Scenario Mode

Test and explore different futures

New feature added in Release 2.19.

Scenario Mode

The Scenario Mode feature is added to The PlanMinder in release 2.19.

Normally when you change things in The PlanMinder it is immediately saved and applied to the plan. With Scenario Mode you can create separate scenarios, where you can change, test and optimize plans without worrying about breaking something or making your co-workers confused. When you have found the changes that accomplishes what you want, you can apply them to the active plan with a click on a button.

The scenarios are saved, so you can create and explore more than one scenario, and you can show, discuss and cooperate with coworkers before applying or discarding them.

What is it for?

As described above, you can use scenario mode when optimizing plans to test and compare different solutions for resource allocation and prioritization. See what your changes would mean for the timing and budget of all projects, and select the best option.

You can use scenario mode when contemplating new projects. You can change the status of a planned project to see when it would likely be done, and how it would affect other projects if you gave it higher priority. This is typically what you do if you will have to write an offer, and need to see what delivery deadlines you can promise to your customer.

You can test how different events would affect your plans. You could for example change the probability of a discrete risk to 100 % so that you can see how bad it would be, and if you can afford the consequences. You could check what changing the scope of a project, adding or removing tasks, does to your plan. Or what happens if you add or lose team members.

What scenario mode is used for illustration.

Keeping Plan B ready

A scenario is a collection of changes applied to the main plan. When you open your scenario on a later date, when the main plan has been updated, your scenario will also have been updated. Everything but the elements you have made changes to.

This way you can have a plan B ready at all times. You can check if it still is able to solve the problems that would trigger it, and update when necessary. You can explore how long you can wait before deploying it, and when it likely will be too late.

If the day come when you need to switch to plan B, you can do so by using your prepared scenario, applying the changes to the main plan.

Plan B: Through the mines of Moria.

Creating a new scenario

You enter scenario mode by clicking on the Scenario Mode button in the Kairos View. You will get the option to create a new scenario, or open an existing one. Clicking the button again lets you leave the scenario.

All changes you make to projects and work schedules in Scenario Mode will only affect the scenario. Changes that can not be confined to a scenario will be locked while in scenario mode.

You can see that you are in a scenario by the changed background color, and on the scenario name in the title bar. The Home page tab is replaced with a Scenario Mode tab, and the Report Time tab is hidden.

The Scenario Mode page lets you edit the name and description of the active scenario. There are also a number of actions you can take on the scenario, including “Use Scenario” that applies the scenario changes to the main plan, and “Clone Scenario” that creates a new copy of the active scenario that you can continue to edit.

This page has a list of all changes made in the active scenario. Elements may have been edited, deleted or added. You can remove a change to restore how it is in the main plan.

On the right hand side there is a list of all saved scenarios. You can open or delete scenarios from this list.

Enter Scenario Mode from Kairos view

Scenario Mode page screenshot.

Version compatibility

Scenario modes needs to store some new information in the database. This is why the database table version number of the release number has increased from 3 to 4. This mean that all users must switch to the new version at the same time. When the database has been converted, all users will be prompted to run the installer for the new version of The PlanMinder the next time they connect to the database.

To update the database format, connect to the database with the new version of The PlanMinder using the Service user login. You will be asked if you want to update the database.

The new version can not be used with the old database format.