Posts Tagged ‘project management dashboards’

New Book on Project Management Metrics

Business dashboards have become invaluable tools for project management. Finally, we have a book dedicated to applying the use of dashboards to track project management metrics.

Yes, I’m going to straight-out tout this book. And it’s not just because I contributed to it. If you are into Project Management and Dashboards, you MUST check out Professor Harold Kerner’s new book called Project Management Metrics, KPIs, and Dashboards: A Guide to Measuring and Monitoring Project Performance.

Thanks, Harold, for giving me the honor of writing the section about dashboard design.

Click on this picture of the cover to view the table of contents:

This from the publisher.

Essential strategies from Harold Kerzner on measuring project management performance

The maze-like path of today’s projects reflects a business environment that’s growing in complexity. Factors influencing projects, such as new advancements in computer technology, an unpredictable economy, and the increase in stakeholder involvement make metrics and key performance indicators (KPI) for project management an important focus. Such measures are commonly used to help an organization define and evaluate how successful it is, typically, in terms of making progress towards its long-term organizational goals.

Project Management Metrics, KPIs, and Dashboards helps functional managers gain a thorough understanding of what metrics are and how they can be best implemented to gain traction in a fast-paced and diverse working atmosphere. With content aligned with PMI’s PMBOK® Guide, this book offers extensive coverage on KPIs and how they may be monitored, using techniques such as business dashboards to assist in prescribing meaningful business strategies. After reading this book, functional managers will bolster their awareness of what good metrics management really entails—and be armed with the knowledge to measure performance more effectively.

This book begins with basic KPI principles, helping functional managers deal with such key issues as:

  • Successfully integrating KPIs and metrics into managing a project within a business strategy
  • Important business dashboard techniques used in monitoring performance
  • What is really important to different stakeholders in a project
  • Managing resistance to change

Next the book explores the key questions to ask before implementing a dashboard or reporting system. Some of these questions include:

  • What are your needs?
  • What is involved in integration?
  • What’s involved in operations and maintenance?
  • What does the system cost?
  • How long will the system last?

Throughout the book, helpful illustrations clarify complex concepts and processes. These illustrations are also available as PowerPoint slides for course and seminar presentations.

Recommended Reading

Dashboards for Project Management

Dashboard Topic: Project Deliverable Tracking

In helping someone sort out their requirements document for a project tracking dashboard, I came across this article about Using Dashboards to Define and Communicate Project Status.

Here’s an interesting diagram from that article.

project management dashboards

I’m a bit perplexed about all the arrows.

Here’s some of the explanation:

Recently, I found that I had no place to track and monitor the actual deliverables of a project. What about defining each deliverable item and setting up quantifiable metrics for each, so everyone understands the scope of the project? I wanted to track and display the results of these measures. To me, deliverables are not “create an internal sales system,” but rather “create an internal sales system that reduces administrative time by 10 percent, 20 percent, or 30 percent.” Dashboards gave me a natural place to track and disseminate this crucial project element. Figure A is an example of a dashboard I created for this project. (that’s the above image with the arrows).
With dashboards, the text beneath the symbols represents the manager’s explanation of the project performance. The graphics show projected, quantifiable performance levels for deliverables (quality), resources (cost), and milestones (time). The direction of the arrows indicates whether the project will deliver what was expected within budget and on time.

A red arrow pointing down flags performance that is below what was expected at that particular point in the project. A green arrow pointing up indicates performance has surpassed expectations. A yellow arrow pointing left to right shows performance that has not met some goals but is close to doing so.

So, for example, in this graphic, the green Up arrow indicates that quality is above what was expected, the yellow resources arrow shows that goals have not yet been met but are close, and the red arrow indicates that milestones or deadlines have been missed. The use of red, yellow, and green as color indicators of performance is standard to all dashboard presentations.

Recommended Reading