Beyond the Basics: Business, Technical, & Leadership KPIs for Project Managers
Why “on time and on budget” was never the full story.
The Right Measures for Success
Project managers have long been measured by delivery metrics such as schedule, scope, cost. But in today’s environment, that’s just the baseline. Executives are increasingly holding PMs accountable for outcomes, not just activity.
That shift requires a broader view of performance. We should consider how we blend business impact, technical execution, and leadership behavior. In this article, I break down practical KPIs across three domains that better reflect what success looks like for project managers.
Business Outcomes
Business KPIs assess how well a a project manager delivers not just a completed project, but business value. These outcomes are focused on delivery and strategic contribution by zooming in on tangible measures such as financial performance, customer attitudes, and market share. Below are some categories and examples:
Financial Impact
Revenue Growth
Cost Avoidance
Production/Efficiency Gains
CapEx/Opex ROI
Market Impact
Time to Market (TTM)
Market Share Contribution
Customer Reach Growth
Customer & User Impact
Net Promoter Score (NPS) Delta
Adoption Rate
Support Ticket Reduction
The key point related to these KPIs in the context of project management is the change between the current and future state based on the specific projects and programs. For instance executives are not likely going to hold a PM responsible for revenue as a top line figure as this is likely the responsibility of the commercial team or sales team. However, revenue growth in the context of a new project could very well be something that is a shared responsibility.
Technical Outcomes
These KPIs track the craft of project management. They look at how well the practitioner is able to deal with delivering within the parameters of scope, time, cost, risk, and quality. Additionally, they are likely to explore how well the professional is able to manage change, benefits realization, and other elements within the body of knowledge. Below are some categories and examples:
Time Management
Schedule Variance (SV)
Milestone On-Time Rate
Sprint/Iteration Completion Rate
Cost Control
Cost Performance Index (CPI)
Budget Adherence Rate
Forecast Accuracy
Scope & Change Management
Change Request Volume
Scope Stability Index
Rework Rate
Risk & Issue Management
Issue Resolution Cycle Time
Risk Exposure Trend
Contingency Utilization
Quality & Process Discipline
Defect Density
QA Pass Rate
Process Compliance Rate
When it comes to the technical measures of a project management practitioner often they are driven by the organization’s ability to hold them accountable to aspects of the project. An organization that is unable to track cost on a project, such as human resource cost, is unlikely going to hold the PM responsible for such as metric.
Leadership Outcomes
These KPIs evaluate how the practitioner leads, communicates, and builds trust across teams. They measure influence, clarity, and team effectiveness, even in high-pressure environments. Here are some categories and examples:
Communication & Influence
Clarity Index
Escalation Conversion Rate
Stakeholder Responsiveness
Team Engagement & Morale
Engagement Pulse Score
Team Turnover Rate (project-level)
Team Autonomy Score
Collaboration & Cross-Functional Leadership
Peer Collaboration Ratings
Integration Success Score
Conflict Resolution Velocity
Crisis Leadership
Adaptability Index
Contingency Activation Score
Leadership Sentiment During Escalation
Learning & Growth Culture
Lessons Learned Completion Rate
Skills Uplift Evidence
Coaching Feedback
Leadership KPIs are perhaps the hardest to measure and potentially use to assess a PMs performance for the purposes of rewards and recognition. However, this can be a rich area of conversation with the executive team to determine which behavior are important to the organization in terms of enforcement.
KPIs in Practice
As I reflect on my own career journey with a variety of organizations the times that I have seen a positive interaction between project managers and their supervisors are situations where the organization has a simple and clear process for evaluating performance. One of the organizations I worked for used to have annual objectives that were categorized within “win”, “deliver”, and “team“. Additionally these goes were cascaded from the CEO all the way through the organization. The aim was strategic alignment. Another organization chose to focus only on financial measures which drove specific types of behavior related to winning business.
Final Thought: Metrics Only Matter if They Align
No matter how well-crafted your KPIs are, they won’t drive performance unless they’re aligned with your organization's culture, values, and accountability systems.
When KPIs feel disconnected, either too theoretical or imposed without context, they get ignored. But when they reflect the way the organization actually operates, they become powerful tools for clarity, focus, and trust.
The best project managers go beyond just tracking metrics, they help shape them. They ask: What does success look like here? How do we measure what matters most?
I’d love to hear how your organization approaches PM performance. What’s working, and where do you still see gaps?