Title: An empirical analysis of the effect of customising project management tools and techniques on industrial SMEs' project success

Authors: Eduardo García-Escribano; Adolfo López-Paredes; Javier Pajares

Addresses: Department of Engineering and Project Management, ACE Business Group International, Madrid, Spain ' Social Systems Engineering Centre (INSISOC), University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain ' Social Systems Engineering Centre (INSISOC), University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain

Abstract: Project managers have access to many tools and techniques to plan, monitor, and control their projects. However, not all of these project management tools and techniques (PMTT) are suited to the management of projects in all contexts and they may need to be customised or adjusted from the standard methodologies. The paper presents a comprehensive study with a duration of almost three years that used several research methods to answer the research questions posed. The study was made in 35 small and medium enterprises (SMEs), involving 94 projects in total and 54 project managers, focused on the manufacturing, healthcare, and telecommunications sectors. Although the results cannot be generalised, it is an interesting contribution relating to the tailoring of PMTT in SMEs and its correlation with a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure project management performance. [Submitted: 22 February 2021; Accepted: 9 May 2021]

Keywords: empirical analysis; project management tools and techniques; PMTT; project success; project management standard methodologies; project monitoring; industrial SMEs; key performance indicators; KPIs; small and medium enterprises; SMEs.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIE.2022.125299

European Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2022 Vol.16 No.5, pp.531 - 555

Received: 22 Feb 2021
Accepted: 09 May 2021
Published online: 06 Sep 2022 *

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