A case study approach for developing a project performance evaluation system

Prior project management research has identified a wide variety of measures that describe the outcomes of a project and the input characteristics that impact outcomes. In practice however, project schedules are still used as the sole project performance measure in some firms. Although the use of project schedules is still a good practice for some companies, for other companies the use of project schedules as the sole project performance measure can result in industrial projects falling behind schedule and coming in over-budget. In order to examine how the evaluation of project performance can be improved, a two-step approach is documented that was used to design a new project performance evaluation system at Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies (FM&T) that would enable managers to audit a project and determine where improvements could be made. Lessons learned from the development of a project performance evaluation system at Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies are then discussed.