5.3 Evidence of progress

Activity is not the same as progress. Hours spent, meetings held, and graphs created may indicate effort but do not establish that the project is closer to a defensible result.

Strong progress evidence includes:

• a reviewed problem statement;
• an accepted scope boundary;
• a current data dictionary;
• a reproducible data-cleaning workflow;
• an issue log with documented decisions;
• EDA findings connected to analytical questions;
• evaluated secondary sources;
• a baseline and validation plan;
• an auditable projection assumption table; and
• an updated schedule showing remaining review cycles.