Abstract—The question, “How to assign projects to project managers?”
is considered to be one of the most important questions in
project management. Nevertheless, methods to answer this question
have not yet been sufficiently addressed in the literature. In
practice, even though the question is rather common, practitioners
still seek an effective project assignment methodology—especially,
for the assignments of project managers of multiple concurrent
projects, such as a project manager of new product development
projects in typical high-technology industries. To respond to this
question, we performed an inductive study to develop a theoretical
framework for project assignments, including some significant
assignment criteria and processes. We found that to be effective
in project assignments, management should consider strategic elements
of the organization in project prioritization, project requirements
and competencies of project managers in project managerto-
project matching, and some organizational/personal limitations
regarding the assignment. An optimizationmodel was developed to
apply this framework. This model can assist in assigning projects to
project managers for the better performances of projects, project
managers, and the organization.