How Are You Using Target Date in Atlas?

[Sing Chen]

Hi Community,

As we continue our sandbox testing of Atlas, great questions are being raised and I'm curious how other Atlas users are using the Target Date for projects.

Are you using it for the next milestone? A software release? Project completion?

Ultimately we will need to align on something and set and manage expectations across the business accordingly but keen to understand the experience from the community as to what this type of view tells you about dates.

[Mark · Accepted solution]

Hi Sing,

I can't answer this for other Atlas users but I can answer it for Atlassian. Our view is that there's no right answer, and the best approach will depend on the nature of each project.

For instance, for smaller projects we might have a single Atlas project that runs from when the project kicks off and has a target date of when the code is delivered to production. You can still post updates for completed projects and these updates will appear in the digest email, so any clean up tasks etc. or measuring of the impact of a project could be captured against the completed project. If a project slips and you need to change the target date, we think that's fine, thought obviously if a project's target date keeps getting pushed back it's clearly At Risk or Off Track and should be marked as such.

However, for larger projects we might break it down by milestone, and then have a separate Atlas project either for each delivery milestone or for the development phase (e.g. discovery versus delivery). We've tried not to be too prescriptive, with the desire that the projects in Atlas are an accurate bottoms-up view of the work being done.

[Sing Chen]

Got it. Thanks @Mark.

Getting insights into good practice from others is always helpful!