SMPJournal - Winter 2016

The Bartlett School of Construction & Project Management

SMPJOURNAL

Winter 2016

SMPJournal – a collection of student thoughts and ideas developed at the MSc in Strategic Management of Projects. An invitation to pause, think, understand and try something new in leading projects and changing the world. www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/cpm

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PRESENT YOUR UNIQUE APPROACH TO STRATEGICALLY MANAGING PROJECTS AND CRITICALLY EVALUATE IT

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CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE ROLE OF SUPPLY CHAINS AND/OR NETWORKS IN STRATEGICALLY MANAGING PROJECTS

MARISA FERREIRA SILVA

CHI-DIEN LEE

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CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE ROLE OF THE STRATEGIC MANAGER OF PROJECTS IN RESPECT OF GOVERNING AND CONTROLLING PROJECTS FOR INNOVATION

CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE APPROACHES USED TO MANAGE INNOVATION IN PROJECT-BASED ORGANISATIONS

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DESIGN CANNOT BE MANAGED. CRITICALLY EVALUATE BO WANG

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CRITICALLY EVALUATE HOW THEORY CAN IMPROVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE YUN JOUNG JI

MARIA-ELENI PAPADAKI

CLAUDIA BASTANTE GONZALEZ

CONTENTS 3

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO THE STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF EUROPEAN RESEARCH AND INNOVATION PROJECTS

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CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE ROLE OF SUPPLY CHAINS AND/OR NETWORKS IN STRATEGICALLY MANAGING PROJECTS

KIMBERLY CORNFIELD

ALEKSANDAR RALIC

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CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF RUNNING PROJECTS IN THE LONG TERM

CRITICALLY EVALUATE HOW THEORY CAN IMPROVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

WAYNE DALTON

ALVARO TAPIA

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CRITICALLY EVALUATE HOW THEORY CAN IMPROVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE MATTHEW HARRISON

PROJECT REQUIREMENTS SHOULD LEAD TO PROJECTS THAT ARE PROFESSIONALLY SOUND AND COMPETITIVE IN THE LONG RUN. CRITICALLY EVALUATE DIMITRIOS VERGITSIS

People judge what they do not understand.

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (c. 35 – c. 100 CE)

EDITORIAL There is so much in the world today that is not understood. A judgemental mind would attribute climate change and the impoverishment of working life to the profit-making appetite of the corporate world.

The Brexit could be attributed to the manipulation of the electorate by politicians. The rise in populism could be attributed to the ongoing commercialisation of education and politically undemocratic agendas.

The increase in misguided attention could be attributed to media messages that promote sensationalism and the race to unintelligent, temporary, easily digestible coverage of life and political events. This is one way in which we may seek to explain the world around us.

Or, we may decide to understand. Understand that the above challenges and circumstances are complex and multifaceted. Understand that these challenges and circumstances require people to make difficult decisions and lead political, social, corporate projects based on a set of abilities in frequently pressing and politically charged environments.

In the MSc in Strategic Management of Projects we don’t have solutions to the above challenges.

We don’t have definitive answers to the ills of our time and the ills that we have set out for future generations.

We have knowledge and an understanding of different perspectives under which projects in our society and

economy can be seen and understood and which can create the space for groundbreaking thinking – critical thinking – and action. And, we believe that our students are the next generation of strategic managers of projects who will be defining projects under a set of challenging and unforgivingly evolving circumstances throughout their careers. They will have to negotiate, consult, influence and reconcile divergent interests and make powerful decisions that will change the world (of projects) for the better.

The SMPJournal is a collection of their thoughts; thoughts that have been developed through a process of study, dialogue and reasoning which aims to improve the practice of project management; thoughts that the students have developed for themselves with the support of the SMP team. This issue captures their ideas for the first time and aims to share them with you. It invites you to pause for a moment, think and understand, and try something new tomorrow in the way that you lead your projects and influence the world.

