Selecting the right project is critical for an organisation's success because resources are limited. From an economics perspective, the loss in opportunity for an organisation in doing the wrong project is expensive. This investment can be used for doing the right project for achieving competitive advantage and implementing business strategies. As a result, there are many frameworks with techniques and tools available in the literature for assisting organisations in project selection and prioritisation. All techniques or tools have their own advantages and disadvantages and these frameworks do not fit “one for all”. The framework can be business specific; therefore it is necessary to understand what the targeted industry considers as the “best practice”.

With its successful deployment by the legendary CEO Jack Welch of General Electrics, the Six Sigma methodology of management has achieved wide recognition and popularity among corporations around the globe. This Six Sigma concept for quality management has been sprouting in Taiwan and waiting to be blossomed. The purpose of this case study is to redefine the Six Sigma concept based on the framework of DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control); to implement and pinpoint a strategy for corporations adopting the Six Sigma while deploying VOC (voice of customer) to transform operations into the CTQ (Critical to Quality) stage. The concept of performance management is the nexus where balanced scorecard and Six Sigma can join to produce a formidable weapon that aligns strategic intent with tactical execution. Balanced scorecard is a comprehensive collection of financial and non-financial data and information supplied to the managers of an entity in order to help them achieve the entity¡¦s objectives. This case study uses surveys on the targeted company for further research on how to drive a powerful management tool through the unification of these two proven strategies. An approach that combines the targeted performance indicators of a Balanced Scorecard with the statistical rigor of Six Sigma to be used to effectively focus an organization on the achievement of long-term strategic goals. Based on the statistical result from the surveys on the targeted company, it meets the strategic priorities for various business processes that create customer and shareholder satisfaction (i.e. Internal Business Process). However, it deviates from three other perspectives, financial, customer, and learning and growth. This reveals the company¡¦s needs to be improvised to drive the long-term value and competitive performance.

The rapid advance in information and communication technologies has effectively facilitated the development and implementation of information systems (IS) projects in modern organizations for reorganizing their business processes and streamlining the provision of their products and services in today's dynamic environment. Such a development brings organizations with numerous benefits including increased automation of business processes, improved customer service, and timely provision of effective decision support. As a result, evaluating and selecting the most appropriate IS project for development and implementation from a pool of available IS projects becomes a critical decision to make in modern organizations. Evaluating and selecting appropriate IS projects for development in an organization, however, is complex and challenging. The complexity of the evaluation and selection process is due to the multi-dimensional nature of the decision making process, the conflicting nature of the multiple selection criteria, and the presence of subjectiveness and imprecision of the human decision making process. The challenging of the evaluation and selection comes from the need for making transparent and balanced decisions based on a comprehensive evaluation of all available IS projects in a timely manner. Much research has been done on the development of various approaches for evaluating and selecting IS projects, and numerous applications of those approaches for addressing real world IS project evaluation and selection problems have been reported in the literature. In general, existing approaches can be classified into (a) cost-benefit analysis based approaches, (b) utility based approaches, and (c) optimization oriented approaches. These approaches, however, are not totally satisfactory due to various shortcomings including (a) the inability to tackle the subjectiveness and imprecision of the selection process, (b) the failure to adequately handle the multi-dimensional nature of the problem, and (c) cognitively very demanding on the decision maker. To address these issues above, this research has developed three novel approaches for effectively solving the IS project evaluation and selection problem under uncertainty in an organization. The first approach is developed for helping the decision maker better model the subjectiveness and imprecision inherent in the decision-making process with the use of linguistic variables approximated by fuzzy numbers. The second approach is designed to reduce the cognitive demanding on the decision maker in the IS project evaluation and selection process with the introduction of fuzzy pairwise comparison. The third approach is formulated with respect to the use of intelligent decision support systems for facilitating the use of specific multi-criteria analysis approaches in relation to individual IS project evaluation and selection situations. The developed approaches have been applied for solving three IS project evaluation and selection problems in the real world settings. The results show that the three developed ap proaches are of practical significance for effectively and efficiently solving the IS project evaluation and selection problem due to (a) the simplicity and comprehensibility of the underlying concept, (b) the adequate handling of inherent uncertainty and imprecision, and (c) the ability to help the decision maker better understand the IS project selection problem and the implications of their decision behaviours.

A growing body of research is drawing attention to the importance of open innovation and the reasons firms should progressively switch to this paradigm. However, there is still some reluctance to embrace such approach to innovation. This study investigates the main factors impacting the selection of internal and external new product development in a US multinational company belonging to the semiconductor industry. The main factor found to impact the choice of internal and external innovation is the degree of radicalness of NPD projects. Hence, this is used as additional variable to the internal and external nature of projects to build a matrix, capable of describing the main factors managers take into account when deciding on the projects to undertake. Combining the internal or external and incremental or radical nature of NPD projects, for each category, it was possible to highlight the main dimensions determining the projects selection, namely the expected output and profitability, the purpose of the NPD process, the attention received by managers and the risk involved.

Esta dissertação relata o estudo sobre os fatores críticos de sucesso do gerenciamento de portfolio de projetos em empresas que atuam no Brasil e também verifica os impactos sobre os resultados organizacionais. A pesquisa foi realizada através de um levantamento junto a profissionais engajados no gerenciamento de projetos que responderam a questionário elaborado a partir de revisão da literatura pertinente ao tema. Os fatores críticos de sucesso validados são: o alinhamento com a estratégia e o processo de gerenciamento de portfolio. Quanto aos impactos sobre os resultados, foi confirmado que o gerenciamento de portfolio impacta positivamente o gerenciamento dos projetos, a satisfação das partes interessadas e a maturidade em projetos. Embora a literatura tenha sido pesquisada, a linha mestra para a pesquisa, principalmente quanto ao processo de gerenciamento de portfolio, ficou centrada nas publicações do Instituto de Gerenciamento de Projetos, mais conhecido por PMI - Project Management Institute. / This dissertation reports the study about success key factors of project portfolio management in companies which act in Brazil and it also analyses the impacts on organizational results. The research was made through a survey applied to people engaged in project management activities whose answered to questionnaire that was elaborated since a review of the literature related to this subject. The validated success key factors are the following: alignment with strategy and the portfolio management process. About the impacts on the results, it was confirmed that portfolio management impacts positively in project management, in project stakeholder satisfaction and in project management maturity. Although an extensive part of literature was consulted, the main approach mainly to the portfolio management process was focused in PMI issues.

<p>Selection of right sets of projects is considerably critical for organizations to successfully achieve their competitive advantages and corporate strategies. Due to limited resources and dynamic changes in business environment, this kind of selection is quite challenging for organizations. Beside one hundred selection tools and techniques, academics and practitioners have studied and recommended complex selection frameworks to facilitate the selection of right projects. However, these theoretical frameworks are not applied by private corporations in Vietnam. Therefore, this dissertation is intended to better understand the academic and practical literature about project portfolio selection; study current practices of project selection that private corporations in Vietnam are using; and propose a framework that is beneficially adaptable to these private corporations. A multiple-case study strategy accessing qualitative data through observations and semi-structure interviews is designed to investigate how private corporations select their project portfolio under the current contexts of booming economy in Vietnam to ensure successful realization of their growth and development strategy. The recommendations resulted from literature review and investigations do not only support the investigated corporations to improve the quantity and quality of their investment project portfolio(s) but also facilitate possible adaptation to project portfolio selection by other private corporations.</p>

Product development has become an important competitive factor for most companies. A central task is to select which projects, often from a large number of project proposals, are to be developed in order to achieve strategic objectives without exceeding available resources. Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is the research discipline which focuses on the decision-making processes used to evaluate, select and prioritise projects. Previous research has stated that companies must be able to select and commit resources to different types of ideas and projects. However, it is widely believed that PPM literature has not sufficiently investigated the challenges that companies might face when putting into practice different decision-making approaches to select different types of ideas and projects. This thesis aims to explore how different types of ideas and projects are evaluated and selected in the context of the development of complex technological products. It is based on a qualitative research approach and interviews and observations have been carried out with the cooperation of six companies. The findings of this thesis reveal that because different decision-making approaches encounter different levels of acceptance within an organisation, the dynamics by which an idea evolves are affected by the way in which decision makers deal with the legitimacy of the decision-making approaches that they put into practice. Decision makers use some mechanisms that allow them to avoid drawing exclusively on the highly accepted approaches when they are not considered to be suitable, and to give legitimacy to the decisions that have been made by the less accepted approaches. In addition, the way in which decision makers experience a decision situation influences how it is approached. If they experience ambiguity, they might display a decision-making logic in which actions are allowed to be taken within self-organised social interactions, in order to make sense of the idea, project or criteria. However, the occurrence of self-organised interactions is conditioned by how decision makers negotiate resources with stakeholders that display different interests and decision-making logics. These findings question the objective view that assumes that ideas and projects are already defined at the moment the decision is made and are able to be classified in pre-defined categories. It also led to the question of whether problems in fulfilling resource allocation plans and the risk of biases in decision making are problems that arise due to poor decision-making practices, and whether they should, instead, be understood as probable consequences of a flexible process. Finally, this thesis explores a way of enhancing decision makers’ abilities through scenarios in which decision makers experience decision situations and reflect on their own ways of making decisions. / <p>QC 20120918</p>

