In project management, performance measurement is essential to assess the success of all project stages. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) play a vital role in this process, providing project managers with an overview of the progress, effectiveness and impact of these stages.
Project KPIs: how do you achieve them?
Before diving into measuring project performance using KPIs, it's essential to have a clear understanding of project expectations. These expectations serve as the foundation for determining all your project's objectives, expected results and success criteria.
Many organizations set up their own KPI systems. But on the whole, project teams ask themselves the same questions about these indicators:
- Where does the project stand today?
- Did we achieve our objectives?
- Did we deliver the expected deliverables?
- Did we meet the deadline?
- Are we on budget?
Read also: Mastering deadlines for project management - Blue Soft Group (bluesoft-group.com)
Expectations and objectives need to be defined at the outset to provide clear direction, and then appropriate KPIs need to be selected. This will enable all those involved in the project to fill in the dashboards and adapt the strategies.
By following this approach, you can maximize your project's chances of success by ensuring that the objectives set are achieved effectively and efficiently.
To find out more about all the key stages of a project, read this article: What is a project? (bluesoft-group.com)
Risks: do they jeopardize Project KPIs?
Risk management in project management is very important. Risks vary from project to project, ranging from budgetary constraints and unforeseen delays to external factors such as regulatory changes or economic conditions.
Identifying these risks from the outset helps anticipate what can go wrong. And so, it will enable teams to reduce deviations during these unintentional events.
Once these risks have been identified, it's important to keep a close eye on how they evolve throughout the project. KPIs can play a key role in this management, providing key indicators for assessing the likelihood and impact of risks. For example, KPIs such as actual vs. budget or progress vs. schedule can help to detect deviations early and take corrective action where necessary.
To find out more: PMO methods and tools (bluesoft-group.com)
Performance monitoring: how to analyze it?
Performance analysis begins with the collection of relevant data on various aspects of the project, such as costs, deadlines, quality or stakeholder satisfaction, for example. This data is then used to calculate the KPIs that provide indications of the project's progress.
Also worth knowing: The essential roles of the PMO (bluesoft-group.com)
Once these KPIs have been calculated, it's important to interpret them to obtain usable information. This often involves comparing actual performance with targets, identifying deviations and trends, and analyzing the factors that can alter these results.
This step is generally carried out by all members of the project team. For example, if a KPI shows a budget overrun, it may be necessary to identify the causes of this overrun and implement appropriate measures.
This analysis is essential for the project. Thanks to it, the project manager will be able to see directly whether the project has been a success or not.
To find out more about this topic, take a look at our video. Guillaume RAOUL, our project management expert, explains it all: How to measure the success of your projects with KPIs (youtube.com)
