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Falcon explained

Get an overview and learn more about the idea behind Falcon and its tree, schedule, activities & effects.

Jonas Steeger avatar
Written by Jonas Steeger
Updated over 5 months ago

The project management software Falcon helps you to implement strategies and transformations in a sustainable way. Falcon supports you in particular with 3 core elements:

  • Your project is displayed simply and intuitively in a project tree.

  • The progress is visualized by an immediately understandable traffic light logic

  • Falcon evaluates this progress using 2 dimensions - time & effects.

The project tree: the whole project at a glance

Falcon clearly displays all your strategic initiatives, measures and projects in a tree structure. The project tree has the following three levels:

  • Level 1: Program.

  • Level 2: Project.

  • Level 3: Measure Package.

  • Level 4: Measure.

Moreover, projects can be aggregated in so called Programs. These programs are the base level of all projects.

In Falcon, it is primarily at the deepest level - the measure - that people "work". This means that this is the level at which all details of schedules and effects or status reports are entered. In this context, projects and measure packages "only" serve to aggregate the levels below, so that you can quickly find and view all the information.

You can navigate in Falcon very easily - for example, click on an element in your project tree! Each element includes a Profile tab, a Schedule tab, an Effects tab, and a Status tab.
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Dashboard: Your complete work progress at a glance

In addition to your personal schedule, you can also view the progress of the project in your dashboard. The dashboard opens every time you log in to Falcon and can alternatively be accessed via the dashboard icon in the upper left corner. Here you will see the following:

  • Your personal effects history: Effects are aggregated from measures in which you are involved and/or for which you have been defined as responsible. The diagram distinguishes between planned and actual values.

  • A bar chart with information about your activities: You can see how many of your activities are delayed and how many are scheduled to start and end in the next 30 days

  • Your personal effects and activities presentation: These show the degree of results and achievement of the effects or activities for all measures for which you are holistically responsible. Measures in which you are operationally involved are also shown.

The traffic light system: transparency and traceability

In Falcon the project progress is visualized with a traffic light system. In the project tree, the traffic lights are displayed at each level. The left traffic light represents the effects and the right traffic light represents the progress of activities.

  • "Red" means severe deviation.

  • "Yellow" means slight deviation.

  • "Green" means everything is going according to plan.

The delta or a deviation between the entered plan value (e.g. a concrete date for the completion of an activity or a defined $-value to be achieved) and the actual value is calculated and displayed. When exactly the traffic light color in your project changes depends on the administrator's chosen settings.

Activities and effects: The core essence of Falcon

In Falcon, each measure has its own schedule and associated activities. Activities can be easily created at the measure level using the plus icon. The schedule shows you in brief who from the project team is doing which task at what time. Falcon distinguishes between planned values (the columns "Start (Plan)" and "End (Plan)") and actual values (the columns "Start (Actual/Forecast)" and "End (Actual/Forecast)"). These values can of course deviate from the original plan; any differences are then evaluated and visualized according to traffic light logic.

Hint: Plan values can only be edited by project administrators, operative project participants work in the actual column.

Similar to the schedule, each measure also has its own effects area. In Falcon, it is possible to track $-values such as budgets, costs and sales or other key performance indicators such as scrap rate, throughput time or delivery reliability. The "Effects" area in each tree element is intended for this purpose. Even if you can view the effects in the aggregation levels (project or package), entries are only made at measure level.
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Hint: The displayed effect lines can be adjusted individually. The structure is usually set up by the project administrators or the PMO team. This group of people can therefore determine very specifically what your individual project should look like.

For better understanding we can look at the following example:

The effect structure shown here consists of 3 categories:

  • P&L.

  • Balance/Cash.

  • KPI.

The individual categories in turn contain specific lines such as Revenue, cost of materials or scrap rate. In the effects table view, you can see not only a total column (usually all effects entered are displayed here in total), but also individual columns for your specifically selected project period (e.g. months or even quarters). These effects grids are in turn divided into plan values, actual values and the delta. Administrators always work in the plan column, operative project participants enter their values in the actual column. Confirm with "Enter" and save.


Your schedule: All personal activities at a glance

To be able to see all your activities immediately, Falcon has a very important element: your personal schedule. From this overview you can quickly deduce which tasks are due, where in the project structure these activities are "hung up" and when they are scheduled.

You can find your schedule in the "Your Schedule" section of the dashboard.

You can manage this individually:

  • Sort as you like by clicking on a desired column.

  • Filter the Status column by tasks that are still pending (Open).

  • Edit your tasks and check off completed tasks!

  • Adjust any actual values and add a comment.

  • Use the blue link to jump to the measure to view any other activities of your project team

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