Measuring Programme Progress

One of the great imponderables in the Project World is how do you measure progress in programmes. If you are dealing with a portfolio, it might be tempting to just measure the progress of individual projects but this tends to ignore the systemic aspects where benefits are not simply the sum of the parts. An interesting development in the United States this month is the White House metrics being introduced to measure progress in the Afghanistan struggle.

In times past, such as in Vietnam, the body count was the main measure; before that it was the advances made from one trench line to another. However, modern warfare invalidates these simple measures of success and so the White House has defines some fifty measure that it will use to determine whether the efforts of its troops make are cost effective. Another interesting perspective is who is filling what programme roles. Programme owners, Sponsors and Managers are difficult to discern and it is even harder to understand responsibilities and accountabilities.

Political complexities aside, the Afghanistan situation highlights a great difficulty for military equipment procurement, project and programme management. Recent UK press reports have resurrected the Chinook debacle, as though it were newly discovered.

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