One story I love to tell is of an airline pilot who is pushing back from the gate later than planned. If they do nothing to account for their late departure, they will be late upon arrival....but they are not late yet. For this reason, they forecast when they will arrive and then, they make adjustments to determine if there is a viable plan to still arrive on time (i.e. do we have enough fuel so we can just fly faster? Can we take a shorter route? How fast is the wind? Is it with us or against us? Etc.).
GUIDEcx is the only solution that gives a similar forecast power to project managers and stakeholders. Each week (by default) every member of the project team will receive a status update that shows how the Planned End Date compares to the Forecasted End Date. The Forecasted End Date will be red if it is later than the Planned End Date and green if it is the same, or earlier. This status update will also show overdue tasks and upcoming tasks in an effort to quickly show what needs the most attention.
The weekly status update gives the team the tools to do that, but we have one extra trick up our sleeve for the Project Manager themselves: The "Project Running Late" notification can alert a project manager as soon as the Forecasted End Date turns "red" (or is past the Planned End Date).
This allows the Project Manager to review the project and formulate a course correction plan that should be shared in one of two places:
The PM Note if not urgent and it can wait for the next status update (written either for the internal team only or for the entire team).
The Notes tab of the project with an @mention for someone specifically or the entire team (best used for urgent updates that need everyone's attention).
These tools give Project Managers super powers! With this setup in place, the Project Manager can confidently decide to change (or not change) the project status based on two things:
The gap between their Forecasted End Date and Planned End Date
The viability of their plan to get the forecast back in line with the plan.
If a pilot knows that they do not have a viable plan to arrive on time, then they let everyone know they are going to be late and officially change the status of the flight. On the other hand, if they know they are forecasted to be late, but they have a viable plan to still arrive on time or early, they keep the flight status "On Time".