Recap of Presentations: Program &Project Management Metrics (Chicago, March 2001)

3Ms of Project Management Performance (Mel Schnapper)

• Common language needed
• Goals are directional (improve, reduce, etc.)
• A metric can be qualitative or quantitative
• No more than 5 key results areas
• Think in terms of what you get paid for
• Measure, Manage, Magnify
• Alignment

The 90% Syndrome: A Metrics Solution (Greg Githens)

• Recognize the causes of the 90% Syndrome
• B-M-A-C
• Count Starts and Finishes
• Keep it simple and finite
• Actual versus planned
• Compute an index
• Use metrics for improvement
• Team ownership of performance - not a club

Aligning Project Management Metrics With Business Strategy (Jim Cowan)

• Important role of senior leadership
• Money flows to projects that tie to strategy
• People have different strategies
• Understand the portfolio structure
• Tactical measures of success
• Cycle time
• Investment
• Resource commitment and utilization

Networking Luncheon

Communicating with the Powerful

• Keep it simple
• Outline progress to date
• Outline key issues/concerns
• Tell them what you need for them to do
• They have needs, too

Best Practices in Applying Project Management Metrics (Kevin Conley)

• CAP-M: Capture, Analyze, Present - Manage
• Metrics need context to have meaning
• Boredom: a failure to make relationships
• The past is behind us - managers are responsible for future performance
• Getting started
• From what you already have
• Find a critical issue. Tell a story

Using the Balanced Scorecard to Measure Corporate Strategy in Action (Paula Spinner)

• Stage 1: Mobilize Leadership
• Stage 2: Develop Architecture
• Stage 3: Link and align the parts
• Stage 4: Map the initiatives
• Stage 5: Roll out and cascade throughout the organization
• Stage 6: Improve the strategy

Interactive Session: Metrics At Work (Larry Lambertsen)

• Lots of frustration: "I thought there was a master list!"
• There many fragmented lists available
• gap between rhetoric and current capability
• gap between "best" and the "not best"
• Data will be summarized and returned to you

Best Practices in Project Metrics (Mark Mullaly)

• Framework: process, progress, completion, outcomes
• Lots of data from 4 years of comparative studies of projects across the lifecycle
• Insights:
• You don’t have to be at Level 5
• You do want to emphasize improvement

Measurements of Project Size and Health (Stanley Cutler )

• The essential thing is attention, not measurement!
• Diagnostic focus - do a health check
• Stakeholder commitment
• Business benefits
• Work and schedule predicted
• Scope is realistic
• Time high performance
• Risk mitigated
• Delivery organization benefits realized
• Put into a status report
• red/green/yellow

Using Metrics to Demonstrate the Value of Project Management
(Susan O’Hara and Ginger Levin )

• Measurement program design:
• Who? - Stakeholders influence and importance, to
• What do you want the metrics to tell you? - Purpose
• What satisfies the purpose? - Metric
• How are the metrics produced? - Measures
• Characteristics of metrics: Improvement, Performance, Stability, Capability, and Compliance
• Examples: Performance Metrics, Stability Metrics, Compliance Metrics
• Two key criteria: Communication and repeatability

Developing and Tracking a Well Balanced R&D Portfolio (Val Livada)

• Many enablers of innovation performance
• Effectiveness is doing the right thing, and efficiency is doing things right
• Many metric misconceptions:
• a very sophisticated metric that answers all questions must exist
• measuring is too difficult and probably counterproductive
• R&D people don’t like to be measured
• other companies must know what they’re doing.
• There are many metrics. Define them along a strategic dimension, e.g., predictive and reactive, internal and market facing

Web Based Benchmarking for Project Management (Michelle Rolloff)

• Organizations develop maturity in processes
• There are measurable differences between the average and best in class (bottom line correlation)
• Implications
• Training in risk management
• Improve effectiveness of reviews
• Measure cross functional effectiveness
• Treat derivative projects different than major innovations

Measuring Project & Program Management at Cargill (Joel Way)

• It’s about changing people and organizational behaviors: it ain’t easy. Example metrics of change provided.
• 3 Pronged efforts
• Standard PM methods
• Skill building
• Making PM a core competency
• Estimating cumulative savings
• Using an analogous estimating approach, quantified a $60 million opportunity
• Doing the analysis solidified executive sponsorship

Identifying Project Management Measurement Best Practices
(Steve Neuendorf)

• Benchmarking
• benchmarks, best practices, process that create outcomes, process redesign
• Abuses: "Simplistic league tables, talking shops, confusion, and commitment"
• Communities of practice - a knowledge network - based on trust
• Changes in approach and deployment

Project Metrics "Ask the Expert" Panel

QUESTION: WHAT SHOULD A CONFERENCE PARTICIPANT DO TO GET STARTED WITH METRICS?

• Reflect. Look for nuggets
• Don’t blame lack of mgmt support. Assess what you do to add value
• Get a clear statement of "What’s the problem?" Communicate.
• Look for experiences. Success and failures
• Get my agenda to link to executive’s agenda