Keeping their eyes on a handful of high-level metrics can help CIOs track multiple large projects and, ultimately, improve business performance. I still always go with my gut feeling, but I have to have something more solid and measurable to back it up. Metrics aren't new and they aren't magic, and measurement methodologies abound. But by keeping it simple and exercising some discipline when delivering, you'll be able to roll out major IT projects successfully. So when you're mapping out your company's next ERP or e-commerce project, for example, make sure the following metrics are part of the plan.
Project managers use the business requirements as their guide when they shop for technology.
Smart managers then check back with executive sponsors to make sure the software and the project are still aligned with business goals. If not, they can change a project's scope or, as was the case with Domeyer's financial system, start the process over. Tracking the project's alignment with business goals at all times helps keep project teams from becoming so distracted by other metrics, such as time and cost, that they sacrifice the original objectives. Jim Klinck, vice president of application development at insurance giant Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. in New York City, has witnessed such a sacrifice. Heroic adherence to a strict delivery date led MetLife programmers to take shortcuts that undermined the business reasons for buying a new packaged software application for administering the company's many insurance products.