tailieunhanh - Research and Markets Project Management_4

Tham khảo tài liệu 'research and markets project management_4', khoa học xã hội, kinh tế chính trị phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | Isolation Methods 137 Control group project is not implemented Experimental group project is implemented No project Project Figure Use of control groups. As illustrated in Figure the control group and experimental group do not necessarily require pre-project measurements. Measurements can be taken during the project and after the project has been implemented with the difference in performance between the two groups indicating the amount of improvement that is directly related to the project. One caution should be observed The use of control groups may create the impression that the project leaders are reproducing a laboratory setting which can cause a problem for some executives and administrators. To avoid this perception some organizations conduct a pilot project using participants as the experimental group. A similarly constituted nonparticipant comparison group is selected but does not receive any communication about the project. The terms pilot project and comparison group are a little less threatening to executives than experimental group and control group. The control group approach has some inherent challenges that can make it difficult to apply in practice. The first major challenge is the selection of the groups. From a theoretical perspective having identical control and experimental groups is next to impossible. Dozens of factors can affect performance some individual and others contextual. On a practical basis it is best to select the four to six variables that will have the greatest influence on performance. Essentially this involves the 80 20 rule or the Pareto principle. The 80 20 rule is aimed at selecting the factors that might account for 80 percent of the difference. The Pareto principle requires working from the most important factor down to cover perhaps four or five issues that capture the vast majority of the factors having influence. Another major challenge is that the control group process is not suited to many situations. For some