The impact of effectiveness and efficiency on project success.

摘要

Effectiveness is the extent of the accomplishment of the right things, the right ends, and efficiency is the economics of doing things right, the economics of the right means. These are two fundamental concepts in all human activities and work, yet rarely are these two concepts collectively tested empirically. The lack of such experiential support limits a more complete conceptualization of these two ideas and places a serious constraint on our ability to expand our understanding of organizations and management. Specifically, in the field of project management, much of the research has been devoted to efficiency, independent of effectiveness, and research conducted on effectiveness does not provide a means to predict or affect the project outcome. This research presents results that demonstrate that the quality of the effort invested in effectiveness and efficiency during the initial phase of the project reliably predicts project success at completion, as well as completing the project ahead of schedule. Yet, and in contrast to conventional thinking, only the quality of the effort in effectiveness reliably predicts the project completing under budget. It also demonstrates that both the client and the project manager are consistent in their assessment of project success, based on effectiveness and efficiency. The theoretical contribution of this research lies in building empirical constructs to distinguish between activities focused on of effectiveness and efficiency, the empirical methods used to measure them during the front-end of the project, and the ability to evaluate project success consistently between clients and project managers. The practical contribution of this research is in empirically proving the hierarchy of importance of effectiveness and efficiency, and in the ability to apply this research design to the front-end of other projects and predict outcomes, before there has been a significant commitment of resources. This increased predictability offers organizations a powerful advantage in improving their business by focusing projects upfront on the right ends, thereby increasing the organization's competitiveness.