As a business-driven PMO, the decisions you make can directly influence organizational success. That means that you need forward-facing data that empowers you to manage portfolios and programs in ways that support your strategic goals. A PMO dashboard is a great way to ensure that data is always available and actionable.
Below, we break down some core features of an effective PMO dashboard. Get executive-, portfolio-, and project-level visibility by combining these essentials with your own additions suited to your needs.
9 Essential Parts of a a PMO Dashboard
Deciding what to include in a PMO dashboard is no small feat. The truth is that the best PMO dashboard will be the one that’s unique to your organization. That said, there are some essentials you can use to help you paint a full picture of projects, portfolios, or programs.
Start crafting an effective PMO dashboard with key inclusions like:
- Basic project or portfolio data
- Overall status
- Financials
- Resource and capacity tracking
- Dependences
- Risks and issues
- KPI analysis
- What-if scenario planning
- Strategic goal tracking
Let’s take a closer look at each of these potential project plan dashboard additions in more detail to understand how they flow together.
1. Basic Project or Portfolio Data
Start from ground zero when building your dashboard. Begin with a blank sample project management dashboard that uses placeholders or empty widgets to lay out the sections you’ll want to include.
As you construct a “template” for your dashboard, be sure to incorporate core reporting elements and essential data such as:
- The name of your project, program, or portfolio
- Links to key resources, shared drives, etc.
- An overall status indicator
Customize the skeleton of your dashboard with any other relevant information based on your goals or needs. You might want to list project leaders, for example, or other key stakeholders.
2. Overall Project, Portfolio, or Program Status
While your method of execution may vary, finding a way to display the overall status and in-depth analyses of project progress at the granular level is important.
You may need one or more widgets, sections, or visualizations to achieve this goal, depending on the scope of work your dashboard aims to reflect. For instance, at the project level, you might embed a small Gantt chart into your dashboard to track individual milestones or tasks.
Whether you use Gantt charts, simple tables, or another method to break down indicators of status, be sure you can see the inner workings of progress within your organization.
3. Financials
Keep tabs on costs by creating comprehensive views of all of your organization’s financials, including actuals, budgets, and forecasts. Choose and depict essential KPIs to understand what’s happening at a glance (and pinpoint areas for improvement).
4. Resource & Capacity Tracking
Create visualizations that help you understand what resources you have available, whether they’re at capacity, and where they’re allocated. You might also want to consider implementing views for things like time tracking or use a Kanban visualization to monitor the flow of tasks you’ve allocated.
5. Dependencies
As important as tracking individual areas of project management – portfolios, people, programs, etc. – is, it’s also important to understand their relationships.
Build real-time views that reflect dependencies between your resources and activities so you can anticipate challenges before they arise. You’ll also be able to easily identify bottlenecks and address hiccups in workflows efficiently.
6. Risks and Issues
Keep your project data close, but keep your project risks closer. A section that displays top risks and issues is a must-have for a PMO dashboard, whether those risks are at the project, portfolio, or program level.
List the top one to three risks or potential issues for the data your dashboard reflects. Be sure to also include their potential impacts and any mitigation efforts you will take.
7. KPI Monitoring & Analyses
Ensure your PMO is a strategic value center for your organization by capturing regular snapshots of essential performance metrics. This is a great place to incorporate charts, graphs, and other visualizations that help you understand and communicate trends.
8. What-If Scenario Planning
Build what-if scenario planning capabilities into your dashboard to create an interactive system for modeling potential changes. See the impact of things like unplanned work or risks, compare trade-offs, and understand how to allocate resources to achieve your goals.
9. Strategic Alignment Goals
Ensure that all work your PMO manages is connected to your strategic goals by building them directly into your dashboard. Demonstrate how your project, portfolio, or program is meeting those strategic goals by tracking relevant milestones or investments.
Build Custom a PMO Dashboard with Sciforma
No matter what you choose to include in your PMO dashboard, you need the tools that will help you build a strong foundation.
Whether you’re looking to build from portfolio or program dashboard examples or start from scratch, a purpose-built solution will be your best bet. PMO software like Sciforma Vantage empowers you to build customized, interactive dashboards for every level of project management.
See how Sciforma can help you revolutionize your approach to project management today. Book a demo with our team to get started.