Evaluating a Project 2018

I. THE PROJECT EVALUATION PROCESS

The project evaluation process uses systemic analysis to gather data
and reveal the effectiveness and efficiency of your management. This crucial
exercise keeps projects on track and informs stakeholders of progress.

Every aspect of the project is measured to determine if it is proceeding

as planned, and if not, inform how project parts be improved. Basically,
you’re asking the project a series of questions designed to discover what is
working, what can be improved and whether the project is in fact
useful. Tools like project dashboards and trackers help in the evaluation
process by making key data readily available.

The project evaluation process has been around as long as there have
been projects to evaluate. But when it comes to the science of project
management, project evaluation can be broken down into three main types:
pre-project evaluation, ongoing evaluation and post-project evaluation. So,
let’s look at the project evaluation process, what it entails and how you can
improve your technique.

Three Types of Project Evaluation

There are three points in a project where evaluation is most needed.
While you can evaluate your project at any time, these are points where you
should have the process officially scheduled.

A. Pre-Project Evaluation

In a sense, you’re pre-evaluating your project when you write

your project charter to pitch to the stakeholders. You cannot
effectively plan, staff and control a new project if you’ve first not
evaluated it. Pre-project evaluation is the only sure way you can
determine the effectiveness of the project before executing it.

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B. Ongoing Evaluation

To make sure your project is proceeding as planned and hitting

all the scheduling and budget milestones you set, it’s crucial that you
are constantly monitoring and reporting on your work in real-time.
Only by using metrics can you measure the success of your project
and whether or not you’re meeting the project’s goals and objectives.

C. Post-Project Evaluation

Think of this as a postmortem. The post-project evaluation is

when you go through the project’s paperwork, interview the project
team and principles, and analyze all relevant data so you can
understand what worked and what went wrong. Only by developing
this clear picture can you resolve issues in upcoming projects.

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Project Evaluation Process

Regardless of when you choose to run a project evaluation, the
process always has four phases: planning, implementation, completion and
dissemination of reports.

A. Planning

When planning for a project evaluation, it’s important to identify

the stakeholders and what their short- and long-term goals are. You
must make sure your goals and objectives for the project are clear.
It’s critical to have settled on a criterion that will tell you whether
these goals and objects are being met.

So, you’ll want to write a series of questions to pose to the

stakeholders. These queries should include subjects such as the
project framework, best practices and metrics that determine success.

By including the stakeholders in your evaluation plan, you’ll

receive direction during the course of the project while simultaneously
developing a relationship with the stakeholders. They will get progress
reports from you throughout the project’s phases, and by building this
initial relationship, you’ll likely earn their belief that you can manage
the project to their satisfaction.

B. Implementation

While the project is running, you must monitor all aspects to

make sure you’re meeting the schedule and budget. Some of
the things you should monitor during the project is the percentage
completed. This is something you should do when creating status
reports and when meeting with your team. To make sure you’re on
track, make the team accountable for delivering on their tasks. Also,
maintain baseline dates to know when tasks are due.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on quality. It doesn’t matter if you

deliver within the allotted time frame if the product is poor. Maintain

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quality reviews, and don’t delegate that responsibility. Take it on

yourself.

Maintaining a close relationship with the project budget is just as

important as tracking the schedule and quality. Keep an eye on costs.
They will fluctuate throughout the project, so don’t panic. However, be
transparent if you notice a need growing for more funds. Let your
steering committee know as soon as possible, so there are no
surprises.

C. Completion

When you’re done with your project, you still have some work to
do. You want to take the data you gathered in the evaluation and learn
from it, so you can fix problems that you discovered in the process.
Figure out what the short- and long-term impacts are of what you
learned in the evaluation.

D. Reporting and Disseminating

Once the evaluation is complete, you need to record the results.

This creates a historic record that will provide lessons for the future.
Deliver your report to your stakeholders to keep them updated on the
progress of the project.

How are you going to disseminate the report? There might be a

protocol for this already established in your organization. Perhaps the
stakeholders prefer a meeting to get the results face-to-face. Or, they
might like to get PDFs with easy-to-read charts and graphs. You must
know your audience and target your report to them, as well as their
preferred format.

