Decisions on where to invest the company’s resources to achieve a technological innovation have a major impact on the future competitiveness of the company. Therefore, trying to get involved in the right projects is worth an effort, both to avoid wasting the company’s time and resources in meaningless activities, and to improve the chances of success.
However, in a continuous improvement context, ideas for change and projects which need significant resources might be prioritised rather than selected, with a view to all projects eventually being addressed.
In short, project evaluation aims at analysing research and development projects, or activities or ideas, for any or all of the following purposes:
- Getting an overall understanding of the project.
- Making priorities among a set of projects.
- Taking a decision about whether or not to proceed with a project.
- Monitoring projects, eg by following up the parameters analyzed when the project was selected.
- Terminating projects and evaluating the results obtained.