Internal and external projects produce a vast amount of data. Some of this is through a 'routine' process of executing the project tasks and some through the need to manage individual's work.
We observe that the habitual creation of data often removes the focus on how the data is to be used. For example, a deliverables tracker is updated more often by individual engineers, yet a resulting update to the project plans happens less frequently. This delay in reacting to the information reduces the productivity in a fast pace project environment, veering away from 'active management' to the 'reactive fire-fighting' to resolve the issues.
We know how to handle this situation, moreover how to prevent this situation through appropriate definition of metrics that span across the functions, metrics which are meaningful to all stakeholders and provide prompts to take actions.
Every single project that we deliver, has a written down and agreed project management plan and schedule of milestone deliverables. We also establish meaningful metrics and trackers which align to project context. We structure the trackers such that only meaningful and necessary data is captured. We simplify and automate the process of populating these trackers, so data is realistic and less dependent of the individual’s perceptions. Our metrics are visual pictograms which facilitate the process of understanding the trends, blockers and risks.
Seeing this information provides a common and undisputed understanding of the 'progress' to all stakeholders.
We use visual metrics for all projects that we deliver to our clients. We integrate the review of the performance into our project delivery schedules. Actions necessary to resolve the issues can be easily identified through analysis of the metrics and the ownership can also be clearly defined, so the necessary management actions are taking proactively.
For us seeing is believing, when it comes to 'metrics' driven project delivery!
