Capturing metrics that will provide information on the quality of the deliverables and the processes used to create the deliverables. The following process can be used to come up with the appropriate metrics on the project. This process will result in the creation of a Project Scorecard. 
- Identify criteria for success. Review the objectives and deliverables in the Project Definition, as well as any other existing information that is relevant to the project. Based on this existing documentation, define what information is needed to show that the project was successful. This can be from two perspectives:
- Internal – These characteristics indicate that the project was managed and executed effectively and efficiently. These types of metrics include having deliverables approved with no more than two review iterations, hitting major internal milestone dates on time, and having a minimum amount of errors uncovered in user acceptance testing.
- External – These characteristics indicate that your project objectives were completed successfully. Examples of externally focused metrics include completing the project within approved budget and timeline, ensuring your deliverables meet approved quality criteria, and validating that the deliverables meet client expectations.
- Assign potential metrics. Identify potential metrics for each of the success criteria that provide an indication of whether the success criteria are being achieved. These can be direct, quantifiable metrics, or indirect metrics that give a sense for success criteria. For each metric, briefly determine how you would collect the information, what the effort and cost of collection would be, and what value would be obtained.
- Look for a balance. The potential list of metrics should be placed into categories to make sure that they provide a balanced view of the project. For instance, you do not want to end up with only a set of financial metrics, even though they might be easiest to obtain. In general, look for metrics that provide information in the areas such as:
- Cost
- Effort
- Duration
- Productivity
- Quality of deliverables
- Client satisfaction with the deliverables produced
- Project team performance
- Business value delivered
- Prioritize the balanced list of metrics : Depending on how many metrics you have identified, prioritize the list to include only those that have the least cost to collect and provide the most value to the project. There can certainly be as many metrics collected as make sense for the project, but there may end up being no more than one or two per category. In general, look to provide the most information with the least amount of work.
- Set targets : The raw metric may be of some interest, but the measure of success comes from comparing your actuals against a predefined target. The target may be a single value you are trying to achieve, or it may be a range. For instance, you may need to complete your project by a certain fixed date, but your actual cost might have flexibility to be within +/- 10% of approved budget.
- Add workplan detail : For each metric that remains, determine the specific activities necessary to collect and analyze the information. These activities are then added to the project workplan . This information needs to include:
- What specific data is needed for the metrics?
- Who is responsible for collecting the metric?
- When will the metric be collected and reported?
- How will the metrics be reported (status reports, quarterly meetings, metrics reports)?
- Collect and improve: The metrics will be collected on an ongoing basis throughout the project. The metrics need to be analyzed and compared to the target numbers. Process changes may need to be made based on the results of the metrics. In addition to the absolute values of each metric, it is also important to look at the trends. For instance, you may be overbudget versus your target. However, over a series of months, the trend may show that you will hit your budget at the end of the project. In that case, no corrective action may be needed.Likewise, you may have a target for client satisfaction to be a rating of four on a five-point scale. Your current rating may be a 4.1. However, if the prior ratings were 4.5, 4.3 and 4.2, then the trend is going in the wrong direction and you may want to make changes – even though you are actually above target today.
- Analyze scorecard . Evaluate the metrics you are collecting on a monthly basis to ensure they still accurately reflect the overall project status, and that they are driving the behaviors desired. If they are not, make changes as appropriate.
Content from Ten Step Project Management
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