A qualitative re‐construction of project measurement criteria
| Pages | 405-417 |
| Published date | 21 March 2008 |
| Date | 21 March 2008 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570810858796 |
| Author | Udechukwu Ojiako,Eric Johansen,David Greenwood |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
A qualitative re-construction
of project measurement criteria
Udechukwu Ojiako, Eric Johansen and David Greenwood
University of Northumbria, Newcastle, UK
Abstract
Purpose – Failure is encountered regularly within project-based industries and there has been
research for decades into this phenomenon. Much of it has considered the failure of projects in terms of
the classic project progress issues such as time, cost and quality. Using cases from two major
industries the authors aim to develop a different understanding of project measurement criteria. This
work is part of a larger completed investigation into information systems and information technology
(IS/IT) project management models, developed for industry comparisons.
Design/methodology/approach – During the study, the concept of project failure and success is
investigated. The authors carry out a UK-based, grounded study of two project-based industries of
differing maturity levels (construction and IS/IT) to investigate measures of project failure or success
across the two industries.
Findings – The paper presents a reassessment of project measurement criteria. This is based on the
separation of measures for project performance and project progress.
Research limitations/implications – The adopted strategy of naturalistic inquiry has always
been susceptible to the criticism that it relies too much on subjective interpretation of data. In addition,
no clear relationship was established between the factors discussed and the criteria for measuring
project success.
Originality/value – The paper discusses current differences in perception of what actually
constitutes a failed or successful project. The paper highlights that often two different (but closely
related) concepts, are being discussed by project stakeholders.
Keywords Project management,Measurement
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The effects and impacts of projects which have been unable to meet specific stakeholder
criteria measures within the information systems and information technology (IS/IT)
industryhave been firmly in the consciousnessof most project managementprofessionals
since the demise of both FoxMeyer (Chen, 2001) and Iridium (Finkelstein and Sanford,
2000), in 1994 and 1999, respectively. In both cases, the road to bankruptcy commenced
with poor IS/IT implementations.
In IS/IT alone, itis anticipated that around 20-30 per cent of allcommissioned projects
are unableto meet specified stakeholdercriteria measure resultingin total wasted spend of
around £75billion in the USA and £70billion within the EU (Gauld, 2007). The
construction industry is considered to bea mature project-based industry (Morris, 1994)
but it has been faced with similar problems. Historic examples of failed construction
projects include the Suez Canal with cost overruns of 1,900 per cent and the Channel
Tunnel with cost overrun of 80 per cent (Flyvbjerg et al., 2005). Recent major UK
construction projects that have been regarded as having failed, for differing reasons,
include; the London Millennium Bridge which failed to perform and was closed
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Re-construction
of project
measurement
405
Received 11 July 2007
Revised 21 November 2007
Accepted 8 December 2007
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 108 No. 3, 2008
pp. 405-417
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/02635570810858796
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