How to create a project dashboard to increase performance tenfold?

According to a Wellington study on the state of project management in 2018, only 40% of projects are completed on time, leaving a large majority of assignments delivered late.

These results are no accident. It's very difficult to manage a project successfully, because there are many pitfalls that make it complex to manage throughout the project.

Project failures can be caused by a number of factors: costs are higher than budgeted, communication problems set in, lack of visibility on workload lengthens deadlines. In some cases, management may not be clear about the project's objectives.

The most effective way to avoid project failure is to monitor it effectively, from start-up through to completion. To meet this need, the project dashboard is an excellent tool. 

What is a project dashboard?

A dashboard in project management is a visual representation. It enables you to situate the health and progress of a project in an accessible way.

Several windows or modules are placed side by side in a logical order to indicate whether project objectives are being met, and whether there are any critical signs that require special attention.

Project tracking chart: when should it be set up?

The project dashboard must be shared from the outset.

During the kick-off meeting, it's important to share this project tracking chart and explain how it works to all participants, so that everyone is aligned on the way forward.

The project manager must check that all the important indicators are included, and ensure that sponsors confirm that they adhere to them. The wider and stronger the buy-in at the start of the project, the more invested stakeholders will be in achieving the objectives.

Sharing the project tracking table is therefore crucial to the success of the project.

What makes up a project dashboard?

The project tracking table and its components may vary from one assignment to another.

However, as a general rule, certain information must always be included.

The people in charge

For a project to succeed, responsibility must be shared. Responsibility for tasks must be assigned to the various parties involved in the project.

Allocating responsibility means appointing a person to be in charge of each task, and clarifying objectives in terms of completion, quality and deadlines. The project manager then becomes the conductor of the orchestra, helping the whole team to move forward, and smoothing the way for everything to take shape.

If stakeholders are not held accountable, the burden will be too heavy for a single project manager, and the risk of failure will be greater. Every manager needs to be aware of the tasks for which he or she is responsible, so that he or she can give feedback on how they are progressing.

Each manager should be able to indicate what remains to be done, so that the associated workload is updated on the graphs or any other visual support on the dashboard. Some tools, such as Stafiz, allow you to indicate a percentage of completion.

Deadlines

To ensure that the project is completed on time, you need to set deadlines for each project phase and task.

This commitment must also be confirmed at the start of the project. The person in charge must confirm the feasibility of the task within the time objectives.

Performance indicators

A dashboard often involves monitoring several indicators at once.

KPIs must be adapted to the task in hand. The objective may be a number of hours or days not to be exceeded (when you want to control profitability), a number of deliverables to be produced, or a quality rating given by the customer.

As mentioned above, the choice of KPIs to track must be perfectly aligned with the sponsor's objectives.

Who is responsible for updating the project tracking table?

The project manager is responsible for updating the project tracking table. But in order to consolidate the information, each task manager must be up to date in his or her tracking.

Ideally, the information is updated in the same file and consolidates automatically. The project manager checks that the data is consistent, and if necessary queries the various task managers to ensure overall visibility.

It is also at this point that the remaining work must be calculated.

When tasks have not been completed, you should indicate the time needed to finalize them. This enables the project manager to update the overall project schedule and recalculate the project's forecast margins.

What does a project tracking table look like?

The project dashboard is most often presented in an interactive interface via project management software.

You can also use dedicated tools such as Excel or Looker Studio which, once connected to your database, will be able to graphically represent your KPIs.

Although these solutions are popular for starting up a business, setting them up can be time-consuming and tedious, especially when it comes to connecting your data collection tool.

That's why a tool like Stafiz, which directly integrates all project tracking data into an optimal dashboard, is ideal for providing you with low data without mobilizing effort!

To make project tracking easier to read, the tracking table is laid out using graphs and other easy-to-read layouts.

It's important to make the right choice of diagram to represent data, so that its interpretation avoids confusion and, consequently, uninformed decision-making.

• Curves: ideal for tracking numerical trends such as productivity, expense tracking, budget consumption or even a timeline.
• Circle charts: these are effective for representing percentages, such as task completion rates or overall project progress.
• Text: these zones are useful both for structuring your dashboard by giving titles or indicative captions, and for formatting data such as figures.
• Tables: certain data can be followed closely, or simply abound in numbers. In such cases, graphical representation can be misleading, so it's sometimes better to opt for simple tables.

What are the objectives of a project dashboard?

Facilitate project follow-up

The aim is toidentify any risks of failure throughout the project, so that corrective action can be taken as early as possible. Project tracking via a dashboard allows you to be alerted when a risk materializes, and to understand where it is coming from.

The project dashboard is also a communication tool. It enables all project stakeholders to be informed sufficiently in advance to facilitate decision-making and avoid unpleasant surprises. The earlier a problem is communicated, the greater the chances of finding a solution. Nobody wants unpleasant surprises at the end of a project, and that's why a well-executed project follow-up fulfills its role as a communication tool.

