The Center for Business Practices (CBP) released their “State of Project Management 2006” survey (view PDF version here) or go to this URL: http://www.pmsolutions.com/experts/research_smry06.pdf). The survey is worth taking some time to read. I think the results show that implementing PM Methodologies and PM offices provides value to an organization…although organizations should also ensure that common sense is applied to all methodologies that are implemented.
Some interesting tidbits in the survey include:
BIGGEST CHALLENGES TO THE SUCCESS OF PROJECTS facing organizations today are inadequate resources (for 70% of organizations), shortage of time for thinking and planning (50%), unrealistic expectations from senior management (43%), and the overwhelming pace of change (41%).
Positive news from the survey includes:
…enhancing portfolio, program, and project management practices has resulted in considerable value to organizations, including performance improvements of 20% in overall project success, customer satisfaction, meeting schedules, project quality, and project alignment to business strategy.
The CBP survey asked organizations questions relating to projects, Project Management (PM) methodologies, project offices, resources & people, PM tools, culture within the organization and project challenges. A few highlights from the results are:
- Only 14.5% of organizations are without a project office (compared to 55% without project offices in our 2003 survey)
- On average, 3.7% of an organization’s employees work full time on projects
- Work breakdown structure was the most used tool, but even then, 23% of organizations don’t use it at all or only limited use
- Microsoft Project Standard is used by 68% of organizations and Microsoft Project Professional/EPM Solution by 33%, Primavera by 14%, and all others by fewer than 5% of organizations
- 44% of organizations outsource project management functions (compared to 23% in our 2003 survey)
- Of the 16,110 projects closed in the past 12 months, 63% were completed successfully, 25% remained troubled, 7% were terminated with reason, and 6% failed outright.
[tags] Project Management, Program Management, PMO, Leadership [/tags]