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Dashboards to Improve the Project Evaluation Process

To take your project evaluation to the next level, you’ll want an online
project management tool with live dashboards that deliver real-time data, so
you can monitor what’s happening now as opposed to what happened
yesterday.

The importance of real-time data for an effective project evaluation

process cannot be understated. Old data might not help you in time to
address issues, and your evaluation will be stale before the ink dries on the
report (unless you share it digitally, but you get the picture). Dashboard
widgets provide business intelligence in a timely manner, offering metrics to
monitor your tasks, teams, cost, health and more.

The dashboard, like the one in your car, collects all the valuable
information you need to drive a project forward successfully in one place.
That means you can see at a glance how your project is progressing. There
is no better tool to give you the data you need, when you need it.

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You can track workload and tasks, because your team is updating their
status in real-time, wherever they are and at whatever time they complete
their work. You’re getting the most accurate picture of the project possible.

Dashboards are easy to set up in a project management software

because all the planning data, Gantt charts and task lists are fed into the
dashboard. The dashboard crunches the numbers for you, and then creates
colorful graphs and charts that make those figures simple to understand.
Even better, those graphs and charts can be filtered to reflect only the data
you want and then shared in whatever format you prefer, with only a
keystroke.

Project evaluation with dashboard software makes it simple to go

through the evaluation process during the execution of the project, but it
can also provide valuable data afterwards. I think you’ll find that the project
evaluation process can even be fun, given the right tools.

II. SURVEYING THE RESULTS: THE POST-

PROJECT EVALUATION
Lay the groundwork for repeating on future projects what worked on
past ones (and avoiding what didn’t) by conducting a post-project
evaluation.

A post-project evaluation (also called a post-project review or lessons

learned) is an assessment of project results, activities, and processes that
allows you to

➢ Recognize project achievements and acknowledge people’s work.

➢ Identify techniques and approaches that worked, and devise steps
to ensure they’re used in the future.
➢ Identify techniques and approaches that didn’t work, and devise
steps to ensure they aren’t used again in the future.

A project post-mortem is another term for pos-project evaluation,

because it conjures up the image of an autopsy to determine the cause of
death.

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Preparing for the Evaluation throughout the Project

Take steps in each stage of your project’s evolution (starting the
project, organizing and preparing, carrying out the work, and closing the
project) to lay the groundwork for your post-project evaluation:

❖ Starting the Project:

▪ Determine the benefits your project’s drivers wanted to realize
when they authorized your project (drivers and the other types
of project audiences).
▪ If your project is designed to change an existing situation, take
before measures to describe the existing situation so that you
have something to compare to the after measures you take
when the project is completed.
❖ Organizing and Preparing:
▪ Identify additional project drivers you may have overlooked in
the first stage of your project. Your project driver’s expectations
serve as the criteria for defining your project’s success, so you
want to know who they all are before you begin your project’s
work.
▪ Develop clear and detailed description of all project objectives.
▪ Include the activity Conduct a post-project evaluation in your
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), and allow time and resources
to perform it.
❖ Carrying-out the Work:
▪ Tell team members that the project will have a post-project
evaluation.
▪ Encourage team members to record issues, problems, and
successes throughout their project involvement in a handwritten
or computerized project log. Review the log when proposing
topics for discussion at the post-project evaluation meeting.
▪ Maintain files of cost, labor-hour charges, and schedule
performance reports throughout the project.
❖ Closing the Project:
▪ If changing an existing situation was a project objective, take
after measures of that situation’s key characteristics to see
whether you successfully met that objective.

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▪ Obtain final cost, labor-hour, and schedule performance reports

for the project.
▪ Survey key stakeholders to determine how well they feel the
project addressed their needs and their assessments of project
team and project manager performance.

