A Case for Developing Project Manager ScorecardsHiring project managers, as well as growing and developing project management expertise in an organization, can be efficiently accomplished through the use of customized scorecards.

• Cognizant 20-20 Insights

Executive SummaryEvery project is unique, and every project manager brings his or her unique mix of experiences, skills, knowledge and motivation to it. However, from an organizational perspective, there is a need for consistently high-quality project management practice regardless of the inherent variations in projects and people. A crucial component of fulfilling this portfolio and program management need is effectively staffing upcoming projects. This, in turn, is dependent on selecting the right project manager, since he or she will be respon-sible for hiring the rest of the project team.

However, not every project needs the world’s best project manager. The key is to match the project’s specific requirements with the appropriate candidate in terms of skills and experience. This task is, however, hampered by the lack of time as well as the challenge of juggling the needs of several projects at a time.

Using a project manager scorecard can signifi-cantly ease the complexity of this task. It can not only help match the right candidate with the right project but also ensure the best use of the resources available. By clarifying both the specific needs of projects and the relevant attributes of project managers, it can contribute to organiza-tional efficiency. The scorecard sets standards

of performance that can be applied in recruiting, training and career development, thereby increasing organizational maturity in project management.

The Challenges of Hiring One of the challenges that a portfolio or program manager faces in hiring a project manager is selecting the candidate best placed to succeed in the given assignment. However, as businesses focus on time to market, incremental benefits and ambitious if leanly staffed programs, there is rarely the luxury of time for an exhaustive search. If an IT organization or a development center exists within the business, its resources are almost automatically considered for the assign-ments that come up. Juggling these resources is commonplace in an effort to meet the needs of ongoing as well as new projects. The objective is to provide the most appropriate resource to ensure the success of the project.

Now add scalability factors to this scenario. You may have 50 or more active projects at any time. At the same time, the work intake process for new projects is not predictable.

In such a scenario, hiring appropriate resources quickly calls for first classifying both the projects and the potential project managers.

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This is, however, no easy task. On the resource management side, there may be 40 or more project managers on the team, each working on one or more projects of varying durations. If motivated, each of them would want the “best project” for his or her next assignment. Yet they may not all be ready for the most challenging next project; some may even be overqualified.

To mitigate delivery risks, project managers who are likely to succeed on a given assignment need to be chosen. However, to garner support for the decision, all the project managers in the resource pool need to be able to understand the rationale for the decision. Communicating this rationale is therefore not only necessary but can also be an opportunity to encourage the project managers to focus on specific areas of improvement so as to qualify for more challenging assignments.

A Tool for Rational Staffing DecisionsThe search for a robust tool to enable rational staffing decisions was what originally prompted us to develop our Project Manager (PM) Scorecard. As the leaders of a global development center for a client, our primary objective was to develop and support world-class project managers, achieving a distribution of performance levels that matched our project portfolio. Project management excellence was critical for the success of the center, and project failure was a significant risk. Our focus was on raising the overall project management expertise in our center and that of the individual project managers. The PM Scorecard helps us measure and understand project management competency at the center level and identify the areas for improvement. Individual PMs are able to use the scorecard to understand how they are perceived by center leaders and to understand their specific project management strengths and areas for improve-ment. Similarly, ensuring an optimum mix of project management experience has been made easier with the PM Scorecard.

Our PM Scorecard is now widely used within our company. At the center level and at the orga-nizational level, we use the scorecard as part of the interview process for project managers. An even broader use of our PM Scorecard has emerged for our central learning organization. The scorecard includes the soft skills that often require additional attention in technical organi-zations. The curriculum planners of the project management career track training program

have therefore found it useful. The project management training curriculum is now based on the classifications and behaviors included in the scorecard. These experiences have strength-ened our belief that other program and portfolio managers and managers of project manager pop-ulations may benefit from developing and using their own PM scorecards.

