markers.
   
   
5. OnePager Pro allows you to customize the way your baselines are formatted. Just go to Project View->Properties of the Project View, then to the Main tab, and click the Baseline Properties button. From here, you can specify the color and height of your baseline markers, whether you want baseline dates to display, and whether you want the baseline task connected to the actual task. The Baseline Properties menu is shown below:
   
   

OnePager Pro provides project views that accurately, clearly, and concisely summarize your Microsoft Project schedule. These Gantt charts are easily inserted into Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, Microsoft Word documents, or email messages so that others can share schedule conversations with focused graphics that highlight issues and accomplishments. OnePager also allows you to show different versions of your project schedule over time - another great tool for post-mortems.

OnePager Pro is extremely useful in conducting schedule conversations during a project’s post mortem or lessons learned exercise. Using OnePager Pro will allow you to create dynamic, informative project presentations with the click of a button, and it eliminates the need to rebuild your presentation by hand every time your project schedule changes.

Get started today by downloading a free trial or attending one of our demonstration webinars.