So you are a senior manager (or the PO, CEO, VP, ... ) thinking you are well familiar witrh the status of the project, due to the fact that you are getting nice reports on the project? Ever consider the fact that people may forcing reality to look better or due to the fact that they do not want to confront ther superior? Well, why not asking the people themselves?
No, I am not suggesting that you will actually lurking your people down the corridors or actually ask them, I suggest using the future forecasting technique or the way I name it (SDSE)
It is very simple yet very powerful and (as always in all visibility charts) will give you the manager the ability to understand the situation in a snap. Create imaginary stocks of dates (or options if you like) which will be able to be vested by the end of the project (let us say you are working in my company so by the end of the project you will have 100 Dankos) and let the developer trade them. In a snap you will be able to see what is the price of the current estimate deadline (option) of your project and confront it to the reports you are getting. Confused? Here is an example Imagine yourself that your project is about to be finish on November 26th. Every report you are getting support this deadline, your three people reporting to you are confidence with this date and urge you to mention the fact that the projects works smoothly in the board meeting, however, your guts feeling seems to be different.
Just open your computer and check the price of the “November 26th option, if it is around 100, they are right, if it is around (for example) 25, it seems that most of the people do not have the same confidence as your managers do thus are getting rid of this option in such a low price. This is a perfect time to understand it before going to any board meeting with (apparently) false and unreliable statementsLet your people speak for themselves as well Danko