We have a relatively new PMO group but have had a Project Management Methodology in place for some time now. We are mandating many of the disciplines that we have defined as deliverables within our PMO. These include a BNA (Business Needs Assessment), BRD (Business Requirements Document), SRD (Systems Requirements Docuement), Risk Assessment Document, Budget Worksheet, Solution Alternative Document, Project Org Chart and Project Planning. We are also requiring a PIR (Post Implementation Review) be conducted at the end of each project.
What our group would like to measure is how effective we (the PMO)are in these areas. We want a way to measure our contributions and performance in these areas objectively by defining at a macro level a set of 3 or 4 KPI's. (e.g. Variance between actuals and forecast dollars < 10%).
These KPI's would then help us address how our disciplines as an orgnization and behaviors can be altered/changed to address issues and to be more effective.
Does anyone know if there are any standard KPI's out there that can be followed that tie back to Project and Resource Management or whether there are any books or websites I can look at in helping me define these for our organization? Any advise would be appreciated.
I am in the same process as you were and would be glad to read more about the following topics:
- PMO objectives
- how to measure (unit) objectives achievement
- KPI for PMO
- KPI for projects
- PMO dashboard (layout, content)
Thank you in advance for your help
Jean-Paul
Saving Changes...
Ian WhittinghamManaging Director| Calixo ConsultingGolden Cross, East Sussex, United Kingdom
In my company the PMO tracks the following KPIs in its portfolio dashboard: Schedule, Budget, Resources, Risks and Changes. The overall portfolio performance is tracked on the basis of variance against two key phase gate delivery milestones and time spent in project definition (forecast versus actual). Thresholds are set across all projects, based on historical performance of similar projects, against which portfolio variance is measured. The focus of these three measures is TTM (i.e. realizing the business benefit of the project investment on time, to budget and agreed scope) and the reason why those particular KPIs are tracked is that they most clearly influence and determine project execution and outcome, and (more obviously) account for specific project variance across the total portfolio. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
I've been using a very useful little book quite successfully in the two PMO's I've worked in over the past year - "Advanced Project Portfolio Management and the PMO: Multiplying ROI at Warp speed". I'm not saying that this is the be all and end all solution to PMO KPI's but it's a very good place to start. Another book I've found quite useful is "The Goal".
I spent a significant amount of time helping to set up a PMO in a telco and am well aware of the issues around PMO KPI measurements. Not all measurements fit all PMO's as every one is different, but some of the measures we used were:
Project scheduling - we measured how many projects had slipped their end date in each reporting period (monthly). To make this more PMO meaningful and a metric, we measured how many hours we had mentored each project and compared this against which projects had shown slippage. It's hard to make this particularly meaningful but does give you an indicator if you've been spending PMO time in the right places.
Budget vs. Actual: The PMO often cannot directly influence the budget (depending on the model), however the portfolio budget summary can be very useful to see what the trend is across the PMO. Our measure was solely based on the portfolio as that was our total responsiblity.
Risk Management: we directly managed the portfolio interdependencies and subsequently the resourcing bottlenecks within the company. This was an intangible benefit, but due to the visibility this provided to the sponsorship group it was worked in with our KPI's.
In our dashboard we represented all the KPI's along with the following:
Programme View: how each of the projects rolled up into the programmes within the PMO
Sponsor Alignment: which sponsors owned the projects and as a result the sponsoring business unit alignment. This is quite a good use of your dashboard if you are having sponsorship issues. In addition if you use this in conjunction with the project timeline slip (from metrics) it can be a very powerful tool for the PMO.
Strategic Alignment: where the projects fit into the company strategy.
My advice to PMO's:
Be careful with your metrics. It can be very easy to double count your measures in more than one metric.
It's okay to only have a few KPI's/metrics. It's much better to have accurate tangible KPI's/metrics than it is to have fluffy intangible ones. Saving Changes...
Our PMO is being challenged by Management to compare to benchmark metrics - such as a combined survey of other organizations. Something like - Of 500 organizations, 80% met their project dates on schedule. We are currently using a survey from InterThink, and it's been challenged, as not having enough organizations included in the survey.
Does anyone know of a project management metrics survey like this? We have tried challenging management that we'd rather measure against baseline, or past performance, etc., but they seem fixed on looking outside. Saving Changes...
Hi Wendy
A benchmarking community in Australia looked at your question, I guess around three years ago now and I still have the rudimentary tools we produced to set up such a benchmark framework. The issue is, agreeing on the benckamr elements, collecting the data in a similar way, agreeing to share, and (frankly) kicking off and maintaining the data partners. But it is possible. I don't know of any public domain that contains reliable data at the moment though.
On the more positive side, it is perfectly possible to benchmark through project management maturity reviews, and this is a special interest of mine. It takes a slightly more strategic view of organisational PM performance data, but gives some interesting results. (David Hudson) Saving Changes...
KPI would vary based on the nature of your business centre. If your unit is 'Responsibility Centre', then primarily you have track schedule, but in the case of 'Cost Centre' you have to track more, like schedule, cost, resource utilization, customer satisfaction, number of escalations, risk occurrences etc.
Along with the KPIs stated above, the business units can identify the KPIs which needs to measured/monitored to align with its strategy/goal, for example, if you have yearly target on number of innovations / patterns , obviously this will become a KPI needs to be appear in your monthly dashboard.
What you measure, what you want to improve / control -- this statement helps you to choose your appropriate KPIs for either your projects, PMO or business orgs.
For any more clarity, contact me @ [email protected] Saving Changes...
