How to Define Success with a Project KPI Dashboard
At the core of a project-based firm’s business is the need to monitor the progress of your projects. As Project Manager’s we are busy and we need quick, real-time information to help us steer our projects. Just as a dashboard in a boat identifies and provides feedback regarding the status of our voyage – the speed, the wind angle, the wind force, and the navigational direction – a dashboard can provide the same information about your project.
Specifically, a project KPI dashboard can examine some simple indicators that allow a project manager to gauge which project(s) need more attention. They should be examined on a regular basis.
What Project KPIs should I be looking at?
- Accounts Receivable - Overdue AR can be a warning sign for many problems including: client dissatisfaction, overall project communication issues, and client insolvency (they can’t pay us if they have no money. . . should we be loaning them more money?). Make sure your AR is in line with a Summary AR Dashboard Part and one for each individual project. We recommend examining this Project KPI at least twice every billing cycle.
Tip to Think About: What is my outstanding AR? Not only the amount, but how many days out is it?
- Unbilled Labor – A large amount of unbilled labor is a serious risk not only to the project, but to general firm cash flow. The company cannot get paid for it if it doesn’t get billed. A Project Manager should monitor this Project KPI closely all the time, but especially after invoicing. Make sure to avoid carrying large amounts of unbilled labor from billing cycle to billing cycle.
Tip to Think About: How much labor is sitting on my project that has not been marked as billed? In other words, have I been billing my project progress correctly?
- Estimated to Complete (ETC) and/or Estimate at Completion (EAC) – These schedule based measures will help you determine not only if you are on budget, but if you will finish the project within the overall budget as well. Compare the EAC to the overall budget and if it is greater, you may decide to either reduce future expenditures or accept the fact that you going to be over budget.
Tip to Think About: How much more do I need to finish this Project?
When over budget, confirm that you didn’t forget to send out additional services contracts.
- Summary Key Performance Indicators - Above the project level, the measures are usually about Net Revenue, Utilization and Backlog. By putting these Project KPIs on your Dashboard, you can improve your performance and make your boss look good too.
Tip to Think About: What is your Boss being measured on? How can you manage your projects better with the use of Project KPIs to improve those Summary Key Performance Indicators?

But it’s not just the act of measuring – it’s measuring the RIGHT things and then utilizing what was learned from the results. When trying to improve the performance and evaluation of your team or team members, what should be measured (and how) become critical questions. 

In today’s day and age of fast changing technology, firms must stay abreast of all available solutions to better compete with competition, and win work. Since the ‘great recession’ of 2009, competition on winning work has increased exponentially. Successful firms have combated this increased competition by staying current with technology, and using well thought out techniques to win projects. Included below are five tips that will help your firm better impress clients, and ultimately win more work.
1. Make it Comfortable.
So, you’ve heard about the new Vision Unleashed, Deltek Touch Time and CRM mobile applications and want your smartphone users to be able to utilize these applications to access Vision offsite. Perhaps you like the idea of your Vision users having the ability to work from home or abroad or maybe you think the new Navigator interface would be really helpful for project managers out in the field. However, you feel opening up Vision access from the web sounds kind of scary and you have questions. Is it safe? Is it expensive to set up? Is it hard to configure? 




When evaluating if engaging a consultant on a custom programming effort makes sense for your firm, here are some key questions to ask your internal team:
In my day-to-day conversations with companies I am often discussing IT support issues surrounding their firms’ backup plan for their firms’ key financial and marketing data. As I speak to these firms I inquire about steps they are taking to protect this critical data. I often pose this simple question “How long could your firm survive without access to this critical data?” Most firms indicate that they could not afford to be without access to this data for more than a day or two. Yet most have not taken precautions to have a 1-2 day restoration plan/ disaster recovery plan. In many cases these IT support issues seem to be a direct correlation to the firms’ reduction in IT support staff (internal & external) over the last several years. In many of these discussions it is often discovered that there is no backup plan for the firm’s critical data, no testing of backups to verify the integrity of the backups and no off-site backup storage. Two fairly typical conversations have occurred over the last couple months (names omitted to protect the guilty).