Engineering Management: Selection and Evaluation of Projects

Selection of Projects

A typical selection worksheet which includes the factors considered the most is used. The factors to be considered should be relevant to the organization’s environment.

Each project should be graded by more than one qualified person which understands the technical aspects of the project and must have a deep understanding of the organization’s objective and environment.

Scores can be weight in order to provide assistance in the decision of whether to accept or reject a proposal. Scoring and ranking are intended to aid the decision maker, not to make the decision.

The actual selection of project must depend on management’s evaluation of the following questions

• Does the proposed result meet the long range goals and plans of the organizations?
• Is the proposed result the type of product, or information, that the organization needs?
• Does the possible ultimate payoff the justify embarking on the project?

 Note: other considerations are considered as secondary.

After the selection phase, each project should be classified in one of the four category

• Mandatory. Those projects that are essential for the well being of the organization.
• Acceptable. These are projects that management is interested in pursuing.
• Deferred. The projects look interesting and feasible, but are not of immediate interest.
• Rejected. These projects are of no interest to management now or later.

Evaluation of Projects

For all project, this evaluation consists of

• Determining the status of the project
• Deciding whether and how to continue

Status of a new project is based on the data in the proposal and selection work sheet.

It is proposed that management subjectively divide the project into two groups for separate evaluation

• One group would use the definitions of basic research and applied research.
• One group would use the definitions of development and technical support.

Basic Assumptions of the system are:

• A person’s subjective judgment of the relative value between and among projects is more accurate that judgment of an absolute value of any one project.
• A person’s relative judgment among a few projects is more accurate than evaluation of a large number.

One method of assigning priorities

1. Ranking. Rank the entire set or projects being evaluated in terms of preference or perceived value of the projected outcomes without assigning quantitative values.
2. Selecting. Select at a random one project from the set. Let Ps represent the desired outcome of this project.
3. Subdivide the remaining set of projects by random assignment into groups of no more than five, and preferably into groups of approximately equal size. Each project (other than Ps) should be included in one and only one group.
4. Add Ps to each group and assign to it a priority value of 1.00 (i.e., priority of Ps=1.00)
5. For each group, tentatively assign too each project a value that initially seems to reflect the relative value of their proposed outcomes to that of Ps.
6. Make subjective comparisons of combinations such as Pa vs Pc and Ps. Thus, if the evaluator had the choice of having a successful outcome of Pa or the combination of Pc and Ps, which would be chosen? Suppose the evaluator would rather have Pc and Ps. Then the values of Pa and Pc must be adjusted so that Pa< Pc + Ps. In making adjustments, the value of Ps must not be changed. Continue those comparisons of combinations until the values for each project in the group are consistent for all evaluation.
7. Compare the rankings obtained for the entire set of projects as obtained by steps 2 to 6 when the groups are recombined with that obtained in step 1. If the rank orders differ, reconsider the ranking from step 1 and, if necessary, proceed again from step 2 to 6 of this procedure.
8. Once consistent results are obtained, normalize the priorities by dividing the priority assigned to each project by the sum of the priorities assigned to all the projects.

Share: