The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Operations Management

CHAPTER 11PROJECT CONTROL

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work.

—ECCLESIASTES 4:9

Earlier in the book, we talked about the Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) in the context of quality management: 80 percent of quality problems typically arise from 20 percent of the possible causes. I believe that the Pareto principle applies in another way: 80 percent of the work in project management—that is, defining the project, breaking down the work, developing the network, and evaluating the schedule—yields 20 percent of the benefit. Subsequently, especially for complex projects, 80 percent of the benefit of formal project management comes from the remaining 20 percent of the effort, or project control. There ...