Thursday, January 26, 2012

SOTU, Part II

Allow me to do some very basic education on Project Management tools.....

Project Managers use measurement tools to gauge the health of their project. One is called Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs. The big four KPIs are Cost, Schedule, Quality and Safety. There may be others but every project report includes some sort of yardstick to measure progress.

Besides the Big Four KPIs, management wants some idea of the risks facing their project. After all, they are investing a bunch of money and they want to know what could affect their investment. One tool that is used is called the SWOT Analysis. SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat. Project Managers brainstorm issues affecting the project that fall within each of those categories. This can provide a list of things to watch for and prevents the PM from being surprised.

The two tools complement each other. KPIs are backward looking - they tell what the project was doing in the past, and while they tell you what things need improvement, they give no idea about what the future holds. SWOT, on the other hand, is forward looking. It gives you ideas about what may be an issue in the future.

I'd like to see the SOTU utilize these, or similar tools, to report on the Union. Next, I'll propose how.

1 comment:

Old NFO said...

But... but... THAT would make too much sense... :-)