The Importance of IT Project Management Metrics

Whether you have an internal team managing your IT projects, or you are outsourcing a third-party PMO, it’s essential to understand the crucial metrics that can define success for an IT project.

What is IT Project Management?

IT Project Management is the complete oversight of the efforts in planning, managing and executing projects that are initiated in order to achieve information technology goals. IT projects usually deal with IT infrastructure and applications such as website and software development, technology upgrades, installations and implementations, and deployment of security solutions.

An IT project manager heads the project as it goes through the five distinct stages: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and closing. In order for the IT project manager and key decision leaders to determine team and organizational performance, project metrics are gathered and analyzed.

Each project has its own set of objectives where different metrics would be suitable. In general, however, there are fundamental IT project metrics that serve as good indicators of the health of the project and would also aid in better decision making for future endeavors

• Return on Investment (ROI)

IT investments are crucial in today’s technology-reliant business landscape. And while these projects are essential and will allow you to remain competitive with others, IT project proponents would need to clearly present how much an investment would cost, what its potential revenue would be, and how long it will take for the investment to break even. The long term viability of the project should also be considered to determine its impact on healthy business operations.

• Milestones Completed

Milestones are checkpoints that call attention to major events, tasks, or stages in a project that have been successfully completed. For instance, securing final approval and funding for the project from key decision-makers could be one milestone, and so would be releasing the first version of your app. Significant milestones should be established beforehand by the IT team and the stakeholders.

• Scope of Work

In software development, the scope of work is fixed: what software is to be built and delivered on a fixed schedule and resources. This is a tricky requirement to adhere to because changes and/or additions can be introduced which would derail progress. The project manager should thus, regularly review and manage the scope of work as the development progresses to keep the project on schedule and within budget.

• Adherence to Quality Standards

When starting on a project, the team members should go by a set of expectations, guidelines, and rules by which their work and output are governed. In an IT project that involves application development, for example, a quality app that meets the standard must run without crashing, must be stable, must have all functionalities work, and must show accurate data. Any defects while in development should be detected early to ensure a quality deliverable at the end.

• Customer Satisfaction

The ultimate test to the success of an IT project is whether you are able to meet and/or exceed your customer’s expectations. Measuring customer satisfaction can be done in various ways—seeking client feedback from initial testing, conducting customer surveys, monitoring complaints through the helpdesk, and monitoring social media engagement.

Utilizing IT project management metrics can help the team track their progress and the project’s status. It can also highlight problems quickly so that these can be addressed right away. Data should be gathered, metrics analyzed, and feedback was taken, with the end goal of process improvement, transparency, and accountability.

Here at CentricsIT, we take on the most challenging IT projects for our clients and create solutions that best fit their needs. We don’t just get the job done—we get it done right. Talk to our data center experts today and learn more about our IT Project Management offerings.