How the Scorecard Works

The PM Scorecard comprises 21 items in two basic categories. The 11 “skills and experience” items capture the candidate’s relevant project management experience, training and certifi-cation, the largest project managed and other historical factors that are traditionally considered important. And 10 “competency” items deal with the capabilities and behaviors required. These items have been developed based on our obser-vations of leadership styles and effectiveness. They include project management skills, client relationship skills, team leadership skills, inde-pendence, contribution to the center, compliance with standards, etc. Figure 1 (next page) illustrates the items in our PM Scorecard and how they are mapped to the experience and competency indices.

Customization

The importance of each item in the scorecard will vary depending upon the context. The items can be replaced and/or supplemented with other items that are deemed critical for success in a given project management situation. Similarly, the mapping of items to experience and competency, especially the latter, can be modified depending upon the project.

It is important that the items be independent. Where this is not possible, any correlations should be highlighted. Whereas the broad index includes every item on the scorecard, the specific index is more selective and avoids repetitive and less-predictive items. The scorecard can be simplified by focusing purely on the specific index items.We note, however, that the expanded scorecard is useful in situations that call for the collection of longitudinal data. Also, the seemingly extraneous items can be valuable in certain situations such as when the organizational leadership team and even the project managers seek related information.

For each item, five descriptors were created, with increasing presence of the factors relevant for project management excellence. For example,

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PM Scorecard Items

Figure 1

Item Number

Scorecard Item

Broad Index

Specific Index Clarification Comment

1 Years Of PM Experience

Experience Increases in time, assuming individual stays active in profession.

2 PMI Certification Experience Not found to be predictive, but included since it is a common credential used in assessing PM candidates.

3 Largest Project Managed In Entirety

Experience Experience Our scorecard focus was on application development and systems integration projects, not maintenance projects. Experience in maintenance management excluded from items 3-7.

4 Most Projects Managed In Parallel

Experience Experience See comment for item 3. PMs often manage multiple, smaller projects, possible enhancement projects a the same time.

5 Most Organizations Managed

Experience Experience See comment for item 3. Interfacing with multiple organiza-tions, whether vendors or different business teams, or a dedicated text organization, was important for PM success.

6 Most Complex Project Managed

Experience Experience See comment for item 3.

7 Largest Offshore Development Team

Experience Experience See comment for item 3.

8 Primary Client Interface, Highest Level

Experience This is for informal daily communication, not just formal statuses.

9 Project Planning Experience

Experience Project planning is a critical success factor, since we expect end-to-end involvement by PMs.

10 Communication Skills Experience Verbal and written communication needs of PMs.

11 Relevant Technical/Busi-ness Knowledge

Experience Technical and domain knowledge are required for PMs to gain the respect of delivery teams and clients.

12 Use Of Basic PM Skills Competency Competency The levels of this item involve increasing ability to anticipate crises, issues, and trade-offs and ultimately the ability to avoid and mitigate them smoothly.

13 Onsite-Offshore Model Competency Competency Working within our onsite-offshore delivery model is a critical success factor.

14 Management Autonomy

Competency Competency Amount of intervention required by a PM from the center leadership team to ensure project and client relationship success.

15 Team Development Competency Impact of PM on grooming team members.

16 Team Leadership Competency Ability of the PM to organize, manage and lead his or her team to successful delivery.

17 Client Relationships Competency Competency This item is about the amount of trust and leadership demonstrated by a PM relative to the client.

18 Client-Facing Skills Competency Competency Ability to convey complex, difficult-at-times messages, and to work with clients to resolve issues.

19 PMIS Compliance Competency All projects are measured on compliance in terms of planning, status updates, and metrics reporting within our corporate project management information systems (PMIS).

20 Use Of Center Approach

Competency Willingness and effectiveness of the PM to use organizational, development center, and program processes and standards to provide consistent and excellent PM services.

21 Account Development Competency PMs often identify new project needs, which is valued in our situation.

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for project planning experience, the five descrip-tors that demonstrated increasing performance levels were:

• None or minimal.

• Complete planning (schedule, resources, profitability) for small applications.

• Program planning experience inlcuding SOW preparation, RFP reponses.

• Engagement planning experience, including MSA negotiation.

