So, we’ve already talked about strategies for improving and strengthening your strategic portfolio management. And we’ve covered the importance of making tradeoff decisions when it comes to new initiatives. Clearly, creating what-if scenarios can help decision-makers at all levels determine the best path forward.
But what about using meaningful key performance indicators (KPIs) for communicating value to your audience? Forrester provides some insightful recommendations in a December 2016 report, “Eight Steps for Building Strategic Portfolio Management“ on determining the key KPIs that communicate value to the business.
According to the report: “Extend your KPIs beyond generic on-time, on-budget metrics to metrics that are more relevant to the audience. For example, a strategic objective may be measured by revenue and client retention. An initiative directly related to that objective is measured by meeting time-to-market deadlines and customer satisfaction. A project within the initiative is measured by velocity and features delivered. Each of these has related data points and thresholds. Automating feedback into the portfolio by pulling data from disparate sources and mapping it to defined objectives enables leaders to have just-in-time information to keep resources focused on the right work at the right time.”
But IT PMO organizations struggle reporting on KPIs. Generating reports is time-consuming, laborious, and downright painful. Often, report generation is more of a job than acting on the information it provides. PPM solutions can help automate data collection and integrate with disparate systems to tell a complete story beyond on time, on budget and provide the reports and dashboards needed for decision making – instead of spending the time manually gathering data.
Inevitably, providing just-in-time information to your leadership will make it much easier to facilitate smarter decision-making. You can also ensure resources are focused on the right work at the right time.
What that in mind, I’d like to hear how your team is delivering the necessary context around data for your stakeholders. Share by leaving a comment below.
