Project Performance Measurement Metrics
The broad objectives of the work of any project manager are the delivery of a project on time, within budget, and within the quality criteria. These objectives provide the basis for the development of performance measurement metrics for any project. The following five metrics will be applied to the performance measurement of the Xemba Translations Project.
The first metric is the measurement of the budgeted cost of labor versus actual cost of labor. While general metric dealing with all costs would still provide some information, the nature of labor in this project calls for proper accounting for its use. The human resource for this project came with a price tag. The hourly pay model gives a clear indication of what it costs the company to motivate human resource commitement to the project.
The measurement for this metric will be the number of hours billed versus the number of hours in the project plan. The project will be performing poorly if the budgeted hours are less than the hours actually used in the project for the designated work packages.
The second metric is similar to the first one, although it is related to the cost of acquisitions. It measures the budgeted versus the actual cost of acquisitions. This metric needs monitoring because of the expected increase in the cost of acquisitions. This expectation arose from the realization that the company will need twelve more computers to complete the project.
The measurement of the metric will be similar to the method used to measure staff performance. This is the calculation of the money actually spent on acquisitions versus the money budgeted. If more money goes to the acquisitions compared to the money in the budget for that purpose, then the project will be off budget.
The third metric to be used in the measurement of project performance will be the variance between the scheduled versus the actual time spent on the activities of the project.
The deadline for the project is the beginning of the third quota. A failure to keep time will have consequences for the company’s operations. This measure will come from the Gantt charts for the project, which show the amount of time needed to complete the project.
A related metric will be the task completion rate. This metric will combine the Gantt chart values with time indicators to determine whether the project stakeholders are handling their tasks as planned. The task completion rate will help determine whether the pace of the project at any time is commensurate to the targets set to complete these tasks.
This metric, calculated weekly, will give a value indicating the pace of the project. The project is currently behind schedule and there is need to monitor the daily progress of the tasks to ensure that everything ends on time.
The task completion rate will provide the basis for making conclusions about any discrepancies in the delivery of work packages. It is essential to complete the project on time, which is before the third quarter.
The reason why the work packages are important to measure is that they provide critical information for reporting the progress of the project to all stakeholders. The completion of any work package constitutes a project milestone. The calculation for this metric will rely on time.
Justification of Metrics
The need to deliver the project on time and within budget informed the decisions that guided the choice of metrics for performance measurement for the project. The five metrics deal with time management or financial management.
The justification for the using labor expenses as a metric for the project is as follows. First, the company committed some employees and contract workers to work on the project. The company bills the project for the time the employees and contract workers spend working on the project.
Secondly, the time that the members of staff spend working on project reduces the overall project time. This means that an observation of how much money goes towards paying for the resource persons is an indirect indicator of the progress of the project.
The decision to have a separate metric measuring the cost of project acquisitions came from the realization that there is need to keep track of the cost of items earmarked for purchase. The main items that the company will need to acquire are new computers that can replace slower ones.
There is information that the number of computers the company needs to buy to replace the slow computers is more than the number estimated at the beginning of the project. A second reason to monitor these computers is that the supplier will be late in supplying the computers by two weeks. This is because there was a fire that affected their main supplier.
In addition to these two reasons, it is necessary to make a decision regarding the type of computers to buy. The choices that exist now are between laptops and desktop computers. The laptops are more expensive. This means that buying desktop computers may help in managing the budget. However, there are operational factors regarding their use that need consideration.
The third metric regarding schedule management arose because of the need to bring the project back on track. All the work packages are behind schedule. There is need to identify the causes of delay and to find ways of ensuring that the project concludes on time. Keeping track of the schedule will benefit the project in two ways. First, it will ensure that there is an objective measure of the use of time at regular intervals.
This will help in the identification and elimination of the sources of delay in the project delivery. Failure to uncover the causes of delay may cause further interruptions to the project. Secondly, the project needs to recover time because of the delays already experienced.
The only way to measure the degree of recovery needed and the impact of new measures geared towards the recovery of time is by using a performance measure that tracks the schedule.
The task completion rate as a metric will help monitor the actual output derived from the project resources. The first reason for measuring the task completion rate is that this is the only way that the project management team can know whether the resources assigned to the project are creating value for the project.
Secondly, task completion is the basic unit of measurement of the delivery of project goals. It is an accurate means of measuring the progress of the project.
The final metric chosen to measure project performance is the rate of delivery of work packages. The work package is a larger unit of work which completion amounts to a milestone for the project.
The first reason for choosing this metric is that it is very important for reporting progress to the stakeholders such as the management. Secondly, the delivery of a work package is a milestone for the project with a complete set of benefits. It is important to keep track of the completion rate of the work packages in this regard.
Project Status Based on Metrics
Table 2: Analysis table for various costs
The Budgeted cost of labor for the project was 173,329.4 dollars. Projected time overrun shows that the money required for the project to go to completion is 18,583.6 dollars. This is an increase of 10.7% from the original budget. This proves that there is a need to monitor the way the resources use project time because of the obvious increase in the budgetary deficit for the project.
Willis and Marcel lead in both the time spent on the project above the budgeted time, and the time needed to complete their tasks. Special focus needs to go into monitoring the time these two employees spend on the project.
The company budget shows that acquisitions for the project must not exceed 73,670.57 dollars. The report presented, which is related to the need to acquire new computers shows that the company needs to buy twelve extra computers. The initial plan was to buy thirty-five computers.
However, after auditing the existing ones, the total number of computers due for replacement went up to forty-seven. This will escalate the cost by between 11,400 dollars and 14,200 dollars, depending on whether the company acquires desktop computers or laptops.