Each of the five levels of an item was associated with a rating score so that higher levels of perfor-mance had higher scores. The center leadership rated each project manager on each of the 21 items. A facilitated discussion session was used to arrive at the final rating and to ensure fairness and alignment of specific ratings. While the initial discussions may tend to be diffuse, our experience has been that over time the scorecard rating process becomes much more efficient. The overall average score across all scorecard items will establish a project manager’s classification at a given point in time. Indices and item distribution

patterns will help identify the project manager’s specific strengths and areas for improvement.

The use of a metaphor for the classification of project managers and projects will help make the scorecard assessments more “sticky.” For example, a boxing metaphor would lead to classification labels such as Flyweight, Welterweight, Middleweight, Heavyweight, and World Class. Such labels, though they may not be tied to the company’s formal performance assessment system, will enable clarity in conversations around project requirements as well as performance parameters: “We need a Heavyweight project manager for the complex Project X” and “This training program is aimed at associates striving to become Middle-weight project managers in the year ahead”.

Figure 2 presents a sample PM Scorecard. The overall score indicates a Welterweight level of project management performance and the

The use of a metaphor for the classification of project managers and projects will help make the scorecard assessments more “sticky.”

Sample PM Scorecard with Ratings

PM Name: Jane Doe Overall Classification: Welterweight

Assessment Date: 3/3/2010 Overall Average Score: 2.0

Rating Project Manager Classification

Item # Item Flyweight Welterweight Middleweight Heavyweight World Class

1 Years of PM experience 1-3 4-5 6-10 11-15 16 or more

2 PMI Certification None Training towards certification PMP (<5 years) PMP (5 years or longer) PMP and/or PgMP

3 Largest project managed in entirety:•Revenue ($)•Effort (total hours)•Peak team size•Duration (months)

<$50k<1k1-5<6 months

<$1M11-20k6-20<6 months

<$5M20k-100k21-507-12 months

<$20M100k-400k51-1001-2 years

>$20M>$40k>100

4 Most projects managed in parallel 1 2-4 5-7 8 or 9 10 or more

5 Most organizations managed (companies, vendors, teams)

1 2-4 5-7 8 or 9 10 or more

6 Most complex project managed

Single enhancement, established project.

Multiple enhancements or small development project.

Formal governance, multi-system solution or major development project.

Formal governance, multi-system solution or major development project, including integration across vendors, platforms.

All of the “Heavyweight capabilities” plus integration with multiple releases across vendors, platforms, possibly new technologies.

7 Largest offshore development team management

0-5 6-15 16-50 51-125 >125

8 Primary client interface, highest level of success

Team lead or project manager.

Project manager Director and/or program manager

VP Business executive and/or CxO

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Item # Item Flyweight Welterweight Middleweight Heavyweight World Class

9 Project planning experience

None or minimal. Complete planning (sched-ule, resources, profitability) for small application.

Program planning experience including SOW preparation, RFP responses.

Program planning experience including NDAs, SOW negotiation, RFP responses.

Engagement planning experience, including MSA negotiation.

10 Communication skills Average verbal and written communication.

Good verbal and written communication, pursues improvements.

Excellent verbal and written communication, including summaries.

Excellent verbal and written communication, including summaries, presentations, documents.

Excellent verbal and written communication, including summaries, presentations, documents. Instills communication improvements in team.

11 Relevant technical/ business knowledge (subject matter expertise)

Entry-level knowledge.

On learning curve. Has subset of experience with similar project technology, domain in the same industry, but requires some mentoring and support.

Significant experience with similar project, technology, domain in the same industry.

Guru in relevant technicolor business domain.

12 Use of basic PM skills Manages schedule and deliverables, reports status and metrics accurately.

Understands project planning, execution and control, and closure processes. Manages schedule, cost, resources and deliverables, reports status and metrics meaningfully and accurately.

Demonstrates project plan-ning, execution and control, and closure processes. Man-ages schedule, cost, resources, deliverables, statuses, metrics, understanding interactions and trade-offs and predicting and managing risks and issues 6 months ahead.

Excels at project planning, execution and control and closure processes. Manages schedule, cost, resources, deliverables, statuses, metrics, understanding interactions and trade-offs and predicting and managing risks and issues 12 months ahead.

