Project Dashboards
Experts agree that the key to running projects with world class efficiency is to define the project quality metrics, and to report metrics in a project status dashboard which shows changing trends.
Although project dashboards can be extremely valuable to show the project quality metrics over time, there is an often overlooked side benefit in well designed tools. They serve to make sure that everyone always knows the real project situation - in effect reinforcing the team communication and project "big picture" understanding. One person's problem becomes everyone's problem and more people look for solutions. One group's success becomes everyone's chance to leverage the benefits.
Traditional charting tools can be used to present database information graphically, but this is typically an expensive solution requiring specialists to maintain the configuration and interfaces between the component parts. Similarly metrics tools can generate charts which can be integrated into project dashboards but this is also niche application within a company that requires significant IT department support. It always seems that the right chart for the latest trend is somewhere in the queue waiting to be configured.
Modern project dashboard software is specifically designed to track the typical project metrics and users can select from a variety of predefined charts. inKontext™ offers pre-built project dashboards to display real time business process metrics (BPM) about the health, trends and status of your projects. All listings include charts which highlight information and allow the user to drill down into the underlying data and export to excel.
- GANTT charts present the planned schedule and show progress reported by staff members in weekly reports.
- Earned value charts show progress towards project goals compared with the time
- Risk maps demonstrate which project risks represent the biggest threats with highest instability
- Status report integrity highlights the completeness of the data from staff weekly reports
inKontext™ project context switching allows administrators to control which users are included in the individual projects of the portfolio. Users can filter according to theior access rights and project memberships by simple selection in a pulldown menu.
Why is this important to me...?
With inKontext real time dashboards all team members have a constant overview of what they need to be concerned with. Information focussed on the individual user, charts of important trends, reports of important data items. It's visual, easy to understand and alerts the user with laser accuracy.