In the world of metrics, it is critical for a program management office to focus on critical measures for governance or steering committee. Which each project can focus on EVM measures, WIP, velocity or the burn rate depending on the project, not all these metrics are relevant to the sponsor or the senior executives. As the head of the Program Management Office, I provided monthly updates through my program management office portal, but I worked with the senior executives on exactly what types of metrics were relevant at a governance meeting for decision-making!
Eliminating some of the proprietary information given below is what I negotiated and agreed upon with the senior executives.
- % of completed projects delivered ahead of schedule for a specific date range.
- Computing the following for every In Progress project in each date range using (Actual Finish – Baseline Finish) / Duration delivered projects ahead of schedule despite the delays.
- Show in percentage the number of projects ahead of schedule (negative slip) and behind schedule (positive variance) in relation to the total # of In Progress projects.
- Launch Measure: Schedule lip from "Actual Deploy Finish" from the original "Baseline Finish"
- This measures details on the slip. Compared with the phases that slipped, the major contributors for delays are analyzed using DELAY tasks.
- If all resources are using proper resource guidelines, then, the slip can be computed as :(Actual Finish – Baseline Finish – DELAYS) / (Total Project Duration).
- % of healthy and unhealthy Projects
- This measures what projects need attention for scope creep, schedule sleep, budget overrun.
- Enforcing the color codes as an indicator, % of projects that have all the three constraints in green compared to the number of projects in progress.
- A project that has any one component red is marked red.
- A project that has no red issue, but any one component yellow is marked yellow.
- A Project that has all the constraints green from all members is marked green.
- Critical Risks and Operational Issues
- Measured across the programs based on production issues impacting client satisfaction and business objectives
- Evaluates which program or project level risks materialized that required attendance or what new issues caused the operational challenges
- Discussion points should involve RCA on each issue from both corrective and preventive action
The Senior Executives could always get these reports within a day's lead time and the PMO continued to be effectively running with these metrics. No surprises to any program or project managers as well as the product and operations managers.
