The S-curve

A visual way of showing the progress of a project, both in terms of keeping to the schedule defined by the contract's "baseline", and in terms of respecting the budget, is to draw one or more "S-curves".

These figures, taken from the project schedule and drawn up by the planner, will enable the project manager and his management to check expenditure commitments and forecasts at a given date, and to visualize any deviations from contractual indicators, in order to implement action plans if necessary to return to an accepted situation.

Using these curves, for each function, situate yourself with your actual costs incurred and your estimates of the remainder to be incurred between the earliest and latest date curves, and those of the customer schedule, to check that your project is running smoothly on time and on budget.