Essay About Project Planning And Tel Aviv

Benchmarking of Project Planning
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Benchmarking of project planning
and success in selected industries
Ofer Zwikael
Business School, Netanya Academic College, Netanya, Israel, and
Shlomo Globerson
Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Abstract
Purpose – To identify the industry in which projects are best planned and executed and use it as a
benchmark for improving project planning in other industries.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on data collected from 280 project managers, project
success and quality of project planning were evaluated and analyzed for four industries – construction
and engineering, software and communications, services, and production and maintenance.
Findings – Quality of project planning was found to be the highest in construction and engineering
organizations and the lowest in manufacturing organizations. This is a result of a few factors, among
them the intensive organizational support which is offered to project managers working in
construction and engineering organizations. The other three industries limit their support mostly to
tactical aspects, such as the purchasing of project management software. The high quality of project
planning in the construction and engineering organizations resulted in their ability to complete
projects by almost half the cost and schedule overruns, as compared to organizations belonging to the
other industries. Finally, results of the industries in Israel and Japan are compared and analyzed.
Research limitations/implications – Findings are limited to the four industries included in the
study.
Practical implications – If organizations, not belonging to the construction industry, wish to
improve the probability of success in project planning and execution, they should follow
methodologies commonly used in the construction industry.
Originality/value – This paper introduces a valid field study, exploring project management
practices in four industries and identifies the one which may be used as a benchmark for the others. It
also identifies specific strengths and weaknesses in project management within the explored
industries.
Keywords Benchmarking, Project management, Project planning, Project evaluation
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Different industries face different challenges while managing projects. For example,
software development organizations have to deal with high technology uncertainty,
while construction organizations are usually more troubled with engineering or finance
problems. Moreover, same processes may have different boundaries in some industry
types (Plemmons and Lansford, 1994). These differences end with as much as
30 percent in project cost and schedule among industries (Lavingia, 2001).
Benchmarking is efficient and frequently used in the project management
environment. For example, when building the Hasbro Childrens Hospital in the early
1990s benchmarking “best-in-practice” pediatric facilities was used. The planning
team visited a number of notable childrens hospitals, and then shared findings with
other teams. Hasbros success at incorporating the best processes resulted in the
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1463-5771.htm
Benchmarking: An International
Journal
Vol. 13 No. 6, 2006
pp. 688-700
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1463-5771
DOI 10.1108/14635770610709059
hospital becoming a benchmark partner for other institutions (Egan, 1996).
Bombardier Inc. used benchmarking in information technologies projects. By
pinpointing problems, the firm saved an estimated $5 million to $6 million on its
annual data center costs alone, or about 1/3 of its data center budget (Buckler, 1994).
The companies included in Benchmark Capitals portfolio improve their projects by
working cooperatively and benchmarking; instead of compete with one another
(Asadullah, 1999). Benchmarking was also introduced in the project management
environment for the fiber optic networks industry (Bachhiesl et al., 2003) and project
management re-use (Cooper, 1993). Finally, Stork (1997) suggests focusing on
effectiveness rather than efficiency when benchmarking for project purchasing.
A common notion presently used in benchmarking organizational capabilities and
analysis differences among industries is called “maturity.” There are methods to
evaluate companys maturity, either in general managerial capabilities, for example,
Capability Maturity Model (Paulk et al., 1995) or in specific areas,