Project Management KPI Examples and Metrics Categories
In today’s business environment project management practices has become more and more commonplace. Managers and executives have come to rely on it immensely when executing a project in their organization. Project management is basically the managing of a project through planning, directing and controlling to ensure that it’s successful.
Therefore, if you should dissect an organization’s day to day operations. You can see that almost every day there is a different project to manage. As simple as setting a sales goal and having a plan to achieve that objective is a project. Having a set plan to recruit the best workers into your organization is a project.
Project management can be thought of as the organizing of everything that goes into achieving a project. For most organizations the project management’s processes are usually different. It all depends on the situation and complexity of the project.
What are the different areas of project management?
As stated before when it comes on to project management most organization’s processes can be different. However, you do have some core characteristics that are used in most organizations for project management. Examples of this would be, setting a project management plan, managing the financial aspect of a project. Evaluating and managing the risk that is involved in doing a project is also another characteristic.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are also another tool you could use and integrate into your project management process.
It would help you to keep track of the key metrics that matter most to ensure that the project runs smoothly.
Examples of good project management key performance indicators are:
Labor cost spent
For most projects there is always going to be a set budget. Labor cost spent helps you to keep track of the different labor cost that goes into a certain project. This will ensure that you are not over spending on the project. How do I measure it? Well you can measure it monthly, weekly or in 3 month period. It’s all up to you and your organizations preferences. This will help you to not overspend on a certain project.
Return on investment
This key performance indicator is really important. It helps you to track your returns on investment on a certain project. This will help you keep track of your cash returns to ensure that your money was spent properly.
Progress
Tracking the progress of a project is also another important metric. It will help you to see if everything is heading in the right direction. Examples of this would include labor, warehousing, sales processes etc.
Productivity
When measuring productivity it varies by organization and the project. For some projects it may be the productivity of the different machines on the production line. For others it may be the productivity of the employees.
For example when measuring the productivity of your employees on a certain project. You can measure how many hours they’ve worked and what kind of goal they’ve reached in that period. This will help you to see how productive they’ve been and if they are hitting certain important milestones.
Schedule
Keeping track of the schedule to ensure that the project is finished before its deadline; is another important metric. It will help you to evaluate if everything is on track to meet the deadline. It will also help you to spot inefficiencies within the different processes. So that you can develop plans to make it run more efficiently.
In summary by looking at the examples, you can see that project management KPIs can be useful when managing projects. It helps you to put different metrics in place to spot inefficiencies within your project. These information can then be evaluated with your team to ensure your project runs smoothly.
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