Variance in Activity Time
Table 3: Activity summary of tasks and work packages
Task Completion Rate
The activity summary shows that in almost all areas, there will be a need for more time than scheduled. Various factors affected the progress of the project. The important issue to bear in mind at this point is that most work packages will require more time to deliver.
Table 2 also shows that work package delivery is still very low, with the completion of only one work package. The high number of hours beyond the planned time that the project requires before completion is of more interest.
Impact of Current Problems
The analysis of the status of the project revealed the following issues. First, two employees will account for more than fifty percent of all cost overruns related to labor. The two employees carry the highest staff costs for the project. Marcel and Willie will require more than 10,000 dollars out of the total projected cost overrun of about 18,000 dollars. This presents three problems to the project.
First, it means that any interruption in the availability of these two employees will lead to further delays in the project. Secondly, the nature of task distribution that led to this situation reveals a fundamental problem with the original organization of the project. The two employees seem to carry an inordinate amount of responsibility in the project.
This may lead to lapses or inclusion of errors in their output because of the strain on them. Thirdly the two employees need extra time to complete their tasks because of the exhaustion of their previous time allocation This is an indication that there is need to investigate the actual distribution of work in relation to the two employees. Is there a chance that the two employees are not creating value for the project as initially intended?
The second main problem that the analysis revealed is that the project will exceed the budget by more than ten percent. This conclusion comes from two observations. The first observation comes from the projection that the cost of staff will exceed the budget by 10.7 %. These projections came from the estimated time the project staff members require to deliver the project.
The causes of the delays that led to the need for more time still exist. For instance, not all information that relates to the operations of the final system is available. It is only wise to anticipate some more delays that may lead to the need for more time, especially in relation to the testing of the new system. The second observation is that the cost of acquisitions will exceed the budget.
The reason for this is that there are components whose necessity became apparent only after the inception of the project. For instance, the budget estimates show that the number of new computers the organization will need to buy to replace the slower ones is thirty-five.
However, the actual number of computers that the organization needs to replace is forty-seven. This will increase the cost of acquisitions by more than 10,000 dollars.
The third main problem the analysis revealed is the risk of catastrophic failure of the system. The two main aspects of the project that will lead to this eventuality are time and technical constraints. The rigid deadline set when the project started, demands the completion of the project before the third quarter. The project is already behind the schedule because of various factors.
The only way to ensure that the project ends on time is to increase the work rate of the employees available or to assign more employees to the project. The second problem related to the technical limits is that the team must work within. Many technical risks exist around the project. If any of the associated risk events occurs, the project will be in jeopardy.
The relationship between this situation and the analysis above is that the project is under dire time and resource constraints. If there is no injection of new resources to support the delivery of the project on time, then the available resources may not be sufficient to mitigate the risks. All it will take for a catastrophic failure to occur is one mistake.
Mitigation Measures
The mitigation measures needed to deal with these problems are as follows. First, there is a need to undertake an audit of the work assigned to Marcel and Willis. This will help determine the cause of the huge time requirements that they need to complete their work packages.
In the event that the distribution of work was overwhelming for them, then it will be important to assign more resources to handle aspects of their work packages. If the audit shows that they are incompetent, then the best action in the interest of the project will be to replace them.
Nothing can bring the project back on budget at this stage. Since the management gave an allowance of going over-budget by up to ten percent, there is need to approve the necessary funds to cover for the impending shortfall. This will ensure that the team meets the quality criteria for the project. The board needs to approve a supplementary budget to cater for the financial shortfalls experienced by the project so far.
The risk of catastrophic failure due to time and resource constraints is the most challenging issue to deal with in this project. The risk management matrix revealed that several risks could occur concurrently leading to catastrophic failure. This will require very careful management of the project to keep these risks from taking place.
The best way to ensure that the entire project succeeds is to bring the project online in phases. It will also help to carry out more performance tests than earlier planned. It is also possible to increase the resources available to the project to increase the work rate of the employees. This will enable the project team to handle the risks more easily.
Executive Summary
Xemba Translations is in the middle of an IT project geared towards making it possible for telecommuters to work effectively for Xemba. The new risks identified include the likelihood for resource competition among project priorities, and an increase in labor costs.
Other risks are the failure to meet the project deadline and the potential for a catastrophic technical failure due to implementation mistakes arising from pressure to deliver the project on time.
The metrics that will help in measuring the performance of the project are as follows. The first metric is a comparison of budgeted cost versus the actual cost of labor. This arises from the realization that labor consumes project funds at an hourly rate. The second metric is a comparison of the budgeted cost of acquisitions versus the actual cost.
The third metric is the measurement of the actual time consumed by project activities, compared to the scheduled time. The fourth metric is the task completion rate. The project has fifty-five tasks. This metric will help to measure how well the project is performing based on task completion rate. The fifth metric is the measurement of the delivery of work packages.
After applying these metrics, the main problems uncovered during the project are that two resource persons account for more than fifty percent of labor cost overruns. Marcel and Willie need more 10,000 dollars to complete their work.
The second problem is that the project will exceed the budget by more than ten percent. The third main problem is that there is a risk of catastrophic failure of the project arising from the time and resource constraints.
The measures required to mitigate against these problems include auditing Marcel and Willie’s work to ensure they are competent and that they are capable to deliver on their workpackages within the remaining time. Secondly, the project requires more money for it to be completed on time.
It is necessary to approve the required money as soon as possible because it exceeds the 10,000 dollar threshold. Thirdly, from this point, the project manager must observe every process closely to ensure no more time goes to waste.
References
Arson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2011). Project Management: The Managerial Process,. New York, NY: McGraw Hill International.
Meredeth, J. R., & Mantel, S. J. (2011). Project Management: A Managerial Approach (8 ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.
Phillips, J. (2010). IT Project Management. New York: McGraw Hill Professional.