Planning
Delay is measured in days, not by feel.
The plan approved at the start of the job lives in a spreadsheet nobody updates after three weeks, and when someone asks “are we late?” the answer is a hunch. In Projekta the plan is made of the same tasks people work on: move a date and whatever depends on it moves too, freeze the approved plan and from then on every item tells you how many days it has slipped.
A plan that stays attached to the work
The timeline holds the project’s tasks, not a copy of them: a task with a start and end appears on its own, with title, person and status read from the task itself. Dragging a bar changes the task’s due date, and the task history records it. Link two bars and the downstream task waits until the previous one is closed: whoever owns it cannot start the timer in Klokka. If work has to start anyway, it can be unblocked by hand with a written reason, and the project lead is notified. Items with no slack are marked: if they slip by a day, the project slips. At the top, the hours count: how many the project budgets, how many are already planned, how many are still to be assigned.
How it works
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Give the tasks their dates
Start and end are set from the task or from the timeline, together with the activity and estimated hours. Tasks without dates wait in a separate column, ready to be placed.
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Link what depends on what
Click a bar, then the one that has to come after it. From then on, if you move the first, Projekta moves the downstream items too and tells you how many it pulled along.
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Freeze the approved plan
“Freeze the plan” takes a snapshot of today’s dates. From that moment every item shows its promised end and the days of variance.
The approved plan becomes the yardstick for delay.
What you can do
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Milestones with a clear criterion
Title, date and a completion criterion written in plain words. Link the tasks and subprojects that lead to it and see how many are done, how many fall due after the milestone and how many deliverables are missing.
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Milestones that follow the task
A milestone can be born from a task and follows its title and due date: if the delivery moves, so does the milestone. When everything feeding it is closed, Projekta flags it as ready; “Mark as reached” stays the call of whoever leads the project.
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Milestones in the calendar
With Kalendo, milestones show up in the “Projekta” calendar of the project leads and of whoever holds the task they come from, as all-day events that do not block the schedule.
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Items with no slack
The critical path is highlighted on the timeline: you know which items cannot lose a single day, and where there is room to breathe.
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Dependencies that really count
A task waiting on the previous one cannot be started, not even from the Klokka timer. A task with several people counts as finished only when all of them have closed it. A manual unblock always asks for a reason and alerts the project lead.
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Every move leaves a trace
Dates moved by dragging a bar, or pulled along by a dependency, end up in the task history. Earlier plan snapshots remain as history: you can see when the promise changed.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to enter tasks twice, in the plan and in the list?
No. The timeline shows the project tasks that have a start and an end: they are the same ones as in the list, the board and the Klokka Agenda. Change the date in one place and it changes everywhere.
If I freeze the plan again, do I lose the previous snapshot?
No. The new snapshot becomes the one variance is measured against; the earlier ones stay in the list as the project’s history.
Do dependencies really block the work?
Yes: the downstream task stays “waiting for previous tasks to be completed” and the Klokka timer will not start. Whoever is stuck can unblock it by writing the reason, without asking for permission, and the project lead is notified.
The other Projekta features
Bring your company’s projects to Projekta
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Alex