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Using Leading Indicators to Improve Project Performance Measurement

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Abstract

Project performance measurement offers a wide range of methods to help project managers monitor projects. However, several critical issues remain in project performance measurement, such as an unbalanced use of indicators due to a lack of prediction-based (leading) indicators with regard to outcome-based (lagging) indicators. For its part, systems engineering measurement, although a more recent discipline, offers a wide variety of indicators, including a set of leading indicators. As our objective is to increase project performance and success rates, this involves improving project performance measurement on which project management decisions are based. This purpose, the proposal put forward in this paper is to extend the number and type of indicators used in project performance measurement by adapting the leading indicators defined in systems engineering measurement. The methodology involves first mapping the systems engineering indicators with the project management activities, resulting in identification of a set of potentially useful indicators for measuring the different activities, then tailoring a selection of these indicators with project-specific data to define a set of the most relevant indicators for a given project. This methodology is illustrated by means of a case study in a manufacturing company.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviews for their help to improve the quality of the paper. The work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, under grants 71690230, 71690235 and 71501055.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LAAS-CNRS, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Li Zheng, Claude Baron, Philippe Esteban & Rui Xue

  2. School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China

    Qiang Zhang & Shanlin Yang

Authors
  1. Li Zheng
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  2. Claude Baron
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  3. Philippe Esteban
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  4. Rui Xue
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  5. Qiang Zhang
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  6. Shanlin Yang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qiang Zhang.

Additional information

Li Zheng is currently an academic assistant in Toulouse Business School. She received her PhD degree in industrial engineering in 2018 from National Institute of Applied Science (INSA) of Toulouse. She received her master degree in management science and engineering in the year 2014 from Hefei University of Technology. Her research interests are systems engineering measurement, project management, performance measurement systems, and performance indicator development.

Claude Baron is full professor in computer sciences at the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) of the University of Toulouse (France). She teaches systems engineering, system design and modelling, in master programs. Her current research is focusing on systems engineering, collaborative engineering and project management in engineering projects. She develops her research activities in the LAAS-CNRS laboratory in Toulouse. She is the author of many international articles, (co)authored several books and received IEEE and INCOSE awards for her results.

Philippe Esteban is associate professor at the University of Toulouse. He conducts his research on system engineering at the LAAS Laboratory of the CNRS (French National Center for Sciences and Research). He is an expert in the domain of the design and verification of complex and hybrids systems. His predilection domain of application is embedded systems.

Rui Xue is assistant professor at School of Economics and Management of Beijing University of Technology. She was a Post-doc at LAAS-CNRS laboratory (French National Center for Sciences and Research) for a period of one year. She received her PhD degree in industrial engineering in 2016 from National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) of the University of Toulouse (France). She received her M.E degree in computer software and theory in the year 2012 from Jilin University. Her research interests are system engineering, project management, system modeling and decision making.

Qiang Zhang is currently an associate professor at the Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China. He received his Ph.D. degree in industrial engineering from University of Strasbourg and INSA Strasbourg, French, in 2014. His research interests focus on design management, information system, and data analysis.

Shanlin Yang received the master degree in computer science from Hefei University of Technology, China, in 1985. He is currently a professor at Hefei University of Technology, China. He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. His research interests include decision making, information management, and information system.

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Zheng, L., Baron, C., Esteban, P. et al. Using Leading Indicators to Improve Project Performance Measurement. J. Syst. Sci. Syst. Eng. 28, 529–554 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-019-5414-z

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