I am having a confusion with few terminologies and thought to take your opinions. I am trying to differentiate between Target Date and Planned Date. Please refer to below example.
For example: My client asked me to undertake and submit the project by 10th June 2018. He emphasized that no delay beyond this date is accepted. I reviewed the project scope with the team and I found that project can be submitted by 10th June. I signed the contract with the client. I then developed project schedule and planned to complete the work by 8th June keeping 2 days in hand to handle or respond to any risks or issues, if there will be any.
So now for this scenario which one is Target Date and which is planned date?
From my understanding: Target Date = 10th June 2018 – Because it’s a deadline which I cannot miss. Planned Date = 8th June 2018 – Because it’s my internal team planning keeping some float in hand to handle risks or issues, it occurs.
I would like to know your opinion which one is planned date and Target date and how to define it.
When you can’t achieve the target or baseline date, then you forecast your completion date based on actuals and this will become your new planned date when approved.
Aha! I think its not clear yet then..
For some of our contracts, client imposes a date. We called it as Contract Date= Ultimatum = Must achieve date = Target date = Project finish date = Deadline = Official Baseline Date set by client. This is fixed and will change only when the change is identified and approved.
However, to deliver the project we plan our delivery and come up with a date called Planned Date = Internal Baseline Date set by project team. We keep this planned date before the Target Date.
Accordingly we arrange all our resources and always aim to deliver the project by planned date. Let's say there is no change in project scope and project team finds that they will not be able to achieve the planned date then we still have opportunity to deliver the project by Target date. If we miss the Target date then we face penalty or we have to bear costs due to missed Target date.
So, we interpret Target date as the date imposed by or planned by our client and Planned date is what we project management team has internally fixed so that to avoid missing of Target date.
So in nutshell, we consider Target date is set by client and Planned Date is set by project management team. If we miss the Planned Date then we still have opportunity to put all our efforts to complete the project by Target Date to avoid any penalty.
Please advise any literature or standard or CoP where these terminologies are defined. I checked with PMI lexicon but It do not include these.
I think there is no standard definition available for this two words. It is locally defined by the organizations or group of people for their project environment.
Regards, Saving Changes...
Nico SchusterManagig Director / CEO| Tecpal Ltd. Hong KongFrankfurt, Hesse, Germany
In my experience "Target Date" was usually the date set by the organisation to get the final deliverable. E.g. in several R&D and SW projects I was part target date was set by roadmap planning and marketing - this is the date stuff needs to be there in order to meet their schedules with go-to-market or pushing out a SW update.
Our "Planned Date" would ideally be done by a backwards calculation - so we typically "planned" to deliver the final deliverable before the target date - to make sure we still can fix the unforseeable issues that always arise in the last round of testing :)
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2 replies by Tushar Chaudhari and Vincent Guerard
Jun 02, 2018 4:29 PM
Vincent Guerard
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That is a proactive way to plan, we should always work with unforseeable issues in mind.
Jun 04, 2018 2:20 AM
Tushar Chaudhari
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Hi Nico
Thanks for the response. The client and industry I am presently working for interprets the same which you have mentioned. However, I have mixed opinion from the community here and therefore, I am still wondering where these terminologies are defined in standard format.
In my experience "Target Date" was usually the date set by the organisation to get the final deliverable. E.g. in several R&D and SW projects I was part target date was set by roadmap planning and marketing - this is the date stuff needs to be there in order to meet their schedules with go-to-market or pushing out a SW update.
Our "Planned Date" would ideally be done by a backwards calculation - so we typically "planned" to deliver the final deliverable before the target date - to make sure we still can fix the unforseeable issues that always arise in the last round of testing :)
That is a proactive way to plan, we should always work with unforseeable issues in mind. Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Shows the value of getting aligned with terminology, as even though everyone thinks they are speaking of the same, they are not.
In this case, you use the term 'Target' as the 'SOW Date', and you plan your efforts in accordingly (planned). That makes sense. I don't use the term 'target' but follow a similar paradigm on estimated billable hours in a staff aug project (Estimated/SOW vs Planned vs Actual). The Estimated/SOW is our baseline. In your case, seems as if 'target' is your baseline.
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1 reply by Tushar Chaudhari
Jun 04, 2018 2:26 AM
Tushar Chaudhari
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Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your reply.
You are right. The client and industry presently I am working for emphasizes more on Target Date as Ultimate date or baseline date. We performing organizations come up with internal planning ( Called as Planned Date) and try to deliver the project before Target Date.
However, I have mixed opinions from the community. I am wondering do we have any standards where these terminologies are defined.
Regards
Saving Changes...
Shriram PatkiEngineering Manager, PMO| Nexteer Automotive IncSaginaw, Mi, United States
The client is dictating the deadline instead. They may not know what to call it (and called target date instead). You can plan as much as you want, but the customer has dictated a deadline here, which you cannot overrun per the contract.
This is best visible in MS Project. For a task, planned start and planned end date can/may also have deadline date as one of the attribute.
Planned end date, targeted end date, planned due date are all the same. Saving Changes...
In my experience "Target Date" was usually the date set by the organisation to get the final deliverable. E.g. in several R&D and SW projects I was part target date was set by roadmap planning and marketing - this is the date stuff needs to be there in order to meet their schedules with go-to-market or pushing out a SW update.
Our "Planned Date" would ideally be done by a backwards calculation - so we typically "planned" to deliver the final deliverable before the target date - to make sure we still can fix the unforseeable issues that always arise in the last round of testing :)
Hi Nico
Thanks for the response. The client and industry I am presently working for interprets the same which you have mentioned. However, I have mixed opinion from the community here and therefore, I am still wondering where these terminologies are defined in standard format.
Shows the value of getting aligned with terminology, as even though everyone thinks they are speaking of the same, they are not.
In this case, you use the term 'Target' as the 'SOW Date', and you plan your efforts in accordingly (planned). That makes sense. I don't use the term 'target' but follow a similar paradigm on estimated billable hours in a staff aug project (Estimated/SOW vs Planned vs Actual). The Estimated/SOW is our baseline. In your case, seems as if 'target' is your baseline.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your reply.
You are right. The client and industry presently I am working for emphasizes more on Target Date as Ultimate date or baseline date. We performing organizations come up with internal planning ( Called as Planned Date) and try to deliver the project before Target Date.
However, I have mixed opinions from the community. I am wondering do we have any standards where these terminologies are defined.
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