How to create a Project Dashboard ?

Every Manager needs a dashboard, and every Program Manager needs a project dashboard, so he can view in an instance what projects are running good, and what projects need corrections.

Ofcourse you can build something like that in SharePoint, with nice KPI’s, but that is quite easy, so you dont need me to tell you that! (here, here and here)

So what questions do you want to pose to your Project Manager in order to have a good overview on the project? (aka the data to fill in your KPI)

Financial
1. Is the project within budget?
2. Are there no setbacks?
3. Do you expect any setbacks?

Planning
1. Is the project on schedule?
2. Do you have adequate people on the project?
3. Are the necessary specialists available?
4. Are there enough resources?
5. Will the project meet the deadline?

Architecture
1. Do you have a Project Initation document?
2. Do you meet the current standards?
3. Are there any architectural changes?
4. Do you have a permit?

Project Result
1. Does the project meet the demands?
2. Is the project adequatly documented?
3. Is the implementation arranged?
4. Do you have governance?
5. Does the project meet all the conditions?

For these 4 items you can implement a Likert-schale (or just a number from 1 – 10)and you will get a number as your current value. Add a target value, and your KPI’s are complete.

Ofcourse you can add other questions as well, I look forward in hearing your thoughts and options on this!

About: Marijn

Marijn Somers (MVP) has over 14 years experience in the SharePoint world, starting out with SP2007. Over the years the focus has grown to Office 365, with a focus on collaboration and document management. He is a business consultant at Balestra and Principal Content Provider for "Mijn 365 Coach" that offers dutch employee video training. His main work tracks are around user adoption, training and coaching and governance. He is also not afraid to dig deeper in the technicalities with PowerShell, adaptive cards or custom formatting in lists and libraries. You can listen to him on the biweekly "Office 365 Distilled" podcast.