Platform Overview

TruePPM is an open-core Project, Program, and Portfolio Management (P3M) platform built for teams that run waterfall, agile, and hybrid programs — all from a single data model.

Most P3M tools force a choice: Jira speaks Agile and translates poorly to a schedule; MS Project speaks Waterfall and ignores the team’s actual cadence. TruePPM is built so a Scrum Master and a Project Manager look at the same underlying data, and each sees the view they need. The translation happens inside the tool, not in a spreadsheet.

Who this fits today

TruePPM fits a 50–2,000 task software or IT program, run by one PM plus an agile team, self-hosted, that wants a computed forecast instead of a spreadsheet or a Gantt chart nobody trusts. That upper bound is not a guess — it is where the Schedule view stops opening comfortably in the tested envelope, and it moves as the scale work on #3383 lands in 0.5.

It does not yet fit a construction, EPC, defense, or other contractually-scheduled program. TruePPM honors one schedule constraint type, has no resource leveling, and its tested scale sits two orders of magnitude below what those programs run day to day — see what TruePPM doesn’t do yet for the full, maintained list those limits are drawn from. If your plan carries a DCMA 14-point or NEC clause 31/32 obligation, or routinely runs tens of thousands of activities, TruePPM will not get you through a pilot yet.

This is a statement about fit, not about worth — the constraint is what gives the statement force, and we would rather say it here than have a pilot discover it.

Core capabilities

Critical Path Method scheduling. Every time you create or change a task or dependency, TruePPM runs a full CPM pass — forward, backward, float calculation, and critical-path identification. All four dependency types (FS, SS, FF, SF), each with an optional lead/lag. You always know which tasks drive your deadline and where you have slack.

Monte Carlo risk analysis. Add three-point estimates to any task and run a probabilistic simulation. Get P50, P80, and P95 completion dates. The CPM finish date is typically P50 — there’s only a 50% chance you’ll hit it. Commit to P80.

Agile sprint workflows. Full sprint lifecycle: plan → activate → close. Board view with WIP limits, velocity tracking, burndown charts, capacity preflight, and retrospective-to-backlog automation. The Scrum Master gets a native agile surface and never needs to open a Gantt.

Hybrid bridge. The same task is both a WBS node and a sprint story. Sprint velocity feeds the CPM forecast through non-destructive duration suggestions the PM reviews and applies — and since 0.3, closing a sprint bound to a milestone writes a fresh P50/P80 forecast band around that milestone’s CPM date. Estimates change only when the PM accepts a suggestion; the plan is never rewritten underneath them. No status meetings, no reconciliation spreadsheets.

Real-time collaboration. Every mutation is broadcast to connected clients over WebSocket, deferred to transaction commit so you never see phantom events from rolled-back writes.

Offline sync protocol. A WatermelonDB-compatible delta protocol with soft-delete tombstones, designed for mobile and unreliable networks — the installable PWA that consumes it ships in 0.5.

5-role RBAC. Owner, Admin, Scheduler, Member, Viewer — enforced per endpoint and per WebSocket connection.

The eight personas

TruePPM is designed around eight roles that exist in real hybrid-delivery organizations:

Persona	Role	Primary surface
Sarah	Delivery / Program Manager	Schedule (Gantt), CPM, Monte Carlo
Alex	Delivery Lead — Scrum Master and agile coach	Board, Sprints, Velocity, Retrospective, team health signals
Jordan	Product Owner	Backlog management, velocity-based release forecasting, sprint scope protection
Priya	Team Member / Contributor	Board cards, Sprint backlog, My Work
David	Resource Manager	Capacity preflight, Allocation
Marcus	PMO Director / Portfolio Manager	Programs, operational audit log (portfolio governance in Enterprise)
Janet	Executive Sponsor	Monte Carlo confidence per project (portfolio RAG status in Enterprise)
Theo	AI-Native Technical Operator	The read-only MCP server — questions to the live plan from an agent

See The Story for an end-to-end walkthrough of how these roles interact on a real hybrid program.

Open-core model

The community edition (Apache 2.0, this repository) includes everything an individual PM or program team needs:

Scheduling engine (CPM + Monte Carlo), standalone on PyPI as trueppm-scheduler
Schedule view (custom canvas Gantt — critical path, baseline comparison, milestones, drag-to-reschedule)
Board / Kanban (5-column, WIP limit overload detection, drag-to-status)
Sprints workspace (plan/activate/close, burndown, velocity, capacity preflight, retrospective)
Agile reporting (burn charts, velocity calibration, multi-team lens)
Programs (group related projects under one PM or program manager)
MS Project import/export
5-role RBAC per project
Real-time WebSocket collaboration
Offline-first sync protocol (WatermelonDB-compatible)
REST + WebSocket API (OpenAPI 3.0.3 schema)
Helm 3 chart for Kubernetes deployment
Basic single sign-on — OIDC/OAuth login against your own identity provider
Time tracking with a weekly timesheet, and baseline capture and comparison
Read-only MCP server for agent questions against the live plan
Operational audit log of who changed what, and read-only share links for a board or schedule
Integrations — Jira Server/Data Center import, a personal read-only Jira source for My Work, GitLab and GitHub task links with live MR/PR/issue status, Git-event board card automation, and outbound webhooks

The enterprise edition (separate repository, proprietary) adds features for organizations governing a portfolio across multiple programs:

Portfolio dashboard and health scores
Org identity governance — SAML 2.0 federation, SCIM provisioning, LDAP/AD directory sync, enforced org-wide SSO (basic OIDC/OAuth login is included in the community core since 0.4)
Immutable audit trail
Cross-program resource leveling and capacity forecasting
AI scheduling and cross-program / portfolio scenario modeling
Integration hub: org-wide, bidirectional Jira / GitLab / ServiceNow connectors with writeback and conflict resolution (Jira import, personal Jira and Git links, and Git-event automation are in the community edition)
Multi-tenancy

The community edition is fully functional on its own — it never imports from the enterprise repo. The dependency is strictly one-way: enterprise extends core.

Rule of thumb: The OSS unit is the program — one PM or program manager, one or more related projects. “Would a PM or their team need this to deliver their program?” → OSS. “Does this require governance across multiple programs?” → Enterprise.

Tech stack

Layer	Technology
Scheduling engine	Python 3.12+, networkx, numpy
API	Django 5.2, DRF 3.15, Django Channels 4
Queue	Celery 5.4 + Valkey 8 (Redis-compatible)
Database	PostgreSQL 16
Web UI	React 19, TypeScript, Vite 6, Tailwind CSS
Schedule (Gantt)	Custom canvas renderer (no third-party Gantt library)
Auth	django-allauth + simplejwt
Deploy	Helm 3 on Kubernetes