What metrics or methods may a program/portfolio manager use to determine whether a project is going well or not? A program/portfolio manager is responsible for a program or portfolio of projects and has a subordinate team of project managers which manage these projects. The projects may be agile projects or non-agile ones. A program/portfolio manager may have 1-on-1 meetings, stand-ups with project managers, they also send weekly or monthly reports about the progress of their project. As a program/portfolio manager, how do you understand that one project is going well (in terms of budget, scope, schedule, etc) and another project isn't going well? What metrics do you require the project managers to provide?

The core metrics are:

* Cost variance: current period, cumulative to date, and at completion
* Revenue Variance (if seller of services): current period, cumulative to date, and at completion
* Profit Margin Variance (if seller of services): current period, cumulative to date, and at completion
* Schedule variance: current period, cumulative to date, and at completion
* Customer Satisfaction Ratings
* Aged Billed AR
* Unbilled AR
* Invoice Variances (if seller of services)
* Days Sales Outstanding (if seller of services)
* Unfilled Team Requisitions, Aged, and impact to Revenue / Profit (if seller of services) and costs
* Deliverables Completion Tracking, Verification and Validation, and Variances
* Quality Assurance and Quality Control Metrics



There are other signals you could identify but they will likely roll-up to one of these.