Project management information systems have changed considerably over the last decade. They no longer focus on scheduling and resource management alone. Instead, they have become comprehensive systems that support the entire life-cycle of projects, project programs, and project portfolios. In this context, project-oriented organizations are facing a new challenge: the design, implementation, and operation of project management information systems have become increasingly complex. Numerous processes have to be considered, diverse stakeholder interests taken into account, and corresponding software systems selected. The reference information model (RefModPM) presented in this article addresses this challenge and aims to accelerate the set-up of project information systems. RefModPM was developed with the help of 13 domain experts from German and Swiss enterprises. Furthermore, it is based on an analysis of 28 commercial project management software systems. RefModPM has already been applied in several projects and is the basis of the forthcoming German DIN norm for a standardized project management data model.
Project management information systems (PMIS) are widely regarded as an important building block in today’s project management [1]. The nature of these systems has changed considerably during the last decade; they are, in fact, still developing from single-user/single-project management systems to complex, distributed, multi-functional systems that no longer only cover project planning [2]. Information systems research has to date only partly reflected this PMIS evolution. Typical fields of research are (1) algorithms in respect of operation research problems related to project management (e.g. [3], [4] and [5]), (2) the assessment and comparison of commercial project management solutions and corresponding assessment frameworks (e.g. [6], [7] and [8]), (3) the development of prototypes to test new kinds of functionality (e.g. [9], [10] and [11]), and (4) research into the usage of project management software systems (e.g. [12], [13] and [14]). Two specific problems are very rarely addressed: PMIS are become increasingly complex. Therefore, firstly, information system designers are facing a growing number of business processes that have to be supported with project management software. Secondly, information system users have difficulties in setting up corresponding organizational systems and selecting corresponding software products. An expert survey by Meyer indicates that only in approximately 20% of cases do organizations have information systems in place that support multi-project programme and portfolio management [13, p. 9]. In contrast, approximately 99% of organizations use information systems for scheduling and time management [13, p. 13]. The potential of existing PMIS is clearly not being exploited at all.
This article addresses these issues by presenting a reference information model for enterprise-wide project management that covers all project management processes that are related to planning, controlling, and coordinating projects (RefModPM). The model can be used for the design of project management software, the set-up of the surrounding organizational system, as well as for the definition of software requirements that are essential to select a commercial project management software system. RefModPM covers both single-project management and multi-project management. It is based on a single, uniform information system architecture called M-Model and makes use of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) Version 2.
This paper is structured as follows: section two describes the conceptual and terminological foundation of this article and presents a review of existing approaches to reference modelling in respect of PMIS. A brief description of the research design and the sources of the construction process are provided in section three. Section four outlines the architecture of the reference model, the M-Model. A more detailed exemplary excerpt of the reference model is presented in section five, which is then compared to the modelling approaches presented by other authors. In section six, examples that illustrate the model’s application are described, followed by concluding remarks that summarize the paper
This paper has introduced RefModPM, a new conceptual information system reference model for project and project portfolio management. RefModPM tries to overcome existing reference models’ deficiencies by covering more aspects of project management and offering data structures and processes that have been validated empirically and have proven to be stable, flexible, and accepted by subject matter experts. The development of the first version of RefModPM took approximately 1.5 man-years to complete. We are currently working on an extended second version of RefModPM that is scheduled to be completed during 2008.
Several software manufacturers that develop new products or product versions are currently using RefModPM. The adoption of RefModPM is also promoted through the second, English language edition of a German language book, which should be available in 2008. The new official German industry norm based on RefModPM should result in additional distribution.