This is, in fact, the SMP experience. At UCL. Dr Efrosyni Konstantinou Programme Leader MSc Strategic Management of Projects University College London

IDEAS

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PRESENT YOUR UNIQUE APPROACH TO STRATEGICALLY MANAGING PROJECTS AND CRITICALLY EVALUATE IT

“The world we have created is a product of our thinking; It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” Albert Einstein INTRODUCTION Project management has been conventionally conceived using a functional view, where a project is carried out with the purpose of creating or improving a specific product, service, or process, for which constraints are given to the Project Manager to manage (Morris, 1997). While this perspective is still the dominant approach, it has been strongly criticised as outdated and reductionist, since it focuses solely on the technical side of Project Management, neglecting the social and contextual dimensions in which projects exist (Cicmil et al., 2006; Morris, 1997). As a response, Morris (1997) established the ‘management of projects’ paradigm, which entails a broader image of projects, where the author goes beyond the necessary yet simplistic goal-seeking view, whose focus is on the delivery of outputs on-time, on-budget, and according to specification, to emphasise the importance of (also) managing the project front-end rather than just the delivery phases, and providing value to the sponsor and lasting outcomes, rather than just a functioning output.

These two contrasting views remind us that there is no single way of seeing projects and reinforce the importance of being aware of different theories available for practice, since practitioners will have an underlying image of projects, even if not aware of it (Winter and Szczepanek, 2009). In this respect, Konstantinou and Muller (2016) argue that philosophies – foundational to theories – not just allow practitioners to define their professional identity and standing, but also determine their way of perceiving and doing things, where their priorities are allocated, and which proposals and

Marisa Ferreira Silva marisa.silva.14@ucl.ac.uk

solutions are considered; in essence, the philosophy one adopts defines who one is or wants to be and influences one’s day-to-day actions. Extending this construct to the realm of projects, to follow a philosophy is to hold a particular image of projects (Winter and Szczepanek, 2009), which will influence how the project is perceived, designed, and executed by the project manager. Recognising that the theoretical grounds of Project Management are narrowed, Konstantinou and Muller (2016) claim, however, that there is a lack of options available to offer to practitioners, which, in light of the interdisciplinary, timecritical and complex issues faced by society nowadays, makes this matter of serious relevance to the future of the project management profession. Hence, the authors call for new approaches that can redefine what project management practice can be, while at the same time able to deliver an impactful and practical change that could shape the future of the profession and allow us to respond to what Morris (2013) called “the age of relevance”. What follows is a proposal of just that.

THE CASE FOR THE FUTURE In project management literature we are often alerted to the importance of documenting lessons learned for the sake of replicating what went well and not making the same mistakes in future projects, a practice which aligns to the “reflective practice” theory proposed by Schön (1983). While the author recognises the criticality of reflecting on the past, this leads us to a management paradox: all our decisions are about the future, but all the knowledge in which we rely to make those decisions is about the past (Wilson, 2000). This has led some authors (Conway, 2004; Mintzberg, 1994) to support that there is a fundamental flaw in current planning approaches, where the dominant outlook shows an overreliance on the past and remains focused on

short-term thinking to the detriment of the “art of the long view” (Schwartz, 1991). Examples of the consequences of this short-termism include the often cited examples of Kodak or Blockbuster, which let their core capabilities become their core rigidities (Leonard‐Barton, 1992) and, failing to envision how their business models could be dramatically disrupted by newer technologies, went bankrupt. In fact, the prevailing practice in most organisations is still to define short-term targets and incentives and reward executives by the performance achieved in the previous quarter, thus promoting a vicious cycle where management is inwardly focused and neglects the signals of change outside the organisation, ultimately resulting in risky conducts, opportunities missed, and poor or misinformed decision-making.

It is now a commonplace to hear that change is the new normal and that we are living in a vulnerable, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) business environment.

While this panorama certainly makes it more difficult for organisations to anticipate and cope with changes on their horizon, it also strengthens the need to develop capabilities of imagination, be comfortable with the unknown, and to consider how different versions of the future may impact the industry in which these organisations operate. To that end, Hamel and Prahalad (1994: 120) maintain that “companies fail to create the future not because they fail to predict it, but because they fail to imagine it”.

In effect, the future is happening now. The Internet of Things promises to revolutionise how we interact with objects; driverless cars are currently being tested, the first 3-D ear was successfully printed earlier in 2016, and artificial intelligence and machine learning are said to become a reality not too far in time. What can this mean to project-based organisations, and project professionals?

A FUTURES-ORIENTED APPROACH In order to answer these challenges and to escape the management myopia provoked by the shorttermism involved in traditional project management approaches, the author argues that, just like we are asked to think ‘outside the box’ to develop innovative solutions to complex problems, project managers need to think outside the conventional iron triangle of project management and employ a long-term impact approach if they are to use the future to their benefit.

