Plan dynamically and stop re-arranging your target deadlines to match reality - Plan and schedule only actionable milestones - Put all actionable milestones in a single “Action hub” - Assign only actionable tasks - Organize all communication around tasks to make it easily traceable

Actionable dependencies Before you continue reading, let’s explain what we mean by “actionable”, because it is a word that you would hear a lot.

When a milestone or a task is actionable, it means you can start to work on it immediately without worrying that you have to wait for someone else to finish their work. Also, it means that all necessary files and documents to execute the task are at your disposal.

The purpose of Actionable Dependencies is simple – to inform PMs when milestones become actionable (workable) or in other words, it’s time for action. Dependencies are set automatically when all preceding milestones are executed. Most of our competitors use dependencies to automatically reschedule tasks or milestones but we believe that automatic rescheduling of initial plans is a wrong practice. We keep the initial plans unchanged for a reason – to compare them with the real situation. Comparison is the best way for a company to learn, improve and build sustainable know-how.

Dynamic Reminders Actionable Dependencies and Dynamic Reminders are at the very core of our patentpending methodology.

Dynamic Reminders are very important. Imagine a project manager (PM) has to, well, manage 100 projects with 30 milestones each, and a number of tasks related to each milestone and assigned to different teams. Of course, we expect the PM to react to every single change and keep all projects updated with a 100% match with the real situation. In other words, the PM must monitor nearly 3,000 milestones every day and have instant information about all emerging deviations so that he can update all unrealistic target deadlines with achievable ones.

Monitoring 3,000 milestones every day!? Is it possible and what happens in reality? When an actionable dependency is activated, the system automatically adds a dynamic reminder to the milestone in question. The dynamic reminder serves as a guarantee that the PM will be immediately informed when an action is needed. When a milestone is executed the system automatically informs the PM which other milestones have just become actionable. As a result, the PM doesn’t have to monitor 3,000 milestones because they manage only actionable ones – or less than 5% based on our experience. Projects become transparent and informative as never before. We can see the initial plans (hopes), the execution dates (reality), the delays (comparison between the two), and the next actionable steps. Do we need more?

Dynamic Reminders Hub The process of domestication looks at its best in the Dynamic Reminders Hub – the main playground of a PM.

The Dynamic Reminders Hub collects the dynamic reminders for all projects, prioritised by the date of the required action (for “Today”, “Tomorrow”, and so on). Our experience shows that less than 1% of all existing milestones are scheduled for “Today”.

The result? A PM’s productivity jumps from five to six times. One PM can easily deal with 200-300 simultaneously running projects (reported by our clients). Nothing has to be remembered, yet nothing is forgotten – the Dynamic Reminders Hub does it for you.

Actionable tasks only, please! From the Dynamic Reminders Hub, a PM starts the execution process of actionable milestones by creating and assigning tasks. This is the very first moment tasks appear in our concept. It is wrong to create and assign tasks before it is possible to start to work on them – it only adds noise to the system.

“Non-actionable” tasks in the daily “to-do” lists of employees create not only a stressful environment but also ruin the credibility of such lists.

On the other hand, the logical consequence of dealing with actionable milestones is that all created tasks are also actionable. This is a huge game-changer. Only a month after kickoff, our client reported 100% actionable tasks registered in the system – there were no tasks “on hold” or “waiting for something to happen”. What’s more, communication noise was reduced by three-four times.

Task-related communication & escalation All communication in Havelock happens only on the task-level – each task has its own communication channel – which facilitates the search for information. Additionally, each project, milestone, and task have a library with related files. This way, all communication history is preserved, it’s easily searchable and increases the system’s transparency.

If a task assignee has questions or needs clarification, they can send a direct message to the person in concern. If an assignee is not able to execute the task by the required deadline, they can request a deadline change. Upon request, the PM decides they need to escalate the issue.