Written by Nils R. | May 16, 2021 7:00:00 AM
What is a
Project Performance Dashboard
? Project Dashboards are considered professional services analysis tools and are used by Executives and Consulting Leaders to review and benchmark performance across consulting teams and projects. Some of the main functionality in this type of dashboard is that it provides KPI analysis from five different perspectives. These include: 1) Percent of projects on budget with comparison to prior year, 2) Percent of projects on time with prior year comparison, 3) Percent of projects cancelled versus prior year, 4) Percent of projects completed in the current year versus prior year, and 5) Table with percent-based metrics and year over year comparison and variances by customer and consulting team, including: Projects on budget, Projects on time, Projects cancelled, and Projects completed. You find an example of this type of dashboard below.
Purpose of
Project Analysis Dashboards Tech companies use Project Analysis Dashboards to look for trends, opportunities and issues in their professional services business. When used as part of good business practices in a Project Management Office (PMO) and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) departments, an organization can improve its services revenues and strategic planning, and it can reduce the chances that managers miss important signals in their consulting metrics with resulting lack of action.
Example of a
Project Analysis Dashboard Here is an example of a Project Performance Dashboard with year-over-year comparisons. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2560"]
Example of a Project Performance Dashboard for Technology Companies[/caption] You can find hundreds of additional examples
here
Who Uses This Type of
Dashboard
? The typical users of this type of dashboard are: Executives, Consulting Leaders, Project Managers.
Other Reports Often Used in Conjunction with
Project Analysis Dashboards Progressive Project Management Office (PMO) and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) departments sometimes use several different Project Analysis Dashboards, along with detailed utilization reports, detailed project reports, billing reports, consulting dashboards, PMO dashboards, financial reports, financial KPI dashboards, project forecasting models, annual consulting budgets and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From? The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards? Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
- Native ERP report writers and query tools
- Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
- Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
- Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Cloud Solutions and More Examples
