How to set up and build a project scorecard

How to build and set up a project scorecard

Ready to dive into the world of project scorecards? In this blog post, we’ve got you covered with all the essential tips and tricks for creating and building a project scorecard and the kinds of metrics you should use.

Table of contents

What is a project scorecard?

A project scorecard is a tool used to help you prioritize your projects using a set of predefined criteria. A scorecard is used to identify which projects are most important to you and therefore which projects you should focus your effort on. 

It is typically used by organizations as part of their project selection or portfolio management activities. By using criteria and performance metrics aligned with the organization’s strategic goals, the scorecard helps decision-makers assess each project’s potential impact and value. 

Why use a project scorecard to prioritize your projects?

Using a scorecard to prioritize projects offers several benefits for organizations and project teams. Here are some of the key advantages:

  • Fair and Consistent: A scorecard helps assess projects fairly and consistently by using predefined criteria. This prevents personal biases from influencing decisions.
  • Alignment with Goals: The scorecard aligns project priorities with the organization’s overall goals. Projects that contribute the most to these goals get higher priority.
  • Data-Driven Decision Making: Decision-makers can make informed and data-driven choices about project prioritization. This reduces the risk of making choices solely based on subjective opinions.
  • Resource Optimization: Prioritizing projects with a scorecard allows organizations to allocate resources more effectively. High-priority projects receive the necessary resources and attention, leading to improved project outcomes and overall resource optimization.

How to set up and build a project scorecard

Define your scoring criteria

To get going with project scoring, you first need to define the criteria you want to evaluate your projects using so you can identify the highest value projects.

So you need to decide what valuable looks like for your organization.

High-value projects could be those that reduce costs or increase revenue. But they could also be projects where the benefit is not so obvious such as improving customer service or improving brand recognition. Therefore, to identify your criteria it can help to look at your organization’s overall strategic priorities.

Here are some criteria you could use when assessing the value of a project:

  • Likely cost savings
  • Anticipated revenue increase
  • How risky the project is
  • Technical complexity
  • Does it improve customer service
  • Does it improve your brand
Your criteria will then form the basis of your scorecard by providing a series of questions to be answered.

Define your responses

For each criteria, you then need to decide on some canned responses to each question.

So for example when evaluating a project for risk the choices could be low-risk, medium risk and high-risk. Whereas for a question about additional revenue, the choices could be no additional revenue, $200K-$500K and over $500K.

Then for each response assign a score. The more favourable responses should get a higher score.

how to set up a project scorecard

Fill in your scorecard

Finally, you want to fill in your scorecard by answering each question in turn and providing a response. Next, add up the scores for each question to derive a score for your project.

Do this for each project in turn then simply rank your projects by score.

Prioritized list of projects

Project scoring in Kelloo

While it is possible to build a scorecard in an Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheets, it is often easier to use scorecard software.

Kelloo is a project, resource and portfolio management solution that has project scoring and prioritization as part of its toolkit. Kelloo has a ready made scorecard template that is customizable so you can fine-tune the ranking criteria to your needs.

project scorecard for project prioritization

Project scorecard example and metrics

Looking to jump-start your project scorecard creation? Here are some common metrics you can incorporate into your project prioritization scorecards.

  • Alignment with Organizational Goals
  • Market Opportunity
  • Financial Viability
  • Return on Investment (ROI)
  • Payback Period
  • Resource Requirements
  • Estimated Cost
  • Resource Availability
  • Risk
  • Improvements to Customer Satisfaction
  • Improvements to Customer Retention
  • Innovation and Competitive Advantage
  • Stakeholder Suppor

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