From the course: Data-Driven Project Management: Project Metrics That Matter

Selecting project metrics that matter

From the course: Data-Driven Project Management: Project Metrics That Matter

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Selecting project metrics that matter

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- I don't know about you, but I'm used to thinking about the outputs I need to deliver for my projects. And by output, I mean the interim or ultimate product or service that the project will deliver. But there's a shift in how project success is being measured. Businesses are looking for projects to deliver outcomes, not just outputs. It isn't enough to deliver the end product on time and on budget. Now we need to deliver the intended result or benefit the project was undertaken to produce, and that's an important distinction. Let me give you an example. Let's say we're managing a project for a new community and this community will include multiple neighborhoods and a community clubhouse. If we focus on the clubhouse and we think about the output for the clubhouse, we'd want to make sure it was well-designed, built to code, and large enough to accommodate events and activities. Now let's shift that to say we want to focus on the outcome of building the clubhouse. If we look at resident satisfaction surveys from similar communities, we might see that having thriving community engagement, especially around clubs and activities at the clubhouse increases the draw for new residents and the satisfaction for existing residents. Now we'll focus on what will drive new people to move into the community and keep current residents engaged and happy. Given this focus on the desired outcome, we'll collect different data, make decisions differently, and use different metrics to measure success. This shifts the attention from just a tactical approach to a more strategic or business centric approach. There are several different categories of metrics and key performance indicators, KPIs for projects. A metric is a quantitative assessment used to compare and track project performance. Quantitative measures are numeric and let us analyze data to look at trends. A KPI is a key indicator of progress towards an intended result. For projects, we focus on metrics and KPIs associated with business value, work, schedule, cost, resources, and risk. We can look at measures that show past performance, current status and forecasts. Most of the measures we'll look at are quantitative. With quantitative measures, we usually set thresholds to indicate acceptable performance, such as within 5% of target, performance that's at risk within five to 10% of target, and unacceptable performance like more than 10% variance. There are also some really important qualitative measures that we'll look at. Qualitative measures let us look at data that isn't numeric, but it's still really important. Measures for things like team morale, team turnover and stakeholder satisfaction are as important to assess as schedule and cost data. All projects can and should use data and metrics to make decisions and stay on track. Taking a data-driven approach on projects of all sizes can improve your outcomes.

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