Kevin P. Grant

Project management maturity: an assessment of project management capabilities among and between selected industries

The project management community is actively demonstrating substantial interest in the development of viable methods to assess and improve project management maturity. This interest also underscores the important need to assess project management maturity among industries to provide many organizations a means to benchmark their maturity relative to others. This research provides a snapshot of the current level of project management maturity-among industries based on 42 detailed components of maturity. A survey of 126 organizations reveals the median level of project management maturity is level 2 out of 5 with respect to 36 of the 42 components analyzed. Additionally, this research compares project management maturity between four major industries: professional, scientific and technical services; information; finance and insurance; and manufacturing. We conclude that with few exceptions, there is not a significant difference in project management maturity between industries. These results establish a baseline to support organizational assessments of project management maturity at a component level of analysis. Additionally, these results will support future longitudinal research to monitor the evolution of project management maturity.

Project Management Maturity: An Industry Benchmark

The project management community is currently investing substantially in the development of viable methods to assess and improve project management maturity. This investment often drives a corresponding need to monitor progress—internally and with respect to other similar organizations. To support this need, this research provides a cross-industry benchmark of project management maturity. Based on a survey of 123 firms, this research determined that nearly 67% of the organizations are currently at an overall project management maturity of level 2 (out of 5) or below. Additionally, the research concludes the level of project management maturity is statistically consistent between industries and among companies of varying size.

The perceived importance of technical competence to project managers in the defense acquisition community

Numerous studies have identified attributes which are associated with effective project managers. One of the more frequently cited attributes is technical competence. This study surveyed 228 project managers from the government sector of the defense aerospace community to determine the importance of technical competence to project managers. More importantly, this study examined the influence of several personal and situational factors on the perceived importance of technical competence. The factors included: the experience level of the project manager, the amount of technical education completed by the project manager, the level of technology employed in the project, the phase of the project, and the caliber of the project team. This study determined the perceived importance of technical competence did not vary by level of experience, though project managers who possessed more technical education perceived technical competence to be more important. With regard to the situational factors, the level of technology did not influence the perceived importance of technical competence. However, technical competence was perceived to be more important during earlier phases of the acquisition process. Further, technical competence was perceived to be more important for managers of extremely good teams and mediocre teams than it was to managers of reasonably good teams.

Improving Federal to Private Sector Technology Transfer

OVERVIEW: Technology transfer has become an increasingly important mission of federal laboratories in the United States, with results that benefit the government, private companies, and the U.S. economy. However, the performance of this mission over the past decade has been a mix of successes and failures. Research performed to improve this performance by identifying the characteristics of successful public to private sector technology transfers identified several critical success factors. These include a “transfer culture” in both the government laboratory and private organization, shared personnel of the federal and private organizations throughout the transfer project life cycle, the private organizations ability and intent to adequately fund the transfer project, and the private organizations completion of a business plan for the commercialization of the transferred technology prior to transfer initiation.

Delivering projects on time

OVERVIEW: Meaningful risk analysis can dramatically improve the likelihood of project managers delivering major system development projects on time. At issue are the questions, “Which risk events are most likely to occur?” and “Which risk events will have the most severe impact on the project schedule?” A study of 22 major aerospace system development programs produced a prompt list to support project managers engaged in risk identification. The study also yielded a risk map based upon an empirical study of the reasons for adverse schedule variances on the 22 programs over a ten-year period. The lack of required parts and materials when needed, a lack of requisite information, design changes, and difficulty starting, are among the risk events that most warrant managerial attention and appropriate risk mitigation and control.

Achieving Organizational Learning Through Team Competition

Abstract: This article contributes insights that engineering managers can use to cultivate organizational learning through competition. Contemporary firms face the challenge of successfully translating quality improvements into sustainable competitive advantages. Organizational learning is crucial to making quality improvements sustainable. This case study examined the mechanisms used to achieve organizational learning in a large-scale quality improvement competition. Thirty-four project teams from an international electronics company were included in this study. The results show that benchmarking and retrieval of electronic information were the most common methods used to acquire learning inputs. Knowledge transfer was most frequently achieved through training and adoption of internal specifications. Finally, learning was most frequently applied through formal changes to manufacturing methods and project management procedures.

The Project Manager and Project Team Involvement: Implications for Project Leadership:

Executive Summary Team leadership is vital to the successful performance of a project team. One important factor that influences the success of team leadership efforts is the structure of the project team. We identify four distinct project team models and their leadership implications. The relative degree of involvement of the project manager and the project team members is the primary characteristic used to distinguish between the project team models. Our findings suggest that each project team model imposes different challenges that should influence the team leadership approaches adopted by project managers.

Schedule delays in new product development: a life-cycle perspective

Successful technology management in the contemporary business environment requires the ability to rapidly translate new ideas into viable commercial products that serve the needs of the market place. Delays experienced during the development of new products only impede the rate of progress that is so critical to the success of the technology-intensive firm. This study identifies the most common causes of schedule delays based on a detailed examination of 451 delays experienced in 22 major weapon system development programs. This study employs a life cycle framework to examine delays associated with the stages of the new product development process. Technical difficulties experienced in the performance of key stage activities were the most often cited category of delays. Changes to the design were also a frequently reported cause of delay and information, as well as parts, material, equipment and tooling are also prominent reasons for delay. This study concludes with action that technology managers can take to reduce the incidence of delay as they arrive to reshape the world through the introduction of new technologies and products.

Launching the Projects in Space Learning Program

Abstract: The primary objective of this effort was to prototype the Projects in Space learning experience. We designed this active learning experience to impart core project management skills. We placed special emphasis on training project managers to recognize, share, and apply team member expertise to project planning, decision-making, and problem solving. We also designed the learning experience to serve as a research test bed for recognition and sharing of expertise in project teams. In the development effort, 20 graduate students completed all aspects of the learning experience. This article describes the development effort and presents initial results of proof of concept testing.