Thomas, Janice; Mullaly, Mark: Understanding the Value of Project Management – First Steps on an International Investigation in Search of Value; in: Project Management Journal, Vol. 38 (2008), No. 3, pp. 7489.
Thomas & Mullaly outline a conceptual model for investigating the value project management brings to an organisation. Their conceptual model assumes that three antecedents of value exist – (1) process criteria, (2) outcome criteria, and (3) fit of project management constructs with organisational context.
Furthermore they propose a 5 step evaluation of the value project management brings to the organisation in question
- Satisfaction – Is top management happy with project management?
- Aligned use of practices – Has project management implemented the processes it planned to do?
- Process outcomes – What process improvements have been achieved?
- Business outcomes – How did project management implementation impact business outcomes, e.g., customer satisfaction and retention, decreased time-to-market.
- ROI
[I am not sure about no. 2. This is quite a marketing/HR argument: ‚We can’t tell you if we achieved something, but we did, what we promised to do and we stayed in budget!‘. Still I think that a better framework for the value created by project management is a value-oriented management approach.]