Manages patterns of project risks and issues through the end of the project. Trusted for statuses and metrics interpretation.

13 Onsite-offshore model competency

Works effectively with small offshore component.

Manages offshore component within established relationship.

Defines and develops offshore component relationship, successful delivery with significant offshore team.

Coordinates geographically dispersed teams in multiple locations, including significant offshore team.

Coordinates geographi-cally dispersed teams in multiple locations, nclud-ing multiple significant offshore teams.

14 Management autonomy

Order taker, goes through the motions.

Attempts to solve some project issues, seeks management support.

Client trusts to lead project. Infrequent, but appropriate escalations.

Independently solves significant client problems, minimal help required.

Autonomous and supremely effective, keeps leadership informed.

15 Team development Supports his/her people; seeks manage-ment input before making personnel deci-sions; sets guidelines for team behavior.

Promotes his/her people’s interest; involves management in personnel decisions; encourages adherence to behavioral guidelines.

Develops his/her people; rec-ommends personnel actions to management; enforces adher-ence to behavioral guidelines; creates realistic performance reviews.

Identifies and mentors future leaders; trusted to indepen-dently make hard personnel decisions; encourages team members to develop self-reliance.

Identifies, mentors and develops future leaders consistently and rapidly; trusted to independently make hard personnel decisions.

16 Team Leadership Needs significant help or guidance learning how to organize, man-age, and lead the team. Generally unaware of management methods. Does not recognize or deal with situational requirements.

Needs some help with organizing, managing and leading the team. Attempts to motivate and engage with team. Learning to use appropriate management techniques. Needs help recognizing situations and managing impacts.

Independently organizes, leads and manages the team. Generally uses appropriate management techniques. Recognizes situations and takes action to deal with them. Escalates appropriately.

Reliable and effective at team organization and management. Exhibits strong leadership. Adept at using appropriate management techniques. Proactively deals with situations and takes prompt and effective action to handle them.

Highly effective orga-nizer and manager with outstanding leadership skills. Serves as mentor and role model to aspiring leaders. Skill-fully handles situations and creates positive outcomes.

17 Client Relationships Gets along with client’s work team.

Builds trusted relationship with the client.

Successful client leadership. Influences client’s decisions and actions, serves as client’s go-to person.

Go-to person in inner circle for multiple high-level clients.

18 Client-facing Skills Always needs an intermediary when dealing with the client.

Capable of dealing with client on routine project issues.

Trusted by center leadership to deal with sensitive or complex project and personnel issues that require sensitivity, tact and discretion.

Trusted by center leadership to deal with sensitive or complex project, sales, financial and personnel issues with sensitiv-ity, tact and discretion.

Has impeccable client handling skills including in difficult situations.

19 PMIS Compliance Not aware of PMIS compliance needs.

Aware of PMIS compliance needs, tries to follow them.

Committed to PMIS compliance with generally positive results.

Prevails through significant challenges to achieve exemplary PMIS compliance.

Award-winning PMIS compliance results.

20 Use of Center Approach

Works within center framework following defined processes.

Demonstrates commitment to the center approach, manages others to execute to it

Fully embodies the center approach and promotes it to the client.

Helps evolve the center approach and integrate it with the client company processes

Defines the center approach and trains team accordingly.

21 Account Development No activities. Identifies closely related opportunities.

Develops relationship, looks for opportunities sequential to and outside of immediate project.

Develops executive-level relationship, identifies business-based opportunities that have high cost-benefit to Cognizant

Develops relationships and opportunities that have significant impact on the entire account.

Figure 2

Sample PM Scorecard with Ratings continued

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specific strengths and weaknesses can be seen in the pattern of bright green ratings. The descrip-tors for each level of each item provide additional clarification. We expect that any effective scorecard would require that similarly detailed and relevant descriptors be defined.

Communication Is CrucialA crucial aspect of implementing the scorecard is communication between the senior leadership team responsible for staffing decisions and the project manager population before and after an assessment. The leadership should explain to project managers the need for a scorecard. After the assessment is complete, the overall meth-odology and results should be presented to all project managers. Trends and other statistical analyses of the group results should be shared to help project managers understand the overall progress of the initiative independent of their personal score. In addition to group communi-cations, confidential individual consultations to discuss each project manager’s ratings should be

available. The focus of these discussions should be to help the project manager understand the items, their relevance and the meaning of the rating. This should be followed by discussions about coaching and development opportunities.

