Project Metrics You Might Not Think to Add to Your Dashboard

Melissa Yamada

When building a project dashboard in Smartsheet, it's important to consider a wide range of metrics that provide comprehensive insights into your project's performance. Here are some project metrics that you might not immediately think to add to your Smartsheet dashboard:

1. Customer Satisfaction: Include metrics related to customer satisfaction, such as feedback ratings, surveys, or Net Promoter Score (NPS). This metric helps gauge the project's impact on customer experience and can drive continuous improvement efforts.
2. Lessons Learned: Include a section to capture and display lessons learned throughout the project. This can help foster a culture of continuous improvement and knowledge sharing among project team members.
3. Change Control Effectiveness: Measure the effectiveness of the change control process by tracking metrics such as the number of change requests approved, rejected, or pending. This provides insights into the project's ability to handle changes effectively.
4. Innovation Metrics: If your project involves innovation or new product development, consider adding metrics related to the number of new ideas generated, successful innovation initiatives, or time-to-market for new products or features.
5. Risk Mitigation: Track metrics related to risk management and mitigation, such as the number of risks identified, risk response effectiveness, or risk impact assessment. This allows you to monitor the effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies.
6. Quality Metrics: Include metrics related to project deliverable quality, such as defect rates, error rates, or customer satisfaction with the quality of the final product. This helps ensure that quality is a focus throughout the project lifecycle.
7. Process Efficiency: Measure the efficiency of project processes by tracking metrics like cycle time, lead time, or process adherence. This provides insights into process bottlenecks and areas for optimization.

By incorporating these additional project metrics into your Smartsheet dashboard, you can gain a more comprehensive view of your project's performance, identify areas for improvement, and ensure that you capture a holistic representation of the project's impact on stakeholders, resources, and quality.