Goal Health
Plenar continuously monitors whether your goals will meet their target dates. This guide explains how goal health works and what to do when a goal falls behind.
How Plenar computes goal ETAs
A goal’s ETA is the latest scheduled end date among all tasks that contribute to it. If a goal has three tasks ending on May 5, May 12, and May 18, the goal ETA is May 18.
The ETA updates automatically whenever the schedule changes — when estimates change, dependencies shift, team members take time off, or tasks are completed.
On Track vs Off Track
| Status | Condition | Display |
|---|---|---|
| On Track | Goal ETA is on or before the target date | Green indicator |
| Off Track | Goal ETA is after the target date | Red indicator |
A goal without a target date is never marked off track — there is no deadline to miss. The ETA is still computed and displayed for informational purposes.
At-risk detection
Plenar identifies goals that are approaching their deadline with insufficient margin:
- When a goal’s ETA exceeds the target date by more than the ETA threshold (default: 5 working days), Plenar flags it as at risk and expands its optimization scope to try to recover the deadline.
- Goals within the threshold may show as off track but are considered recoverable through normal course corrections.
The ETA threshold is configurable in project settings. See Settings for details.
What triggers off-track status
Common causes:
- Estimate increase — A task takes longer than planned, pushing the goal ETA later.
- New dependency added — A task now waits for another to finish, creating a longer chain.
- Team member PTO — Time off reduces capacity, stretching task durations across more calendar days.
- New tasks added — More work under the goal means a later finish date.
- Blocked tasks — A blocked task cannot progress, and everything downstream stalls.
- Team member removed — Losing capacity means remaining work takes longer.
Recovery strategies
When a goal is off track, you have several options. Listed from fastest impact to most disruptive:
1. Cut scope
Move nice-to-have tasks out of the goal or remove them entirely. This is the fastest and lowest-risk recovery action.
"Remove all nice-to-have tasks from the Platform Migration goal"2. Reduce estimates
If tasks were conservatively estimated, lowering the estimates pulls the ETA earlier. Only do this if the original estimates genuinely overstate the work.
"Update the auth refactor estimate from 8 days to 5 days"3. Add capacity
Assign an additional team member to the project. If auto-assignment is enabled with Fresh mode, Plenar redistributes work to include the new member.
4. Remove unnecessary dependencies
Dependencies constrain the schedule. If tasks in the goal have dependencies that are not strictly required, removing them lets Plenar parallelize more work.
"Remove the dependency between the logging task and the API middleware"5. Extend the deadline
If the target date has flexibility, push it out. This does not change the schedule — it changes the definition of “on time.”
6. Recompute with Fresh assignment
Trigger a recompute with Fresh assignment mode. This lets Plenar reassign all auto-assigned tasks from scratch, potentially finding a better distribution.
Where to see goal health
Dashboard
- Sidebar — Each goal shows its health status. Off-track goals appear in red.
- Summary view — Project health overview with goal progress bars and ETA vs target comparison.
- Detail panel — Click a goal to see its tasks, ETA, target date, and health status.
Claude Code
"Are any goals off track?"
"What's the schedule health?"
"Show me goal progress"Claude calls plenar_get_schedule_status and presents goal health with context.
Monitoring over time
The Summary view includes trend charts showing how goal ETAs have changed over time. Use these to spot goals that are gradually slipping — catching a trend early is easier than recovering from a large overrun.
A goal that is consistently on track but with shrinking margin may need preemptive action before it actually goes off track.
See Goals & Milestones for goal structure and priority levels. See Manage Your Schedule for the edit-preview-apply workflow.