Project management sustainability assessment at enterprises of the Russian regions

Abstract

The transition to sustainable project management is becoming a significant global trend in the development of organizations. Russian companies are also beginning to introduce sustainable project management into their practice. However, in most cases this happens at a slow pace, not systematically and with a weak motivation. At the same time, Russia has a positive experience in building a system of sustainable project management of enterprises, which is important to study, draw conclusions from it and develop a consistent policy of transferring project management on the principles of sustainability. This article proposes to discuss the results of our study, the purpose of which was to assess the sustainability of project management in enterprises. To conduct the study, a system of indicators and methods of their diagnosis was developed. The system consists of four groups of indicators: economic, environmental, social and institutional. The methodology is presented by a standardized survey of experts. The study was conducted at 34 enterprises in 10 cities of Russia. Project managers, program and portfolio managers, project management specialists acted as experts. The results of the study are presented in the form of analysis of economic, social, environmental and institutional components of project management sustainability. We also evaluated the integral indicator of the maturity level of project management. It was concluded that the sample population is represented by enterprises with high, medium and low maturity of project management. This allowed us to establish particular indicators of sustainability depending on the maturity level of project management. Also, the motives of enterprises’ appeal to the policy of sustainability are revealed. The general conclusion confirms our hypotheses that among the leading enterprises there are those which implement the strategy of sustainability consciously and those which do it without a strong positive motivation. Enterprises have also confirmed the hypothesis of the importance of state support for sustainable project management practices. The novelty of our research lies in the original methodology, which involves the evaluation of a whole complex of different indicators, as well as the establishment of an integral indicator of the maturity level of project management. The proposed analysis allows us to identify trends in the development of sustainable project management and ways to extend it to enterprises working in the format of projects.