Metrics is a key word in the lifecycle of project management. That everyone knows. Also, it is a well known fact that one cannot manage unless one knows how to measure.
In most of the project management life cycles we come across operational metrics like schedule variance, effort variance etc. It is more defined by an organisation’s quality group rather than the project team. Yes, the project teams do collect these operational metrics and submit to the quality group for their analysis, reporting and collating. But, it is driven more from the standardisation point of view rather than from specific project perspective.
There is no doubt that metrics collection, analysis and improvement action plan are critical for a project’s success and organisation learning. However, to be effective and meaningful in a competitive environment, metrics should be treated as an important knowledge asset within the organisation’s culture.
Culture is the foremost platform for an effective measurement system, There should be acceptance by the project team on ‘what to measure’, ‘how to measure’, ‘when to measure’ and most important ‘why to measure’.
Most often, the team loses sight of ‘why to measure’.
Questions should be asked as to what is the most important measurement for assessing the project’s success. It can be broken down in two areas:
(a) Project Stakeholders’ view point
(b) Organisation’s view point
Project Stakeholders’ view point: Success can be attributed to expectations (time, quality, effort, cost) and aspirations i.e. end users’ delight (from survey), time to learn new system, business improvements (time, process simplicity, cost/revenue), easy to change & maintain.
Organisation’s view point: Learnings which can be smartly applied to future projects like reusable components, estimates vs. actual, skills developed, artefacts created etc.
Last but not the least is the importance of storing these metrics in a way so that they can be easily retrieved by anyone in the organisation.
To end I should stress that a culture supported by smart tools for effective metrics collection and retrieval is the competitive edge among the project organisations.
In most of the project management life cycles we come across operational metrics like schedule variance, effort variance etc. It is more defined by an organisation’s quality group rather than the project team. Yes, the project teams do collect these operational metrics and submit to the quality group for their analysis, reporting and collating. But, it is driven more from the standardisation point of view rather than from specific project perspective.
There is no doubt that metrics collection, analysis and improvement action plan are critical for a project’s success and organisation learning. However, to be effective and meaningful in a competitive environment, metrics should be treated as an important knowledge asset within the organisation’s culture.
Culture is the foremost platform for an effective measurement system, There should be acceptance by the project team on ‘what to measure’, ‘how to measure’, ‘when to measure’ and most important ‘why to measure’.
Most often, the team loses sight of ‘why to measure’.
Questions should be asked as to what is the most important measurement for assessing the project’s success. It can be broken down in two areas:
(a) Project Stakeholders’ view point
(b) Organisation’s view point
Project Stakeholders’ view point: Success can be attributed to expectations (time, quality, effort, cost) and aspirations i.e. end users’ delight (from survey), time to learn new system, business improvements (time, process simplicity, cost/revenue), easy to change & maintain.
Organisation’s view point: Learnings which can be smartly applied to future projects like reusable components, estimates vs. actual, skills developed, artefacts created etc.
Last but not the least is the importance of storing these metrics in a way so that they can be easily retrieved by anyone in the organisation.
To end I should stress that a culture supported by smart tools for effective metrics collection and retrieval is the competitive edge among the project organisations.
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