Assessing project performance by measuring organizational impact.

Abstract

ldquoYou canpsilat manage it if you donpsilat measure itrdquo. Conventional project performance metrics including the foundation work of PMI and their ongoing contributions is mainly about achieving specified objectives at a given time and within an agreed budget. In our approach, we followed a different direction in estimating how project performance can affect positively or negatively organizational capacities and generate proportional organizational impact. This in turn can be used to assess project performance from a different perspective. To estimate the organizational impact, one needs to identify the respective organizational capacities impacted by the project, establish a measurement system and measure the difference on each capacity before project starts and after project ends. We present a novel approach according to which projects should be also evaluated for the positive or negative ldquoorganizational impactrdquo they create to both the performing and the recipient(s) organization(s). Our hypothesis is that apart from the classic financial gains or losses a project delivers, there is a further and deeper impact on the performing organization as well as to the recipient ones. We introduce this hypothesis and describe a framework to measure organizational impact created by a project in a study case. We finish with conclusions and suggestions for further research.