Benchmarking Facilities Project Management Units

As the number and complexity of projects on campus increases, Facilities leaders must improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their project management functions to meet their campuses’ needs. A critical component to better deploying limited resources and talent is trustworthy data and Facilities project management benchmarks. Informed by our Project Management Survey, this report provides national data on project management efficiency and operations.

Thanks to the responses of 36 partner institutions, this report offers overall benchmarks, as well as statistics on project delivery, staffing, technological investment, structure, and funding. Explore the significant findings below and then the graphical displays, quartile ranks, and data cuts between public and private institutions in the full report.

Respondent demographics

Based on survey respondents, there is significant deviation in project management workload based on staffing and institutional size. Institutions at the 25th percentile have 0.3 capital projects per project manager, consisting of $2.02 million in portfolio. Institutions at the 75th percentile have 2.8 capital projects per project manager, consisting of $14.02 million in portfolio. For smaller projects, the project management workload interquartile range (25th to 75th percentile) spans from 5 to 19.

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Project delivery

As campuses continue to grow and age, the number of projects that project management delivers remains substantial. The median number of capital projects delivered by an institution in 2017 was nine, costing $44 million and impacting 235,000 gross square feet on campus. The median number of smaller projects delivered by an institution in the same period was 130.

While newer delivery models such as public private partnerships and integrated project delivery have gotten significant press, the vast majority of projects are still delivered using design bid build (59.5% of projects) or construction manager/general contractor (34.9%).

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Project managers

Project managers are essential for ensuring the strategic and customer facing activity of a project are performed but can be prevented from doing so due to administrative and lower skill work. The survey found that most institutions have the majority of all project managers creating and completing forms (71%), reviewing systems (50%), and procuring furniture (45%). Offloading tasks like these to dedicated specialists, support staff, or student interns can create capacity for project management specific activities.

Twenty-three percent of institutions have seen their project management staffing levels decrease from 2008 to 2018, while another 23% saw no change. Institutions that were able to increase staffing levels reported continued function strain due to issues with processes and systems.

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Project management offices

While 61% of institutions use a vendor platform instead of homegrown software to oversee projects, there is no consensus among institutions on preferred vendors. 22% of institutions use their computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) project management module. 39% use an independent project management software, with the majority of them deploying eBuilder.

86% of institutions have all project managers report to a single Facilities executive. As well, 75% of institutions do not use contracted project managers, and those that do have them working on a small proportion of projects. This centralization of in house staff, a transition that occurred over the last decade, has helped many institutions do more projects with fewer resources.

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