In fact, projects are by definition a projection of a desired future and represent a vehicle for the intended new state an organisation aims to be at, thus, since the notion of the future is implicit in the nature of projects,

it is a surprise to note that this subject is scarce in project management main academic outlets (Silva, 2015) as an explicit phenomenon to be analysed and discussed in project settings. Three current avenues of research that demonstrate the interplay between these concepts should be mentioned though: research on future preparedness (Shenhar and Dvir, 2001), the future-perfect-strategy (Pitsis et al., 2003), and research conducted on project early warning indicators (Nikander et al., 2001; Haji-Kazemi et al., 2013). While these streams, individually, provide a basis to advance a discussion on the role of the future in projects, the author claims that an integrative, solid approach is necessary to address how the future impacts and is impacted by projects – a futures-oriented approach.

The relation between the future and projects is a twoway street; while on one hand projects shape the future, on the other hand, how the future may unfold is critical to projects, as it may compromise or facilitate the attainment of the objectives of a project, aspects often captured by the risk management processes in place.

However, the author supports a wider view of projects, where the project does not end when delivered, but is rather perceived as a legacy to be managed, thus also requiring an extended approach to risk and uncertainty (Brady et al., 2012) which goes beyond the short term and assesses the impact of long-term futures on the project and its outcomes.

To do so, Foresight appears as a fundamental tool to equip project managers to deal with uncertainty (Silva, 2016). Conceived as a multidisciplinary and participatory field which aims to make sense of the future in a systematic way (Bell, 1996; Mendonça and Sapio, 2009) by analysing and interpreting the signals perceived in the environment and, through prospection, discussing the implications of possible futures, Foresight allows decision-makers to act in the present to take advantage of or move away from these futures.

It is important to stress that this approach does not aim to predict the future, but to consider the future and how it may unfold while managing a project. Focusing on the future and employing a long-term impact approach to the management of projects involves a radical shift in thinking, not to mention several implications in practice.

Adopting a futures-thinking approach expands the time frames at stake and, as a result, strongly influences several practical aspects, starting from the selection of which projects to carry out, to the risk tolerance and risk appetite defined, or the approach followed in the management of innovation. Likewise, managing for the future can impact how requirements are captured, defined, and tested, as not just current business requirements and constraints are considered but also future ones, thus, where possible, flexibility

PRESENT YOUR UNIQUE APPROACH TO STRATEGICALLY MANAGING PROJECTS AND CRITICALLY EVALUATE IT

is incorporated during project planning and design stages (Cairns, in Blyth and Worthington, 2010). From here, also the triple constraint can be expanded and readjusted to position quality as more important than time or cost. Additionally, thinking long term involves starting with the end in mind, leading to planning the project legacy in the front-end of the project (e.g.

London Olympics 2012), and establishing the right mechanisms to ensure that benefits are realised and sustained, and that the project legacy is effectively managed. Moreover, from a people’s viewpoint, to consider a long-range perspective means expanding individual planning horizons, daring them to think beyond the status quo and to imagine different paths, as well as uniting them around a strong project vision.

By foreseeing and rehearsing alternatives of the future, project-based organisations can also become more agile, resilient, and future-prepared (Silva, 2016), enabling their ability to detect emerging changes and their readiness capabilities to respond to different scenarios.

While traditional approaches to project management consider a project to be successful when delivered on time, on budget, and against specifications, a futuresoriented approach takes a holistic and societal view of project success by considering an expanded time frame and the impact on multiple stakeholders, where value for many is more important than value for money and the realisation of the project benefits is more important than the mere delivery of the project’s outputs. It is not unusual to find projects that are successfully delivered within the constraints defined by the project sponsor but then fail to realise the benefits that justified its initiation in the first place or, using a medical analogy, projects where, from a professional standpoint, the operation was a success but, unfortunately, the patient died in the end. A futures-oriented approach has the role of time at its core and, consequently, emphasises the importance of a patient who lives to tell the story.

From the previous point, once the future is considered, sustainability comes into play, requiring projects to apply sustainable practices during their design, operation, and disposal of products, and meaning that the way project managers select and work with suppliers and surrounding communities, or how the interests of different stakeholders are considered and balanced also needs to change. This view is aligned with the recent flourish of movements towards sustainable development in project management, which reasons that project professionals have a mission to fulfil; that is, to manage projects using sustainable principles in order to allow current needs to be met without that meaning compromising the future generation’s needs (Silvius et al., 2012). Alerting of the

perils of an inward-focused approach, Morris (2013) advocates that the project management community has for too long reflected on the means rather than the ends, suggesting that current and prospective critical societal issues such as climate change or the recent refugee crisis, demand a sense of relevance from project management academics and practitioners, who have the responsibility of using their work and projects to drive a desired future and leave a positive, impactful legacy.

