Current Practice in Project Management an empirical study written by Essay

Current Practice in Project Management an empirical study written by Diana White and Joyce Fortune - Essay Example This essay presents that out of the 995 questionnaires sent to the respondents who belonged from 620 organizations from both public and private sector, only 236 returned for further processing. The data analysis revealed that out of the 16 project types, information technology projects dominated the scene with 25 percent followed by business or organizational change projects with 14 percent. Almost 37 percent of the projects were being carried out for a client organization and the rest were for the host organization. Finance, insurance, and banking sector represented the most number of projects, however, when it came to client organizations transportation, and communication organizations were at the top of the list. The survey appeared to be highly skewed towards large organizations because 66 percent of the respondents identified themselves working for organizations with more than 1000 employees. Most of these projects were huge because a considerable percentage of these projects ha d hundreds of people directly involved. Only 47 percent of the respondents had the title of â€Å"project manager†, however, almost 63 percent did confess regarding managing the project. 43 percent and 33 percent of the respondents stated that they were the main decision makers and they were involved in the decision making process. There was great deal of diversity when it came to project duration because there were projects that lasted only less than 6 months and there were projects, which were stretched out over a period of more than 61 months. (White & Fortune, pp. 2, 2002). Almost 65 percent of these projects were of the duration of 6-24 months. Over 85 percent of the respondents that it was fair for them to classify their projects as successful with six or seven ratings at a scale of 1 to 7 with seven bring highly successful. Budgets, schedule and client requirements were top three criteria for measuring the success of projects. The research also attempted to explore the side effects, whether desirable or undesirable which emerged during or due to the project. Increased business/sales opportunities and greater knowledge of the business were the top two desirable side effects.