Chapter 2. Study Methodology

The research detailed in this report is a continuation of the work incubated by the Project Management Institute (PMI®) report entitled The Benefits of Project Management—Financial and Organizational Rewards to Corporations (Ibbs and Kwak 1997). Whereas the first report employed a “breadth” approach to assessing companies, canvassing the companies on general tendencies—average project performance or aggregate project management cost—this report takes a “deep” look at the quantifiable data gleaned from the thirty-eight original organizations, as well as fourteen additional organizations. This approach resulted in research that was deeper and yielded data of much higher quality. The result is a Phase 2 study that appears, on the surface, to have fewer data points than the Phase 1 study. But, in truth, this data is more reliable and actually has more depth. As reported in Figure 3-2, for instance, there are twenty-one data points (i.e., companies) but actually sixty-eight projects behind those twenty-one companies.

To ensure strict quality control, each assessed company designated one person who served as the point of contact. This contact was responsible for firm-wide data (such as total cost of project management spending) and was also given the responsibility of collating the disparate project data. Each of the companies or organizations analyzed in this report submitted at least two projects for detailed investigation. Project managers provided information that was used to compute project management maturity (PMM). Additionally, some of the companies listed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that they are currently using to gauge project management performance within their respective organizations. The Berkeley researchers, in turn, would spot check by phone or in person those responses as a form of audit.