Bearing this in mind, a futures-oriented approach to project management claims for project managers an active role in shaping the future, by doing better projects for a better world.

LIMITATIONS While this approach entails conceptual strengths and relevance to practice – not to mention to society – it also includes limitations which need to be acknowledged. Perhaps the most obvious limitation resides in what is also its major strength: the broader time horizon involved. Although there is not a defined standard for the duration of a project, it is reasonable to state that most projects exist in the short-term planning horizon, thus, benefits to be gained from a futuresoriented approach, even though noticeable, can be not as visible as when compared to programs and portfolio, which typically consider a medium to long-term perspective. Despite this fact, the legacy of the project, the emphasis on benefits realisation, or the focus on sustainability can be derived from the lens of the future and it is realistic to suggest that megaprojects can also make extensive use of this approach because of their long time spans and life expectancies. Likewise, the relevance of this approach can vary depending on the industry in analysis as different industries operate within distinctive time frames (e.g. Pharma vs IT).

From an implementation standpoint, it is also important to note that the adoption of a futures-oriented mindset can be challenging as it requires a profound shift in the way of thinking, currently constrained by the fast pace of the market, and also by our own schemas and mental models where, as humans, we are uncomfortable with the unknown and tend to believe that our future will be a mere extension of the present as we know it. Finally, in a time where management decisions and career progression are mostly built around a short-term perception, senior management may show resistance as they perceive their annual bonuses to be threatened or that their time is being wasted on risks and opportunities that may or may not happen. However, the imperative question is: can we afford to neglect the future?

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

While the future is unknown, the author argues that a futures-oriented approach to the management of projects draws a new, relevant direction for practice and can provide project practitioners with robust tools to deal with uncertainty while at the same time designing and delivering a sustainable future. This approach does not imply a full reset with earlier proposals, but places a different emphasis on the role of the future instead, under the premise that different results require a different way of thinking. We must therefore lead from and for the future, not the past. Our projects and the way we perceive and manage them can determine what future we will get, hence the future is not an island ready to be discovered, but a place that practitioners can shape with their decisions. Our projects are our legacy and our future. Let us make it a good one.

Bell, W. (1996). The Sociology of the Future and the Future of Sociology.

Sociological Perspectives, 39(1), pp. 39-57.

Blyth, A., & Worthington, J. (2010). Managing the brief for better design.

Routledge: UK. Brady, T., Davies, A., & Nightingale, P. (2012). Dealing with uncertainty in complex projects: revisiting Klein and Meckling. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 5(4), pp. 718-736.

Cicmil, S., Williams, T., Thomas, J., & Hodgson, D. (2006). Rethinking project management: researching the actuality of projects. International Journal of Project Management, 24(8), pp. 675-686.

Conway, M. (2004). Scenario Planning: an innovative approach to strategy development. Australian Association for Institutional Research. In http://www.aair.org.au/app/webroot/media/pdf/AAIR%20Fora/Forum2004/ CONWAY.pdf accessed on 09/12/2015 Gubbi, J., Buyya, R., Marusic, S., & Palaniswami, M. (2013). Internet of Things (IoT): A vision, architectural elements, and future directions. Future Generation Computer Systems, 29(7), pp. 1645-1660.

Haji-Kazemi, S., Andersen, B., & Krane, H.P. (2013). A Review on Possible Approaches for Detecting Early Warning Signs in Projects. Project Management Journal, 44(5), pp. 55-69.

Hamel, G., & Prahalad, C. K. (1994). Competing for the future. Harvard Business School press. Boston, MA. Konstantinou, E., Muller, R., (2016, forthcoming), The role of philosophy in project management, Project Management Journal, PMI Leonard‐Barton, D. (1992). Core capabilities and core rigidities: A paradox in managing new product development. Strategic Management Journal, 13(S1), pp. 111-125.

Mendonça, S., & Sapio, B. (2009). Managing foresight in changing organisational settings: introducing new perspectives and practices.

Mintzberg, H., (1994). Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning. Harvard Business Review. January/February Morris, P. W. (1997). The Management of Projects. Thomas Telford: UK. Morris, P. W. (2013). Reconstructing Project Management. John Wiley & Sons: UK. Nikander, O, Eloranta, E., (2001). Project management by early warnings.

