I am a regular reader of the Project Management Journal and take
a keen interest in the latest research on the project management
profession. While some of the content is
abstrusely academic and some just doesn’t apply to me, it is rare that I don’t
find several articles that interest me.
While I appreciate the research that Project Management Journal brings me, I am a practitioner, not a
researcher. That said, my experience
affords me a direct exposure to anecdotal evidence of themes, patterns and
practices relevant to our profession. What
I don’t know is whether these anecdotal observations are representative or
outliers.
Therefore, I’ve reviewed all my posts and tagged a few with
“Project Management Research” to indicate I’ve made an assertion in that post
that would benefit from an objective application of the scientific method. I thus invite and encourage any students
looking for project management research topics to review these posts and
conduct the appropriate research to (in)validate my premise. I offer these topics freely. I ask that you provide me with the published
results. I’ll post them here, supportive
or non, with generous credit to you.
To get you started, here is a summary of all of the posts
I’ve tagged and the outstanding research question in each.
A
Philosophy of Projects and Products (Part 3 of 3) [Published:
01/13/2011]
Hypothesis: Consultancy PM environments can be
distinguished from P&SD PM environments (core skill, priority, metrics,
milestones vs deliverables, scope vs cost, domain knowledge vs monitor/
control, shared with support/ maintenance).
Hypothesis: Consultancy PM organizations are more
successful at delivering projects than P&SD PM organizations.
The
Project Manager’s Cycle [Published:
01/31/2011]
Hypothesis: That the activities documented constitute the
Managing & Controlling cycle.
Hypothesis: That PMs (or organizations) that follow these
best practices are more successful at delivering projects.
The
Project Manager’s Cycle – Redux
[Published: 12/31/2012]
Hypothesis: That the activities documented constitute the
Managing & Controlling cycle.
Hypothesis: That PMs (or organizations) that follow these
best practices are more successful at delivering projects.
Project
Failures & The Chaos Reports [Published: 06/26/2011]
This post identifies a host of
research opportunities: distinguishing
between success rates for professionally managed projects versus ad hoc managed projects; perception of success vs failure by different
stakeholders on the same project;
different “types” of project failure;
etc.
The
Root Cause of IT Project Failure [Published: 07/04/2011]
Hypothesis: Failure of novel projects is due to the
project team committing to a schedule too soon.
Ode
to ETC – The Task Overrun Early Warning System [Published: 10/04/2011]
Hypothesis: That Estimate to Complete (ETC) is superior
to Percent Complete for determining accurate project status and providing
earlier indication of problems.
The
Schedule – Basics [Published:
11/27/2012]
Hypothesis: Organizations that well-formed schedules have
superior project success rates than organizations that do not use these
practices.
The
Schedule – Risk Buffers [Published:
12/28/2012]
Hypothesis: Organizations that apply quantitative risk analysis
have superior project success rates than organizations that do not.
Estimate
Confidence – A Demonstrative Example [Published: 03/02/2013]
Hypothesis: That PERT practices for determining standard
deviation are valid.
Hypothesis: That schedules developed using PERT
scheduling techniques more accurately reflect actual results than schedules
developed from other techniques.
I look forward to learning about and learning from the
research you conduct on any of these topics.
Further, I’m happy to assist you with defining and refining the research
instruments.
©
2013 Chuck Morton. All Rights Reserved.
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