Project Dashboard Keeps You Up-to-Date

By Gary Anthes

March 18, 2002 12:00 PM ET

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Computerworld - According to project management guru Ed Yourdon, chairman of Cutter Consortium in Arlington, Mass., no commercial project management system provides a one-page display that offers key project performance metrics at a glance. He likens the feature to a car's dashboard, where a driver can see in a second or two whether the engine is overheating or the gas tank is empty.

"The problem that management at every level has is that the reports they get are often very voluminous, so you are overwhelmed with stuff," Yourdon says.

To prove that it could be done and to show its value, the Software Program Managers Network, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, developed just such a project dashboard. The Project Control Panel is a Microsoft Excel-based tool that can import data from Microsoft Project. It can be downloaded for free from www.spmn.com/pcpanel.html.

The panel fits on a single screen and, using bar charts and gauges, reports key metrics in areas related to project changes, staff changes, quality, productivity, progress and risk (see example below). If the arrow in a gauge is in the user-specified red zone, the project is in some degree of trouble.

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Keeping Tabs on IT Projects

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Driving the Data

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