Assigning Projects to Project Managers in a Multiple-Project Management Environment: A Pilot Study of a Decision Support Model

Project assignment is considered one of the critical project decisions since it influences the performance of projects, and eventually the performance of the organization. Despite its importance, the literature reveals two major gaps on project assignment criteria and methodology. To close these gaps, this study proposes an additional set of project assignment criteria and a systematic methodology for project assignments, so called, a decision support model for project assignments (DSM). By using the concepts of case study research combined with a literature review, the important potential criteria for project assignments are identified. These criteria are used in conjunction with the concepts of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the integer programming (IP) to develop a DSM for one company. The DSM is executed and validated with the company’s information. As a past of this research project, this paper illustrates the results of the pilot study developed for the feasibility study of the DSM development.