Selection of right sets of projects is considerably critical for organizations to successfully achieve their competitive advantages and corporate strategies. Due to limited resources and dynamic changes in business environment, this kind of selection is quite challenging for organizations. Beside one hundred selection tools and techniques, academics and practitioners have studied and recommended complex selection frameworks to facilitate the selection of right projects. However, these theoretical frameworks are not applied by private corporations in Vietnam. Therefore, this dissertation is intended to better understand the academic and practical literature about project portfolio selection; study current practices of project selection that private corporations in Vietnam are using; and propose a framework that is beneficially adaptable to these private corporations. A multiple-case study strategy accessing qualitative data through observations and semi-structure interviews is designed to investigate how private corporations select their project portfolio under the current contexts of booming economy in Vietnam to ensure successful realization of their growth and development strategy. The recommendations resulted from literature review and investigations do not only support the investigated corporations to improve the quantity and quality of their investment project portfolio(s) but also facilitate possible adaptation to project portfolio selection by other private corporations.

<p>This thesis has its origin in empirical evidence. Some Swedish companies claimed that despite having plenty of proposals for developing new products, they experienced problems when choosing from all those alternatives. Their problem was how to select among new ideas the ones for being developed and the ones to be rejected, how many projects to run according to their capacity, when to start a development project and when to stop one, and how to decide among ongoing projects which the most important ones were. The companies’ problem was decision making in the context of innovation.</p><p> According to literature, a deeper understanding is needed of the decision making process in innovation, taking into account its organizational and procedural complexities. The purpose of this thesis is to achieve an understanding of the decision making process in innovation.  The thesis is based on an explorative study, with interviews carried out in three companies that have new product development as a core competitive factor. The empirical study focuses on the decisions made for selection and prioritization of different innovative alternatives. </p><p>As a result of the analysis of the empirical data a conceptualization of the decision making process was developed. Furthermore, it was described the relevant problems that decision makers experience, the main characteristics of the decision making process and the role that decision making plays in innovation. The implications of these findings for designing work procedures to support decision making in innovation were discussed; and general descriptions of two practical methods suggested. </p><p>The main findings indicate that for making decisions in the context of innovation, organizations must be able to face uncertain and ambiguous situations, and achieve a collective understanding about what is to be done. To do this, different approaches for making decisions and understanding innovation are needed. However, regardless of the appropriateness of these approaches, they receive different levels of acceptance within organizations; and decision makers must deal with the different grades of organizational acceptance of the different approaches. As a consequence, an organization displays certain dynamic using different approaches for making decisions and for understanding innovation. Such dynamic influences the companies’ innovative potential and the output of the innovation process.</p>

This dissertation examines a profit-maximizing project selection and scheduling problem. Assume that a set of potentially profitable projects are available, yet limited available resources may not allow all of them to be pursued. Profit profiles for projects are assumed to be non-increasing functions of project completion times, i.e. profit returns are sensitive to time-to-market. Decision needs to be made on which sub-set of projects should be chosen and how resources should be allocated to these projects such that the total profit is maximized.Formal mathematical models are formulated for various versions of the problem, including such ones incorporating a third team formation aspect. Structure of the problem is examined and insights are gained regarding prioritization of project, specifically. Although prioritization is sub-optimal in general, heuristic solution methods based on prioritization are pursued, since the scheduling sub-problem itself is NP-hard.A decomposition heuristic framework is first proposed to obtain good solutions using minimum computational time. Sets of test instances are generated using project network data from well-known source in the literature. Computational runs reveal that three priority rules achieve significantly better profits than the benchmarking random priority rule.Improving upon the prioritization based decomposition heuristic, an implicit enumeration is proposed. This algorithm does not examine all priority sequences, yet guarantees an optimal priority sequence when the computation is completed. Several fathoming rules are proposed to cut back computational time effectively. Comparison to the profits achieved by the best priority rule and the benchmarking random priority rule shows a significant improvement on profits, yet at a cost of reasonable added computation time.Future research areas include identifying general conditions under which prioritization of projects would lead us to an optimal solution. Developing better upper bounds for the implicit enumeration scheme is also of interest. The team formation aspect has yet to be treated computationally. It would also be of interest to consider how synergy deviation information may be fed back to the earlier stages of project selection and scheduling decision. Trade-off between profit and team synergy may also be considered in the future.