Demographic determinants of project success behaviors

Abstract

Existing literature has extensively documented project success factors on a wide variety of factors that are both intrinsic to the project as well as extrinsic to the environmental context of the project. However, relatively few studies had focused on the effect of demographic variables on the perceived importance of project success factors. Based on a total sample of 639 respondents, we empirically determine the relationship between demographic variables and project success factors. Our findings reveal interesting insights on how demographics affect the perceptions of the relative importance of project success factors that are widely studies in the literature. In particular, we find statistically significant differences between US vs. non-US respondents, between executives and non-executives, between those who are certified in project management (PMP certification) vs. those who are not, etc. We present the findings and suggest several specific implications for project management practice and also future research. Our study contributes to the knowledge that practitioners can utilize in making the “person-to-project outcome” fit more effective by choosing the right person for the desired project success factors.

Keywords: project success factors; demographics; certification; international projects; project duration

Demographic Determinants of Project Success Behaviors

During the last three decades academics and practitioners alike have expanded the triple constraint measures of cost, schedule, and performance as indicators of a projects' success to include measures associated with quality and customer satisfaction. Combined with consideration for the role of principal stakeholders in a projects' success are efforts to identify successful project behaviors as related to each stage of the project life cycle. Much of this research is survey based and includes demographics associated with respondents' responses.

Recent research considering the role of the executive sponsor in project success by life cycle stage has culminated in a compilation of demographic data considering the position within the organization, project duration, respondents' certification status, and region of the world where respondents are located. This study undertakes examination of these determinants in an effort to identify significant relationships between demographics and previously validated project success behaviors. An understanding of these relationships may help in describing the appropriate placement of project stakeholders on project teams. In particular, an empirical validation of the relationships between demographics and project success factors would help practitioners in determining the “person-to-project outcome” fit to ensure that an appropriate person is chosen to lead projects for expected project outcomes.

The paper is organized in the following manner: The first section outlines the current status of research on behaviors associated with project success. Next, the research methodology is presented, followed by the results of data analyses. The paper ends with a discussion of the demographic determinants identified as related to project success behaviors and implications associated with these results.

Background

Project Success

Referring to the “iron triangle” of project cost, schedule, and scope (PMI, 2004), it was long assumed that a project could do well on two of the three measures, but not all three simultaneously. Modern understanding of project success includes additional ideas. PMI in updating A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK^® Guide) (PMI, 2008) states project success consists of balancing the six factors of scope, quality, schedule, budget, resources, and risk; further recognizing that various project stakeholders may have different ideas of the relative importance among these factors.

Perhaps the most important and certainly most frequently cited empirical studies on critical factors in project success have been conducted by Pinto with a number of coauthors, among those Slevin, Prescott, Covin, and Mantel (Belout & Gauvreau, 2003). The principal research question was: “Are project implementation critical success factors of equal and stable importance over the life of a project, or does their relative importance (weighting) change as the project moves through different stages of completion?” (Belout & Gauvreau, p. 6). Regression analysis confirmed that different factors were related to project success in the four stages: initiation, planning, execution, and closing.

In 2004, Pinto discussed four dimensions of project success including project efficiency, impact on customer, business success, and preparing for the future. Pinto elaborated saying the client makes the ultimate determination of how successful a project is and ultimate success requires a balance so the most important factors are focused upon, yet no success factor is ignored.

Still our understanding of project success has become increasingly complex. Shenhar, Tishler, Dvir, Lipovetsky, and Lechler (2002) considered 13 project success measures grouped along three dimensions: meeting design goals, benefits to customers, and commercial success and future potential.

In an assessment of the evolving understanding of project success, Jugdev and Muller (2005) summarized results of several empirical studies and outlined four necessary, yet not sufficient, conditions for project success. These conditions are: (1) Success criteria should be agreed upon with the stakeholders at repeated points throughout the project; (2) A collaborative working relationship between the sponsor and project manager should be maintained; (3) Empowered with flexibility to deal with unforeseen circumstances, the project manager should receive guidance from the project sponsor; and (4) The sponsor should take an interest in the performance of the project.

Shenhar and Dvir (2007) proposed a model with 28 individual project success items. They stated the success measures for a particular project must reflect the strategic intent of various stakeholders.

The responses included in the current research were captured in several surveys over multiple years. The surveys contained statements pertaining to 13 performance dimensions. These project success behaviors are based on Pinto's work from 2004 and described the value of a project upon completion (Pinto, 2004).

While most of above referred studies focused on project success factors and their determinants, few have focused on how the demographic variables affect project success factors. Our study fills in this gap by directly addressing the relationship between demographics and project success factors. We believe that such knowledge, validated empirically, will enable practitioners to choose the right project managers for the desired project success factors.

