Project Measurements

So let's say your interested in measuring the performance of your project. How do you go about this? Do you go for a plain vanilla measurement set; measuring quality, time, cost, and scope? Or do you get a bit more creative and measure team effectiveness, management effectiveness, and project process compliance (risk management, change control, phase closures, lessons learned.. etc).

The altruistic reason to measure performance is so you can do something about it before it is too late. Therefore adopting measures that indicate outcomes of a process will likely be ineffective. These are sometimes referred to as lagging measures. If you want to do something about a process before it is too late, then your going to be in a better position to do so by adopting leading measures. Leading measures look at the process while it is still active. As project managers you recall the control chart (run charts). This is an example of a measurement system designed to provide in process measurements.

So if your considering adopting a project measurement system, consider then that projects get behind one day at a time; and your measurement system needs to be dynamic so that it can give you the timely information required to steer the project back on track.