Metrics That Matter in Project Management

Traditional KPIs like budget and schedule adherence are a given. To truly drive program success, we need to dig deeper. Here are 5 KPIs that can revolutionize how you measure and manage your programs: Time-to-Value: How quickly are you delivering tangible benefits? This KPI shifts focus from mere task completion to actual value creation. Try measuring the time from project initiation to the first realized benefit. Decision Velocity: In our fast-paced world, slow decisions can kill programs. Track the average time taken to make critical decisions. Aim to reduce this time while maintaining decision quality. Risk Response Time: Risks are inevitable, but slow responses are not. Monitor how quickly your team identifies and addresses risks. Shorter response times can prevent risks from becoming major roadblocks. Continuous Improvement Rate: Great programs don't stay static. Track how often your team implements process improvements. This KPI fosters a culture of innovation and adaptability. Change Absorption Rate: Change is constant in program management. Measure how quickly and effectively your team adapts to changes in direction or scope. High change absorption rates indicate a resilient, agile program. The goal isn't to track every possible metric. Choose the KPIs that align best with your program's objectives and organizational culture. Join the conversation in the comments. Which KPIs do you use to measure your programs? #ProgramManagement #KPIs #ContinuousImprovement #Leadership #ProjectManagement

"The numbers that almost Killed us" Tuesday morning. A $40M company's board meeting. Revenue charts pointing up. Margins look solid. Customer acquisition costs are stable. 'We're crushing it,' the CEO announced proudly. Friday afternoon. Their biggest client left. Two VPs resigned. And nobody saw it coming. This isn't fiction. This was a client's company last year. They were tracking every metric in the book - except the ones that mattered. Their painful lesson about metrics: The most dangerous numbers are the ones that make you feel safe. Consider these fallen giants: ✅ Blockbuster had great revenue numbers right until Netflix won ✅ Nokia dominated market share until the iPhone launched ✅ Circuit City's margins looked solid before their collapse Like them, this company was tracking lagging indicators - measurements of what already happened. They missed the leading indicators - signals of what's about to happen. The Metrics That Actually Matter: 1) The Whispers ✅ Employee referral rates dropping ✅ Time to fill key positions increasing ✅ Internal promotion rates falling 2) The Canaries ✅ Customer contact frequency changes ✅ Support ticket sentiment shifts ✅ Payment timing variations 3) The Undercurrents ✅ Process exception rates ✅ Decision cycle lengths ✅ Cross-department collaboration scores Today, that same CEO has a different approach. Revenue still matters, but it's not the only story. His team tracks the quiet signals that precede problems: ✅ Meeting attendance patterns ✅ Email response times ✅ Customer engagement depth Team collaboration metrics The result? They're not just monitoring performance. They're predicting it. Your KPIs tell you where you've been. These metrics tell you where you're going. What keeps you up at night might not show up in your dashboard, but it's trying to tell you something. Are you listening? #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #Growth

I wish someone taught me this in my first year as a PM. It would’ve saved years of chasing the wrong goals and wasting my team's time: "Choosing the right metric is more important than choosing the right feature." Here are 4 metrics mistakes even billion-dollar companies have made and what to do instead with Ron Kohavi: 1. Vanity Metrics They look good. Until they don’t. A social platform he worked with kept showing rising page views… While revenue quietly declined. The dashboard looked great. The business? Not so much. Always track active usage tied to user value, not surface-level vanity. 2. Insensitive Metrics They move too slowly to be useful. At Microsoft, Ronny Kohavi’s team tried using LTV in experiments. but saw zero significant movement for over 9 months. The problem is you can’t build momentum on data that’s stuck in the future. So, use proxy metrics that respond faster but still reflect long-term value. 3. Lagging Indicators They confirm success after it’s too late to act. At a subscription company, churn finally spiked… but by then, 30% of impacted users were already gone. Great for storytelling but let's be honest, it's useless for decision-making. You can solve it by pairing lagging indicators with predictive signals. (Things you can act on now.) 4. Misaligned Incentives They push teams in the wrong direction. One media outlet optimized for clicks and everything was looking good until it wasn't. They watched their trust drop as clickbait headlines took over. The metric had worked. They might had "more MRR". But the product suffered in the long run. It's cliche but use metrics that align user value with business success. Because Here's The Real Cost of Bad Metrics - 80% of team energy wasted optimizing what doesn’t matter - Companies with mature metrics see 3–4× stronger alignment between experiments and outcomes - High-performing teams run more tests but measure fewer, better things Before you trust any metric, ask: - Can it detect meaningful change in faster? - Does it map to real user or business value? - Is it sensitive enough for experimentation? - Can my team interpret and act on it? - Does it balance short-term momentum and long-term goals? If the answer is no, it’s not a metric worth using. — If you liked this, you’ll love the deep dive: https://lnkd.in/ea8sWSsS