Framework
Executive Project Controls Dashboard — KPI Framework
Define the few measures an executive dashboard is built around, so it drives a decision rather than displaying data.
PMO leads, programme directors and controls managers designing reporting.
When setting up or rationalising programme reporting and dashboards.
- Schedule conformance & forecast
- Risk & change exposure
- Decisions outstanding
- Trend, not snapshot
This dashboard is the operational face of Integrity-Led Project Controls — each measure below maps to one of the framework’s six integrities. An executive dashboard exists to answer one question quickly: is the programme in control, and if not, where? The measures below are the ones leadership can act on — enough to see exposure, not so many that signal is lost in noise.
- Schedule — SPI and forecast completion against baseline; longest-path status and critical-path health.
- Progress — planned vs actual % complete; earned vs planned; trend, not a single month.
- Milestones — status of contractual and stage-gate milestones; days early/late against commitment.
- Risk — top exposures by programme impact; movement since last period; mitigation status.
- Change — instructed vs anticipated change; time and cost impact; approval position.
- Claims & EOT — open entitlement positions; days claimed vs assessed; contemporaneous-record readiness.
- Contractor performance — schedule-quality conformance (e.g. DCMA/assurance score); recurring issues by contractor.
- Governance & actions — decisions required, owners and due dates; escalations outstanding.
The dashboard should read top-down: exposure and decisions first, detail on demand. Cost sits within this picture as one integrated dimension — cost/schedule alignment, forecast and variance — rather than as a separate report. The aim is a single, defensible version of the truth that supports a decision in the room, not a data dump reviewed after the fact.