Method

In this research, we propose to examine the relationship between project management professionals' demographics and a number of performance dimensions that are often used to describe the value of a project upon completion. These performance dimensions, or project outcomes, were derived from the literature and subjected to exploratory factor analysis in previous studies. The outcome factors are: (1) firm's future—six items asking respondents about the importance of creating future benefits (e.g., commercial success, increased market share, new products, and technologies); (2) meeting agreements (e.g., budgets, scheduling expectations)—four items asking respondents about the importance of meeting agreements; and (3) customer success—three items asking respondents about the importance of pleasing the customer (customer satisfaction). Table 1 presents the performance dimensions by outcome factor.

Table 1: Project Performance Dimensions by Project Outcome

Sample, Procedures, and Measures

In a series of studies examining successful project sponsor behaviors in the initiating, planning, and executing stages, a total of 639 respondents were asked on three separate occasions to indicate the extent to which a number of performance dimensions is significant in terms of a projects' success (1 = no extent; 7 = great extent). These results were then de-duplicated by stage from most recent survey response (the executing stage) to oldest response. Only one response per respondent was allowed. This resulted in a total of 491 usable responses. Table 2 presents mean responses for each of the project success behaviors.

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics of Project Success Factors

Descriptive statistics of project success factors are presented in order of significance in Table 2. The performance dimension most significant in terms of a projects' success is addressing customer needs. The performance dimension evaluated as least significant is developing a new technology.

An examination of correlations between respondent demographics and project success dimensions was subsequently undertaken. Ten significant relationships were identified. Respondent demographics may be found in Table 3. Seventy-four percent of respondents were non-executives. Almost half (49%) of respondents were PMP certified professionals, while another 12% were pursuing certification. Twenty-four percent had more than 30 years of work experience; 81% had more than 15 years work experience. Seventy-nine percent of the respondents were employed in the United States and worked predominantly on projects of less than a years' duration.

Table 3: Demographics

Table 4 presents significant demographic correlations with project success factors.

Table 4: Significant Correlations of Demographics with Project Success Factors

Results

Ten significant correlations are identified in Table 4. Meeting technical specifications is positively correlated with a respondents' level in the organization and negatively correlated with project duration and respondents' certification status. Meeting budget is positively correlated with a respondents' level in the organization. Five project success outcomes are negatively association with the respondents' reported region of the world. These include: meeting schedule expectations, finishing a project on time, addressing customer needs, creating a project that is used by the client, and creating a project that leads to enhanced satisfaction on the part of the customer.

Discussion

Differences in Perceived Importance by Outcome

Table 2 indicates that the three outcome items that were rated most important by the respondents all dealt with the customer and ranges in importance from 6.07 to 6.56 on a 7-point Likert scale. The next four items in importance constitute the meeting agreements factor and they ranged from 5.58 to 5.73 in importance. The lowest rated items all constitute the firm's future factor and they ranged from 3.94 to 5.25 in importance. These findings suggest several possibilities. First, the meeting agreements factor represents the old iron triangle and they are still rather important. However, all of the items dealing with customers were rated higher. This suggests a widely held opinion that satisfying the customer is the most important thing for a project. This makes sense as the very reason a project is undertaken is to satisfy some customer need. Schedule, budget, and specifications are constraints that help guide a project to the ultimate goal of satisfying customers. If something needs to be compromised, it should be one of those constraints rather than providing the customer something less than satisfactory.

Another interesting note from Table 2 is that all of the firm's future items were ranked lower than those of the customer or meeting agreements. It does not mean they are unimportant, just less important. The ordering of project success factors in Table 2 suggests that the respondents may be implicitly valuing “imminence” in managing issues relating to project success. It is clear that future-relevant factors such as new markets or new products or new technologies are deemed to be relatively less important than the more immediate performance imperatives such as cost overruns or time overruns or customer satisfaction metrics. In dealing with multiple metrics that define project success, our empirical findings may suggest that “imminence” may serve as a prioritizing factor for project managers. Many of these items have appeared in literature during the last decade as our understanding of project success has expanded. While we are eager for our projects to have broader implications for our parent organizations, we need to stick to our knitting first—that is, satisfying our customer and meeting our agreements.

Emphasis on Meeting Technical Specifications

As can be seen by the correlations in Table 4 and by narrative in Table 5, there are significant differences in perceived importance of meeting a project's technical specifications in three demographic groups. Respondents who are executives, those who primarily deal with shorter duration projects, and those who are PMP certified all place more importance on meeting technical performance. We will discuss the differences by duration and certification here and by executives in the following section. It is interesting to note that an increased importance being placed upon meeting technical specifications is the only item where those who work primarily on short projects and those who are PMP certified differ from other respondents.

