The Pursuit Power Half Hour
The Billable Hour Is Dying: A New Era of Delivery Health Metrics
Beyond Billable Utilization: How to Measure Project Delivery Health
High billable utilization does not always mean a project is healthy. A project can meet utilization and margin targets while teams experience burnout, client expectations drift, or satisfaction declines. A more complete view of delivery health combines project and financial metrics with feedback from clients and employees.
In this Pursuit Power Half Hour session, Brent Trimble, VP of Value Engineering at Kantata, speaks with Kyle Sandine, Associate Director of PMO and Delivery Center of Excellence at Adage Technologies, about measuring project success beyond billability.
What Should Firms Measure Beyond Billable Utilization?
Utilization, hours, budget, timeline, and margin provide important information about project performance. Client and team sentiment adds context about the experience behind those numbers.
The conversation explores how Adage combines traditional project measures with subjective feedback to uncover risks that financial and operational metrics alone may miss. This broader perspective helps teams understand whether delivery is meeting expectations and where attention may be needed.
How Can Client and Team Feedback Reveal Project Risks Earlier?
Regular feedback throughout the project lifecycle helps teams identify changes in satisfaction before the project ends.
Kyle shares how Adage evolved from reviewing project metrics primarily at closeout to capturing a more complete project story during delivery. The session examines why faster feedback loops—and a framework for collecting, analyzing, and acting on feedback—are important for addressing emerging issues.
How Can Firms Move Toward Value-Based Delivery?
Moving from time-and-materials engagements toward fixed-bid and value-based delivery requires changes to how firms scope work, collaborate with clients, and evaluate success.
Brent and Kyle discuss the importance of clear expectations, client collaboration, and change management as teams move beyond traditional measures of billability. They also explore how team satisfaction and skills alignment contribute to a broader understanding of project health.
Watch the Kantata Pulse Project Sentiment Analysis Demo
The session concludes with Jacquelyn Blayer, Solutions Engineer at Kantata, demonstrating how Kantata Pulse brings client and employee sentiment together with objective project metrics.
See how teams can:
- Capture client and employee feedback throughout the project lifecycle.
- Compare sentiment with budget burn, percent complete, and margin.
- Identify projects where client or team sentiment needs attention.
- Track sentiment trends as a project progresses.
- Automate feedback collection at milestones, phases, task completion, or recurring intervals.
- Use Kantata’s AI Project Assistant to turn feedback into actionable next steps.
Speakers
- Brent Trimble — VP of Value Engineering, Kantata
- Kyle Sandine — Associate Director of PMO and Delivery Center of Excellence, Adage Technologies
- Jacquelyn Blayer — Solutions Engineer, Kantata
Explore Kantata Pulse project sentiment analysis to learn how client and employee feedback can help your team understand delivery health and identify emerging risks.