Project management in a federal research and development laboratory

Project management is a system adaptable to any type of industry and environment where some effort is purposely directed towards implementing change. This article describes an account of an eight-year-long effort to develop a project management approach appropriate for implementing research and development (R&D) projects in a United States federal laboratory, an approach that uses such concepts as budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP) and budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS) to address the major obstacles encountered during project implementation. It lists the effort's five objectives and the project team's methodology in developing this project management system (PMS). It also explains the PMS's two processes--planning and control--and the responsibilities involved in implementing the processes assigned to the project's officer and its contractor. In doing so, it discusses project control in relation to the cost performance index (CPI) and the schedule performance index (SPI).