Using Leading Indicators to Improve Project Performance Measurement

Project performance measurement offers a wide range of methods to help project managers monitor projects. However, several critical issues remain in project performance measurement, such as an unbalanced use of indicators due to a lack of prediction-based (leading) indicators with regard to outcome-based (lagging) indicators. For its part, systems engineering measurement, although a more recent discipline, offers a wide variety of indicators, including a set of leading indicators. As our objective is to increase project performance and success rates, this involves improving project performance measurement on which project management decisions are based. This purpose, the proposal put forward in this paper is to extend the number and type of indicators used in project performance measurement by adapting the leading indicators defined in systems engineering measurement. The methodology involves first mapping the systems engineering indicators with the project management activities, resulting in identification of a set of potentially useful indicators for measuring the different activities, then tailoring a selection of these indicators with project-specific data to define a set of the most relevant indicators for a given project. This methodology is illustrated by means of a case study in a manufacturing company.