Figure 3 offers an illustrative format for optional discussions with project managers regarding their assessments.

ConclusionPortfolio management is driven by business objectives, but it ends up with differentiation of project types and project manager resource needs. Using a project manager scorecard is a step forward in the maturation of the project, program and portfolio management processes in an orga-nization. Focusing on resource management and project staffing, the PM Scorecard can help ensure a successful and efficient portfolio execution. Also, the scorecard potentially has broader enter-prise-wide benefits and can be customized to address specific enterprise needs.

Sample Individual PM Scorecard Feedback Format

Figure 3

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121415817

2097

18162

1021

Legend

FW =HW =MW=WC =WW=

PM Name Jane Doe Overall Average ScoreAssessment Date 3/3/10 Classification

Review Date 3/10/10

SCORECARD ITEMS METRICS CLASSIFICATION

Subject Rating FW WW MW HW WCMost Projects Managed in Parallel Experience Experience 3 3Onsite-Offshore Model Competency Competency Competency 3 3

Competency 3 3Relevant Technical/Business Knowledge Experience 3 3Largest Project Managed in Entirety Experience Experience 2 2Highest Number of Organizations Managed Experience Experience 2 2Most Complex Project Managed Experience Experience 2 2Years of PM Experience Experience 2 2Use of Basic PM Skills Competency Competency 2 2Management Autonomy Competency Competency 2 2Team Development Competency 2 2Primary Client Interface, Highest Level Experience 2 2Client Relationships Competency Competency 2 2

Competency 2 2Project Planning Experience Experience 2 2Largest Offshore Development Team Experience Experience 2 2Client-facing Skills Competency Competency 2 2Team Leadership Competency 2 2PMI Certification Experience 1 1

Experience 1 1Account Development Competency 1 1

14% 67% 19% 0% 0%

CLASSIFICATION DETAILSFlyweightHeavyweight Broad Experience Index 2.00 WWMiddleweight Broad Competency Index 2.10 WWWorld Class Specific Experience Index 2.20 WWWelterweight Specific Competency Index 2.20 WW

1.0 1.6 2.6 3.6 4.6 Classification — Min1.5 2.5 3.5 4.5 5.0 Classification — Max

2.05Welterweight

StrengthBroad Index Specific Index

Distribution of Ratings

Average Overall Score 2.05 WW

Item #

Communication Skills

PMIS Compliance

Use of Center Approach

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About the AuthorsAita Salasoo is a Program Director within Cognizant’s Advanced Solutions Group. She has led Future of Work implementation initiatives, major outsourcing development center start-up, transition, organiza-tional change management and program delivery efforts with retail and financial services clients. She has more than 25 years of IT and consulting experience, and was previously at SAIC and Telcordia Technolo-gies. Aita has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and holds both PMP and PgMP professional certifications. She can be reached at Aita.Salasoo@cognizant.com.

Jeff Boyle heads Cognizant’s Advanced Solutions Group in North America. He has more than 25 years of experience in IT and has led a variety of application development and systems integration projects across numerous industries. He has built single and multiclient development centers specializing in the use of onsite/offshore models and leading-edge approaches. Throughout his career, Jeff has been involved in the development and implementation of systems development and project management methodologies and has led a variety of organization transformation initiatives tied to methodology changes. He can be reached at Jefferson.Boyle@cognizant.com.

Robert Root is an Associate Program Director within Cognizant’s Advanced Solutions Group. With more than 20 years of experience in telecommunications, Bob has succesfully led global business and infrastructure expansion initiatives by focusing on strategic planning, business process engi-neering and organizational metrics. He has a Ph.D. in social psychology. Bob can be reached at Robert.Root@cognizant.com.

About Cognizant

Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process out-sourcing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50 delivery centers worldwide and approximately 140,500 employees as of March 31, 2012, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.

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