Relation of project managers' personality and project performance: An approach based on value stream mapping
Abstract: This work
investigates the influence of project managers’ personality on the success of a
project in a Multinational Corporation. The methodology proposed for analyzing
the project managers’ personality is based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
Design/methodology/approach: Forty projects carried out in 2012 by
multinational corporation, concerning new product development (NPD), have been
analyzed, comparing the profile of project managers with results obtained in
terms of traditional performance indexes (time delay and over-budget of
projects) and performance indexes usually used in “Lean Production” sector
(waste time and type of “wastes”). A detailed analysis of the most important
“wastes” during the project development is carried out using the Value Stream
Mapping (VSM) technique.
Findings and Originality/value: Relying on the Myers–Briggs personality
instrument, results show that extroverted managers (as opposed to introverted
managers) carry out projects that show lower delay and lower waste time.
Introverted managers often make “Over-processing” and “Defect” types of waste.
Moreover, lower delay and over-budget have been shown by perceiving managers.
Research limitations: Regarding the limitations of this work it is
necessary to highlight that we collected data from project managers in a
retrospective way. While we believe that several aspects of our data collection
effort helped enhance the accuracy of the results, future research could
conduct real-time case study research to get more detailed insights into the
proposed relationships and avoid retrospective bias. Moreover we focused on a
single respondent, the project manager. This helped us ensure that their
interpretations played an important role in product development. But, we cannot
examined the opinion of team members that could be different from project
managers opinion regarding some questions.
Originality/value: This research provides insight useful to develop
proactive approaches to prevent project failures, including the creation of
more effective messages and methods to help companies to make the best choices
during managers´ hiring. Moreover this research would allow organizations to
better match the short-term organizational needs with appropriate personality
types.
Keywords: Project Managers’
personality; Myers-Briggs Type Indicator; Value Stream Mapping; Project
Performance
Author: Maurizio Bevilacqua,
Filippo Emanuele Ciarapica, Michele Germani, Giovanni Mazzuto, Claudia
Paciarotti
Journal Code: jptindustrigg140050
