I. INTRODUCTION
IN MANY organizations, the project assignment of projects
to project managers is often considered by management to be
amajor challenge [1], [2]. It must be done appropriately since assigning
the right project manager to a project is one of the critical
success factors in project management [3]–[5]. Despite the fact
that project assignment is important, and inappropriate assignments
may lead to a decrease in the project success rate, which
may negatively impact the organizational performance, the research
in this area is fairly limited. Several researchers, however,
have proposed assignment methodologies [6]–[8], which
use project requirements and project managers’ skills as assignment
criteria. Our concern is that assigning projects by using
only these criteriamay not be sufficient.We argue that the extant
literature has established the fact that project manager assignments
affect the performance of projects, project managers, and
the organization. Other criteria, e.g., strategic importance of
projects to the organization and the organizational limitations
regarding the time availability of a project manager, etc., should
be included.
In fact, considering these additional criteria in the assignment
is especially critical in current business practices where
some organizations consider projects (mostly new product development)
as the engines of corporate success, survival, and
renewal [9]. Usually, these projects are selected to enhance
the organizational performance [10], with an eye to selecting
those that will provide the highest value to the company’s strategy
[11]. Assigning these projects to project managers without
paying attention to the strategic importance of the projects or the
impact of projects on the performance of an organization may
eventually make the organization vulnerable. Also, in many
organizations, several project managers lead multiple and simultaneous
projects [10], [12]–[15]. Assigning projects to them
without considering, e.g., their availability,may overload project
managers, which may eventually cause project failures [14].
The critical importance of project assignments and the limited
information, thereof, in the literature led us to study a process
and criteria for project assignment used by a number of
leading companies in order to develop a theoretical framework,
including a systematic process and methodology for project assignment.
We believe that the framework will lead to effective
project assignments, which will in turn impact project success
and eventually the performance of an organization.