Project Scorecard

I found this document in my inventory of Project Management templates. I apologize that I can't credit the original author. If someone knows who created this template let me know and I will edit this post and include the author's name.

Project Scorecard Overview

1. 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. This might 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 here include completing the project within approved budget and timeline, ensuring your deliverables meet approved quality criteria and customer satisfaction surveys.

2. Assign potential metrics. Identify potential metrics for each success criteria that provide an indication whether or not the criteria is 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.

3. 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
• Customer satisfaction with the deliverables produced
• Project team performance
• Business value delivered

4. 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.

5. 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 need to be +/- 10% of approved budget.

6. Add workplan detail: For each metric that remains, determine the specific information necessary to add the appropriate activities to the project workplan. This will 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)?

Note: Define your success criteria upfront and get project sponsor sign-off.

Why Is My Project Late?

Design Changes – Design changes during project execution almost always cause delays and impacts to your budget. Once the Scope document has been signed, any changes to the design need to go through your Scope Change Request Process.

Skill Sets – When planning, assumptions are made regarding people's skills. Sometimes these assumptions turn out to be wrong. Also, you will usually have people on your team who are new or are less experienced. These new or lower skilled workers won't be as productive or effective as higher skilled workers. Make sure your project plan has accounted for skill levels.

Unplanned Work or Workarounds – Many times changes must be made to the sequence of planned work. These changes can impact time, cost, budget, and quality. Think about these risks up front and discuss what if any workarounds will be used.

Rework – Rework happens; it is part of project management. Ensure your project plan accounts for rework.

Team Morale – Turnover, project conflict, sick time, vacations all can wreak havoc with your schedule and budget; plan for these things. A happy team is a productive team. Ensure your team is working towards a common goal and not working against each other. Remove disruptive team members from your project if their behavior can't be changed.

Schedules – Trying to do too much in too little time will result in delays. Once you get behind it is very difficult to catch up. Your project will have delays. You need to have contingency plans to get back on track quickly.

Work Environment – Ensure that your team has a proper workspace. Cramming people into poorly designed work spaces will lower productivity.

Tools – Ensure your team has the right tools to do the job. Having the right tool, but not getting into the teams hands at the right time will cause delays in your schedule.

Project Manager Overload – Too many people on a project team without the proper management oversight can cause major problems for the project manager.

Overtime – Adding hours to people's schedules in order to make a deadline will usually do nothing but increase your budget. Adding overtime rarely results in getting a late project back on track.

Executive – Executive apathy can kill your project. People are usually not going to make your project a priority if their boss isn't willing to tell them it is important.

Plan for the above "risks" and you will start to bring your projects in faster, cheaper, with higher quality.

Leadership Principles That Transform

The organization I work for came up with a set of principles to guide the organization in the area of leadership. We all know that successful project managers are effective leaders.

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Leaders are charged with transforming our organization into a more flexible, responsive and efficient high performing organization by fostering a climate which will encourage active involvement by all:

a. Instill the culture of high performance through all in our community. (Accountability)

b. Share my understanding and assist others to elevate their understanding of our commonly held leadership philosophy. (Cooperation and Teamwork)

c. Continually seek and remain open to new possibilities (Innovation)

d. Work to improve the quality of life of our community through collaboration. (Trust and Integrity)

e. Actively pursue the realization of our collective vision and be held accountable for our actions and leadership in shaping our future. (Clarity of Direction)

f. Embrace confronting the unsaid in our conversations. While maintaining a bias for action, we acknowledge the need for patience as we work to improve our performance (Honesty and Integrity)

g. Value a sense of urgency and maintain a focus on achieving results at the pace possible rather than the pace expected. (Effectiveness)

h. Encourage the celebration of our results. (Rewards and Recognition)

i. Support and create talent networks that value and celebrate diversity with a holistic view that leads us to results. (Cooperation and Teamwork)

j. Empower and mentor all to be innovative and take risks. (Inspiration and Empowerment)

k. Be fearless in the pursuit of our vision. (Clarity of Direction)

Teamwork, Common Goals, and Leadership at all levels will result in success.