Setting the Stage for the Evaluation Meeting

A post-project evaluation is only good as the results, expenditures,
and performance information it’s based on. The information must be
complete, detailed, and accurate. Prepare for your post-project evaluation
meeting by collecting information on the following:

➢ Project results
➢ Schedule performance
➢ Resource expenditures
➢ Problems that arose during the project
➢ Changes during the project in objectives, schedules, and budgets
➢ Unanticipated occurrences or changes in the environment during
the project
➢ Customer’s satisfaction with the project results
➢ Management’s satisfaction with the project results
➢ Effectiveness of the project-management processes
➢ Lessons learned

You can collect this information from the following sources:

➢ Progress reports
➢ Project logs
➢ Cost reports
➢ Schedule reports
➢ Project memos, correspondence, and meeting minutes
➢ Interviews and surveys of customers, managers, and team
members

Prepare a detailed agenda for the post-project evaluation meeting that

specifies the times when topic discussions will start and end. Consider
including the following topics on your agenda:

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➢ Statement of the meeting’s purpose

➢ Specific meeting outcomes to be accomplished
➢ Highlights of project performance, including the following:
• Results, schedules, and resources
• Approaches to project planning
• Project-tracking systems and procedures
• Project-tracking systems and procedures
• Project communications
• Project team practices and effectiveness
➢ Recognition and discussion of special achievements
➢ Review of customer and management reactions to the project
➢ Discussion of problems and issues
➢ Discussion of how to reflect experience from this project in future
efforts

Tip: Circulate a draft agenda, related background materials, and a list of

attendees to all expected attendees at least one week before the meeting.
This advance notice gives people time to suggest additions, deletions, and
changes to the agenda. Revise the agenda to address these suggestions,
and distribute the final agenda to all meeting participants at least one day
before the meeting.

Conducting the Evaluation Meeting

A successful post-project evaluation meeting (which you can hold in
person, via video conference, or through most other meeting methods)
requires that you address the right topics and that people share their project
thoughts and experiences openly and honestly.

At the post-project evaluation meeting, explore the following issues:

✓ Did you accomplish all the project objectives?

✓ Did you meet the project schedule?
✓ Did you complete the project within budget?
✓ With regard to problems during the project
• Could you have anticipated and planned for them in advance?
If so, how?

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•Did you handle them effectively and efficiently when they

arose?
✓ Did you use the organization’s project-management systems and
procedures effectively?

To ensure you get the most accurate information and the best
recommendations for future actions, do the following before and during your
post-project evaluation meeting:

❖ Invite the right people. Invite all the people who participated in
your project at all points throughout its life. If the list of potential
invitees is too long, consider meeting separately with select
subgroups and then holding a general session at which everyone
reviews the results of the smaller meetings and you solicit final
comments and suggestions.
❖ Declare at the beginning of the meeting that it’s supposed to
be a learning experience rather than a finger-pointing
session. As the project manager, you run the post-project
evaluation meeting. At its outset, you need to declare that the
session is a time for self-examination and suggestions for ensuring
the success of future projects. If people start to attack or criticize
other participants, you can immediately bring the discussion back
on track by asking the participants the following questions:
▪ What can you do in the future to deal more effectively with
such situations?
▪ What can you do in the future to head off such situations?

If people resist your attempt to redirect their conversations, you can

mention actions that you, as project manager, can take in the future
to head off or deal with similar situations more effectively and then ask
people to share additional ideas.

❖ Encourage people to
▪ Identify what other people did well.
▪ Examine their own performance and see how they could’ve
handled situation differently.
❖ Consider holding the session away from your office. People
often feel more comfortable critiquing existing practices and

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discussing new approaches when they’re away from their normal

work environments.

Tip: Be sure to assign a person to take notes during the post-project

evaluation meeting. In addition to a list of attendees and highlights of
information, the notes should list all the agreed-on activities to implement
the lessons learned from the meeting and the people responsible for those
activities.

Following up on the Evaluation

Often your busy schedule pulls you to new projects before you’ve had
a chance to analyze and benefit from previous ones. However, even when
people do take a few moments to review previous project experiences, they
seldom incorporate the lessons learned in their future operating practices.

As soon as possible after your post-project evaluation meeting, you, as

project manager, need to prepare and distribute a report that’s based on the
meeting minutes and that addresses the following topics:

➢ Practices to incorporate in future projects

➢ Steps to take to encourage these practices
➢ Practices to avoid in the future projects
➢ Steps to take to discourage these practices

Consider this wrap-up report as you plan future projects to make sure
you apply the lessons you learned.

REFERENCES
Peter Landau, January 30, 2018, “How to Improve Your Project
Evaluation Process,”
https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/improving-project-evaluation-
process (accessed November 20, 2018)
Stanley E. Portny, “Project Management For Dummies, 3rd Edition,”
2010

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