Newsletter Sign-Up

Receive the latest technology news and information.

Project Dashboard Keeps You Up-to-Date

By Gary Anthes

March 18, 2002 12:00 PM ET

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.

Keeping Tabs on IT Projects:

Better Bang For the Buck

Capable, but Not Complete

Competitors

Keeping Tabs on IT Projects

Problems to Watch For

Project Management Resources

Templates Help Manage Project Managers

Driving the Data

Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Jump to comments

IT Management

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER

Do You Know the 7 Steps to Successful Data Migration?

Approximately 60 percent of data migration projects overrun time or budget, while some fail completely. Download this white paper, "Enhancing Your Chance for Successful Data Migration," to learn the critical steps you need to take to execute a data migration project with minimum cost and risk to your business.

WHITE PAPER

Total Cost of Ownership of Server Computing Vs. PCs

Read the Gartner research note to learn why the TCO of a server-based computing deployment used to deliver all applications to users is around 50% lower than that of an unmanaged desktop deployment.

WHITE PAPER

IDC White Paper: Linux in a Global Recession

Economic downturns have a tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions, and punish solutions that are not cost competitive or that are out of synch with industry trends. This IDC White Paper presents the results of an IDC survey of 330 companies in Western Europe, Asia/Pacific and the Americas that measures the receptiveness to Linux and takes into consideration changing views driven by the disruptive economic environment that businesses face today.

White Papers & Webcasts

Informatica 9 Launch: Transform your Business. Transform your world.

LIVE Nov 10, 2009 12:00 PM ET

Architecting Business Intelligence Applications for Change: The Open Solution

LIVE Nov 12, 2009 02:00 PM ET

Faster, Cheaper and Easier to Maintain
Can you afford not to upgrade your servers to today's advanced, energy-efficient technologies?

Strategies for Driving Down IT Support Costs with Lite ITIL Practices
View this now!

Infonetics: WAN Optimization Appliance Market Highlights 1 Q09
Vendor market share positions shuffled once again in 1Q09, learn more now!

Managing Secure File Transfer to Save Time, Money and IT Resources
Learn how companies are using innovative technology to overcome these challenges and improve user productivity by offloading e-mail attachments and replacing FTP with...

Improving Customer Retention and Satisfaction
Download this White Paper Now!

Efficient Root-cause Analysis in the face of Datacenter Complexity
Isolating Virtualization and n-Tier Application Issues, Measuring Success, Assessing Business Impact, and Enabling Technologies

Supporting Employees Anytime, Anywhere
Download this White Paper Now!

Enterprise Data Governance: Bridging the Business-IT Gap
Register for this live webcast today!

People + Processes + Technology: Creating a Winning Formula for Customer Support
Download Now!

Usability Is Everything
Download this short video! Provided by Workday.

All White Papers | All Webcasts