A systematic approach to evaluate quantitative impacts of project management (PM)

This study presents a methodology to systematically assess the Project Management Process Maturity (PM){dollar}sp2{dollar} of an organization. This assessment can be used to measure and compare quantitatively the Project Management (PM) effectiveness of organizations.; A 5-level (PM){dollar}sp2{dollar} Model and 3-part (PM){dollar}sp2{dollar} Assessment Questionnaire are introduced to position and determine an organization's current and relative PM level. The (PM){dollar}sp2{dollar} Assessment Methodology is shown to be an effective tool for measuring an organization's PM level.; A total of 38 organizations, including 15 Engineering and Construction (EC), 10 Information Management and Movement (IMM, a.k.a. telecommunications), 10 Information Systems (IS, a.k.a. software development), and 3 Hi-Tech Manufacturing (HTM) companies, participated in the study.; The assessment results show that organizations have actively applied PM practices for an average of 10.7 years. It also reveals that the average organization spends 6% of project value on total PM costs. A 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) scale is used to measure and compare the relative PM level. The overall Project Management Process Maturity of the IS industry lags substantially behind the other industries. The EC (3.36), HTM (3.34), and IMM (3.30) industries are relatively mature yet even they have substantial room for PM processes improvement.; This study also develops a methodology to estimate the financial return on PM investment (PM/ROI) on an order-of-magnitude basis. First, regression analysis reveals that the organizational PM level and actual cost and schedule performance data from projects representative of the companies are positively associated. The PM/ROI calculation procedure is then presented to encourage managers to pursue investing in PM, as well as these PM processes, in very specific and useful ways.; The major contribution of this research is to provide a solid and comparative analysis methodology on PM practices across industries and companies which in turn can help managers to improve their PM processes and effectiveness.