Resources / Guide: Trustworthy progress

How-to guide · 7 min read

How to make project progress you can trust

A project that's '90% done' for three months is a progress system that lies. Here is how to compute progress that actually means something — weighted, approval-driven, and honest.

Why self-reported progress lies

When progress is typed in, it reflects optimism, not reality. The fix is to derive progress from work that has been approved, weighted by its size.

The weighted, approval-driven method

  1. Break each project into activities and weighted sub-projects (WBS items).
  2. Give each package a weight reflecting its share of the whole.
  3. Only count a package as complete when it's approved through its workflow.
  4. Compute progress as approved weight ÷ total weight — automatically.

What changes

  • No more stuck-at-90% projects.
  • Progress that survives an audit.
  • A number leadership and clients can rely on.
  • Bottlenecks visible because unapproved weight shows where work is stalled.

The payoff

Weighted, approval-driven progress turns the project percentage from a guess into a fact — computed in Prime RP from the work itself.