Digital assets for project-based studies and data-driven project management

Abstract

Projects offer learning opportunities and digital data that can be analyzed through a multitude of theoretical lenses. They are key vehicles for economic and social action, and they are also a primary source of innovation, research, and organizational change. This research involves a survey of digital assets available through a project; specifically, it identifies sources of data that can be used for practicing data-driven, context-specific project management, or for project-based academic research. It identified four categories of data sources - communications, reports/records, model representations, and computer systems - and 51 digital assets. The list of digital assets can be inputs in the creation of project artifacts and sources for monitoring and controlling project activities and for sensemaking in retrospectives or lessons learned. Moreover, this categorization is useful for decision support and artificial intelligence systems model development that requires real-world data.