Project Timeline Variance

Ever wondered how to show the project timeline variance in a sleek graph for your executive presentation!

I was stuck with this question and I did not know how to tackle it. After some brainstorming we came up with this idea of using the project critical milestones (you can use the delivery milestones) to show the time variance of the project. Normally each of the project would have the critical milestones through the entire life cycle of the project. Following is the timeline variance graph we created:

The result is a crisp graph which shows you how the project has deviated from the baseline over time. Wider the distance between the two, the more trouble you are in. You need to speed up your tasks or worst case rebaseline your project. :).

I initially thought of automating it, but then realized that it takes only a minute or two to create it and the time needed to work on a macro is not worth it.

If you find it useful, the template can be downloaded from the following location:
Project Timeline Variance