Web Application Development Project Dashboard
This is a practical guide to building a project dashboard for a web application development project — a visual summary of the project’s key metrics and status, adapted to the realities of building a custom web application.
What a Project Dashboard is
A project dashboard is a visual summary of the project’s key metrics and status. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Project Dashboard. On a web application development project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Web Application Development project
Web Application Development projects live or die on building a custom web application. A well-built project dashboard gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how web application development projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Status indicators
- Schedule and cost KPIs
- Milestones
- Top risks/issues
Web Application Development-specific considerations
Tailor the project dashboard to the risks that most often derail web application development projects:
- Unclear or shifting requirements
- Technical debt
- Security and performance at scale
Example
On a real web application development project, the project dashboard would be shaped by building a custom web application. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — unclear or shifting requirements, technical debt, security and performance at scale — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.