Disciplined project management: The key to process improvement program success

This research study is based on the premise that process improvement programs such as Six Sigma, Lean, and Lean Sigma are very important and deserve serious academic research, but that definitional problems make it very difficult to study any specific type of process improvement program. Therefore, this study defines two organizational level program management factors: Strategic Project Selection (SPS) and Disciplined Project Management (DPM). Guided by the internal fit theory, this research empirically examines both the direct effect of SPS and DPM on organizational performance and the impact of the fit between SPS and DPM on organizational performance. Using empirical data collected from 53 plants, this research reveals that at the organization level, SPS partially mediates the relationship between DPM and organizational performance. This insight contributes to both theory development and practice, suggesting that a viable strategy for a process improvement program's success is to focus on DPM in order to enhance SPS and ultimately achieve organizational performance.