KPI of the Day – Business Consulting (BC): # Project assignment duration
Definition
Measures the average amount of time spent working on a project assignment or work package.
Purpose
To evaluate the average amount of time an employee is allocated to a consulting assignment.
Recommendations
In the consulting industry it is critical that project managers closely monitor the # Project assignment duration, for each individual project on the roll. When projects miss out on their deadlines, they not only impact company bottom lines, but also lead to a significant deterioration of client relationships. It is, therefore, essential that managers gain fast track of project delay issues, so that they can efficiently and effectively tackle such issues.
Moreover, managers are recommended a thorough analysis of available resources and employees prior to estimating the project duration and setting a realistic deadline. Reporting on this KPI requires a well-maintained and granular system for managing consulting projects. Targets vary depending on the type of the consulting project and the teams involved.
Several other recommendations to optimize the project assignment duration are as follows:
- Define project success criteria at the beginning of project and communicate it to employees;
- Conduct regular meetings with employees to identify project drivers and constraints;
- Allocate time within the deadlines for project improvements or correction to avoid schedule overrun.
An important note here is that work contracts are usually counted in the average assignment length, particularly when the worker is contracted for a specific project. This indicator is thus widely used for labour hire arrangements.
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Tags: Consulting performance, KPI
