What Is Project Management Productivity?

Abstract

The emergence of Industry 5.0, with its emphasis on human-centric, sustainable, and resilient forms of value creation, underscores the need for a more nuanced understanding of productivity that extends beyond traditional measures of efficiency and output. This study explores what defines project management productivity by analyzing 55 interviews with client-side project management practitioners. Using prototype theory, we identify 21 characteristic cues, categorized as lead and lag indicators, and hygiene and motivator factors. Our findings suggest that productivity is a context-dependent, multidimensional construct. This research contributes to defining and measuring project management productivity within complex organizational settings.