Knowing the project management KPIs you absolutely need to track and how to measure them is key to every project’s success. From cost and planning project KPIs to time and quality metrics, these are the top 20 key success factors every project manager needs to measure success — and we show you exactly how to measure them.
What are Key Performance Indicators in Project Management?
Here’s the best way to define project management KPIs: A KPI is a quantifiable measure used to evaluate a project’s success, both in its final outcomes and in its execution.
A Key Performance Indicator serves as a clear, standardized, simplified snapshot or view of a given business process or undertaking at a single point in time.
A project KPI helps project managers gain greater control over their projects, insight into their team’s operations, and successfully ensure projects are completed on time and within budget.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Project KPIs
Follow these project management KPI tips for the best results:
KPIs for project management are essential in guiding decision-making, but to be effective, they must line up with the company’s or project’s strategic goals.
As a project manager, you must think carefully about which KPIs make the most sense for your project and, in some cases, how to measure progress.
KPIs are only accurate and effective when data is collected diligently and precisely. Assign KPIs to specific stakeholders or project team members and make them accountable for those metrics.
While figures related to dollar amounts are easy to calculate and compare, qualitative feedback gathered from team members, customers, and stakeholders through regular check-ins, retrospectives, forms, surveys, and even behavior offers valuable insights into project management.
All the KPIs given below can be “normalized” by dividing the result of the calculation by a company-wide average. This can offer tremendous insight and helpful context to project managers and those who sit above them.
The insights KPIs unveil in project management are usually most apparent when visualized as a graph or chart. You can use business management software to create compelling, informative visualizations to ensure you meet your strategic objectives.
20 Key Project Management KPIs: Overview
Here’s an overview of the 20 key project management KPIs we’ll be covering in some more depth in the sections to follow:
- Budget Creation or Revision Cycle Time
- Project Charter Approval Time
- Resource Allocation Efficiency
- Risk Identification
- Planned Value, Earned Value, and Actual Cost
- Schedule Variance
- Budget or Cost Variance
- Cost and Schedule Performance Index
- Profitability Index
- Return on Investment
- Stakeholder Satisfaction
- Stakeholder Engagement
- Employee or Team Churn Rate
- Cycle Time
- On-Time Completion Percentage (tasks, milestones)
- FTE Days vs Calendar Days
- Number of Errors
- Quality Control Rating
- Customer Satisfaction
- Churn Rate
Planning KPIs
When it comes to project management KPIs, here are the key ones worth tracking and how you’d go about doing it as a project manager:
Cost KPIs
First, let’s start with some basic measurements, known as Planned Value (PV), Earned Value (EV), and a project’s Actual Cost (AC). These financial KPIs don’t provide much insight on their own.
However, we can compare them to obtain other important project KPIs, such as Schedule Variance (SV) and Cost Variance (CV), which we’ll see below.
Stakeholder KPIs
Managing stakeholders is among the most common project management challenges faced by PMs. These are the key project management KPIs you’ll want to ensure you’re using in 2024 when it comes to your project stakeholders:
Time KPIs
Time is money. Here are the key KPIs for project management related to time and how to measure them yourself:
Quality KPIs
Tracking project KPIs related to quality is vital to meeting your project goals. Here are the key ones and how you can measure them:
Conclusion
Navigating the complexities of project management demands not only skill and dedication but also a clear understanding of one’s position at all times.
This is the power of Key Performance Indicators—they offer project managers a lens through which to view a project’s health, guiding them toward informed decisions and strategic improvements.
By embracing these 20 KPIs, you’re not just tracking numbers; you’re honing a pathway to success.
Read More:
- The 5 Phases of Project Management Explained
- Understanding the Different Project Management Methodologies
- 50+ Key Project Management Statistics to Know in 2024
- 7 Project Management Best Practices You Need to Know in 2024
FAQs
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References
- Profitability Index Calculator (Good Calculators)
- What is Full-Time Equivalent (FTE)? (Indeed)
- What is Budgeted Cost for Work Performed? (DAU)
- What is Schedule Performance Index? (DAU)