Table 5: Outcome Factors with Significant Differences by Demographic Group

Perhaps it is easier to create a clear technical specification for a shorter duration project. It is also the experience of one of our authors that shorter duration projects are oftentimes used as subprojects within a more complex megaproject. Such miniprojects are well defined with clear deliverables right from the outset, and thus become project control mechanisms for the more complex megaproject. Kloppenborg (2009) suggested a team often can use rolling wave planning to plan in detail the early part of a large project (like the first wave hitting a beach) and plan later parts of the project only in broad outlines at project outset. On short projects, the rolling wave approach may not be needed as it is easier to visualize the entire project at the outset. Thus, it is not surprising that shorter duration projects tend to emphasize creation of technical specifications.

PMPs must demonstrate an understanding of the PMBOK^® Guide. This guide provides many significant suggestions on the necessity of fully collecting requirements, clearly defining them as technical requirements, tracing these requirements to their origin, and managing them throughout the life of the project (PMI, 2008). This strong emphasis on identifying and managing to technical requirements likely has made an impression on many who have studied and passed the Project Management Professional (PMP) examination. We find it gratifying to note that the knowledge gained by PMPs is sustained beyond the PMP exam and is manifested in their behavior as project managers in terms of the specifics of their project management.

Executive vs. Managerial Perceptions

Respondents who are executives place greater importance on three items: meeting technical specifications, meeting the project budget, and enhancing customer satisfaction than respondents who are not executives. Perhaps executives are more concerned with meeting project budgets as they are accountable for the budget of the entire organization. It is interesting that they are also more concerned with both meeting technical specifications and enhancing customer satisfaction. On internal projects, the deliverables of the project may be used within their part of the organization. On external projects, perhaps they can relate to the executive who also wants deliverables to meet technical specifications and to enhance satisfaction. An area that executives and non-executives place similar importance in is meeting project schedules. It appears everyone believes meeting schedules is rather important. Maintaining a reputation for on-time delivery of the project results with no cost overruns is an integral part of the executives' concern for building a core competence for the organization. Delighting, not merely satisfying, the customer is key to executives interested in repeat business as well as new business via word-of-mouth/networking. Kano charts are often constructed to assess the customer delight after completion of projects; and these are used as bridges for knowledge transfer to future projects to enhance customer satisfaction. In summary, executives think beyond the current projects being managed whereas non-executives are more focused on successful completion of current projects under way.

United States vs. Other Regions of the World

Respondents from the United States tend to emphasize meeting schedule expectations, finishing a project on time, addressing customer needs, creating a project that is used by the client, and creating a project that leads to enhanced customer satisfaction more than respondents from other parts of the world. These items all deal with either meeting the schedule or emphasizing the customer. These are the top 5 of the 13 outcome items. Perhaps the pace of business is faster in the United States and people in general (not just those involved with projects) are in more of a hurry than people in other parts of the world. Competition in many industries in the United States is quite intense. Many companies from all over the world have provided terrific competition and to win, companies have had to learn to be extremely responsive to their customers.

The finding that US-based respondents are different from non-US-based respondents may not be surprising when viewed from a cultural perspective. In the United States, procurement of new business is largely based on customers' perception of organizational competences relative to its competitors. Hence, it is not surprising that US-based respondents strive harder to create such strong and positive perception of organizational competences. However, in non-US business contexts, procurement of new business is not only a matter of the organizational competences, but also a matter of the organization's position in the network of business relationships in those countries. Keiretsus in Japan, Chaebols in South Korea, Guanxi in China, and business families in India are all examples of such business constellations wherein significant interlocking of projects occurs. We believe that our finding of the differences between US and non-US respondents has a cultural explanation.

Implications and Conclusion

Our research, based on 639 respondents, is an extensive empirical study has conceptual and practical implications that are important for project management. Conceptually, the relationship between demographics and project success factors lays the theoretical foundation for the notion of “person-to-project outcome” fit. In other words, the demographic profile of the person leading a project affects how he or she perceives the relative importance of the various project success factors. Although this theoretical underpinning may be clear for most well versed in human resource management, it is oftentimes overlooked or under-emphasized in project management. The practical implication of our findings is that practitioners can utilize demographic information as an extraneous “control mechanism” to proactively guide the desired project success factors. As such our study provides some guidance for practitioners even before a project gets started by way of choosing the right demographics for desired project outcomes. Future research should replicate our study in different contexts to lend further credence to the previously-mentioned implications.