Project Dashboard: Managing Project KPIs

Project Dashboard, if designed correctly, it will become very powerful tool for the organisation to act pro-actively and appropriately.

To design it correctly, the dashboard should have the following elements:

1. Objectives of the KPIs
2. Tolerance range (eg. Red, Yellow or Green; High, Medium or Low; Excellent, Good, or Bad, etc)
3. Target Audience in mind
4. Relevant measurement (measurement value that should be shown together in one chart or dashboard item)

Basically, the dashboard should tell you: I should be happy or I should be upset. What should I do if I am upset with the measurement result.

Example of possible questions to be asked when designing the Project Dashboard:

Note: Project Dashboard is usually focussing on individual projects

1. Are we on time?
2. Is our budget sufficient for us to complete the project?
3. Are our requirements stable?
4. Is the quality of our deliverables good?
5. How fast we resolve issues?
6. Who are the contributors to delay?
7. How much more budget do we need to complete the project?

 When individual dashboards are functioning stably, the executives (senior management) may want to have Corporate wide Project Portfolio Dashboard. Then when designing the Corporate wide Project Portfolio Dashboard, the possible questions will be coming from Corporate perspective, for example:

1. Which customers that are affected by project delay?
2. Which project that is not having sufficient budget to complete the project as of now?
3. Which project manager that is responsible for those projects that are in trouble (schedule delay, cost overrun, having issues not resolved, etc)
4. Resources from which department or solution team that are involved in those issues (delay, additional cost involved, unresolved issues, etc)

When designing the corporate or project dashboard, the designer should consider the perspective of the target audience, for example:

1. What are their concerns?
2. Based on what they need to react?
3. How can they trace down the culprit or source of cause (root cause)?

All the information provider for these KPIs should come from an integrated or online Information System. You can't achieve this if all those information is saved inside the PC of each project manager. There are many project management IS (Information System) out there in the market, some even open source. Of course, you have to consider the cost of implementation and the challenges in implementing it. It will be a separate topic when we talk about implementing it. But, first things first: Do you care about your project or the projects in your organisation?

KPIs for Project Management

Here are something to read about PM KPI: KPI explained

When we want to create KPIs for PM, we need to use the CSC (Critical Success Criteria) related to project management. This means that the KPIs must be related to Time, Budget and Scope (TBQ) tripple constraints.

In order to relate to these three critical criteria, the assumption is that tasks contribute to scope. Each task involve resource. Each resource is related to cost. Each task needs time for completion. Therefore Earned Value Analysis or Management is the tool that we usually used to measure these three key performance areas.

The following are some sample of KPIs related to Project Management (or Earned Value elements):

Earned Value (EV) -- This is the value that we get back as a result of the investment. For example, after the contract is signed, nothing is done but the vendor is paid 10% of the project fee; so, the earned value is still $0. Unless some work already performed and can be translated to the value.

Schedule Variance (SV) -- To show what is the difference between the original plan and the actual progress.

Cost Variance (CV) -- To show what is the cost difference between the original project budget and the actual expenses.

Schedule Performance Index (SPI) -- To show how well the schedule is managed against the baseline. This means that, for every $1 we spend on the resource, how much progress is achieved.

Cost Performance Index (CPI) -- To show how well the cost is managed against the original budget baseline. This means that, for every $1 we spend on the resource, how much value we got in return. For example, if we pay $1, but we get $0.5 of the value of the result, that means the CPI is poor.

Other KPIs that may be applicable are such as:

Customer Satisfaction -- For example, we can measure the return customer in quantity, or customer terminate the contract, etc.

Process Efficiency -- For example, the speed in getting one job done is compared between the post-project to the pre-project measurement.

Quality Efficiency -- For example, the number of defects, etc.