The project tracking table must enable you to share the project situation at a given date, with information that is clear and understood by all.

At a glance, everyone needs to understand how the project is progressing. We need to be able to celebrate areas that are progressing well, and identify and prioritize those that need to be corrected.

Keeping track of a project in a table format means that everyone can recognize an identical format from one period to the next. It brings efficiency to exchanges between the various project stakeholders, and provides a clear historical record of a situation.

Improving performance: meeting deadlines, quality, profitability

The project dashboard is also designed to keep the project in line with its objectives.

Depending on priorities, different objectives are set:

• meeting deadlines for the various phases of the project;
• the expected level of quality leading to potential customer validation ;
• the level of project costs, which must remain in line with the project budget.

The dashboard compares the situation to date, the forecast situation at the end of the project, and the budget for these different objectives.

Once they have identified any risks of deviating from objectives, project managers take the necessary corrective action: restructuring project tasks to shorten them, renegotiating with the customer, reallocating tasks to improve efficiency, etc.

What KPIs should be tracked in a project dashboard?

To define the KPIs to be included in the project dashboard, it is first necessary to determine priorities with the project sponsors.

Although it is possible to track many KPIs, it is important to avoid falling into the trap of systematically tracking all indicators. It is necessary to focus on those KPIs that align with the priorities determined with the project sponsors, and therefore to determine where the priority lies.

Meeting deadlines

Tasks and sub-tasks must meet specified deadlines, and any failure to do so poses a risk to the project.

🔎 KPIs for monitoring deadlines: rate of progress, remaining production, time gaps, rate of tasks completed on time.

Quality of work

The various tasks must be monitored and graded according to quality expectations. The project dashboard should show a comparison of current production quality with expected requirements.

🔎 Quality KPIs: quality score, tasks to be reworked, customer satisfaction.

Project profitability

Project costs must fit within a certain envelope set by a project budget. Every time the budget is exceeded, profit is jeopardized, hence the importance of monitoring KPIs relating to the financial health of the project.

🔎 Profitability KPIs: costs and expenses, non-rebillable costs, financial variances, budget consumption, current margin, forecast margin.

Proactive project tracking in Stafiz

Stafiz enables you to monitor all your resources and associated costs in real time, and to forecast them: resource planning You are alerted in the event of future deviations.

Find out more about project management with Stafiz

How do I create a project dashboard?

There are many ways to create a project dashboard, and you're probably not sure how to go about it.

When creating the dashboard, keep in mind that the aim is to take the temperature of the project at any given moment. It must therefore provide, in the blink of an eye, all the information you need to know about the project's operational, analytical and strategic health.

 

Discover the steps below to create a dashboard to suit your needs.

 

The operational project dashboard

The project tracking board must provide operational information first and foremost. That is, it should indicate the time remaining to complete the various project tasks, and the associated workload for the people working on them.

This "to do" time should be used toadjust the capacity of employees working on the project. By indicating, for example, that they have eight hours left to spend on a task by next Monday, the equivalent capacity to work on other tasks should be adjusted to zero.

At the same time, the tracker must display the progress of the project and its tasks. There are several possibilities for displaying progress: a percentage, a more visual progress bar... Whatever solution you choose, it should make it easy to see whether or not you're close to completing the task.

Beyond the progress of a task, if the planning approach makes sense, it's worth indicating when the task will be completed. This can be done either by indicating an expected completion date in the project tracking table, or by displaying it in a Gantt schedule.

 

The analytical project dashboard

The project tracking table is then used to provide a performance analysis.

Displaying the major key performance indicators allows you to take the temperature of the project, but you need to go further to understand the reasons for over- or under-performance, so as to better prepare your future projects.

For example, you need to display the discrepancies between the overall objective and the latest estimate, and give the same information broken down task by task or manager by manager. This makes it easier to understand where deviations come from within the project, and what the causes might be.

Analysis of discrepancies between initial plan and actual situation - Analysis by profile type

A comparison of the project's performance with other similar projects also provides an interesting analysis.

Alongside the project indicators, display an average indicator for similar projects to compare performance.

Strategic project dashboard

By consolidating the various project tracking tables, it is possible to provide strategic information to help make better decisions at company level. 

By consolidating the forecasted workload on the various projects, it is possible to have a complete view of the team's workload, and to know who is over-staffed or under-staffed.

This information enables us to optimize the overall workload, and to know whether we need to recruit certain profiles that may be under-capacity in the future.

The financial data for the project and its progress enable us to calculate the sales and margins that will be generated in the coming months. Consolidation provides an income statement for the entire business.

By comparing the various project follow-ups, it is possible to identify interesting trends: which tasks most often lead to underperformance? What is the rate of deviation from the average budget? Statistics can be used to better prepare and cost future projects, and improve margins.

Project dashboard in Excel: limitations

There are many limitations to using Excel to create project tracking tables.

Investing in a dedicated tool is the first step towards growing your business.