International Journal of Project Management, Volume 19, Issue 7, October, pp. 385–399 Pitsis, T. S., Clegg, S. R., Marosszeky, M., & Rura-Polley, T. (2003).

Constructing the Olympic dream: a future perfect strategy of project management. Organization Science, 14(5), pp. 574-590.

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action (Vol. 5126). Basic books.

Schwartz, P. (1991). The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World. New York: Doubleday Shenhar, A. J., Dvir, D., Levy, O., & Maltz, A. C. (2001). Project success: a multidimensional strategic concept. Long Range Planning, 34(6), pp. 699-725.

Silva, M. (2015). A systematic review of Foresight in Project Management literature. Procedia Computer Science, 64, pp. 792-799.

Silva, M. (2016). Thinking Outside the Triangle: Using Foresight in Project Environments to Deliver a Resilient Tomorrow. In IPMA International Expert Seminar 2016 Proceedings.

Silvius, M. G., van den Brink, M. J., Schipper, M. R., Planko, M. J., & Köhler, M. A. (2012). Sustainability in Project Management. Gower Publishing Ltd, UK. The Economist, (2008). Giving advice in adversity. In http://www.economist. com/node/12304825 accessed on 12/05/2016 Wilson, I. (2000). From Scenario Thinking to Strategic Action. In http:// www.horizon.unc.edu/projects/seminars/futurizing/action.asp accessed on 08/12/2015 Winter, M., & Szczepanek, T. (2009). Images of Projects. Gower Publishing, Ltd, UK.

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CRITICALLY EVALUATE WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE STRATEGIC MANAGER OF PROJECTS IN RESPECT OF GOVERNING AND CONTROLLING PROJECTS FOR INNOVATION

Claudia Bastante Gonzalez claudia.bastante.15@ucl.ac.uk

INTRODUCTION

GOVERNANCE, CONTROL AND INNOVATION

The purpose of this essay is to discuss the role of the strategic manager of projects in respect of governing and controlling projects for innovation, in the sense of Stoker’s quote that “Governance is ultimately concerned with creating conditions for ordered rule and collective action” (Stoker, 1998).

This brief analysis of Stoker’s quote will give a clear image of the discussion of this essay. It can be said that ordered rule and collective action are not mutually exclusive and can coexist, and governance provides the means for this existence. Müller mentions, regarding this same quote, that governance provides contextual frameworks which shape, but not necessarily determine the actions of individuals, for instance in projects (Müller, 2011, p. 298).

According to Stoker’s quote, ordered rule and collective action are not mutually exclusive and a balance can be established. In this sense, control does not necessarily imply a negative sense and degrees of control can be found. Governance provides a general framework according to the corporate governance, but it cannot establish the way people will behave. Therefore, the strategic manager of projects should look for the best way to govern and control a project, in terms of the process and, especially, of people. The focus of this work will be on people, not on processes. For this task, leadership, power and influence will be very important tools for engaging the project members and other stakeholders.

And why is it important for innovation? Adequate governance and control are ways of innovation and can also help in managing risk and uncertainty brought by innovation, not only technological but also organisational innovation. Again, the role of the strategic manager of projects is a central one in this task.

Morris (2013, p. 160) and Müller (2011, p. 298) use the definition of corporate governance of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), that it involves a set of relationships between a company’s management, its board, its shareholders and other stakeholders, and also provides the structure through which the objectives of the company are set, and the means of attaining those objectives and monitoring performance. Corporate governance gives the bigger framework and sets the boundaries for project governance (Müller, 2011, p. 297).

In this sense, control can complement governance with people behaviour and processes. Normally, the familiar concept of control refers to hierarchical, bureaucratic control, Max Weber’s “iron cage”, “…in which control derives from the hierarchically based social relations of the organization and its concomitant sets of systemic rational-legal rules that reward compliance and punish noncompliance” (Barker, 2005, p. 211).

Barker mentions, citing Barnard, that control is a key element of any organisation that requires individuals to subordinate their desires to the collective will of the organisation. This causes tension that is always problematic (Barker, 2005, p. 212).

Alvesson and Deetz mention that “Management in a modernist discourse works on the basis of control, the progressive rationalization and colonization of nature

and people, whether workers, potential consumers, or society as a whole” (Alvesson & Deetz, 2005, p. 61).

Moreover, they mention that the cost of control grows, and as it does, strategy and instrumental reasoning are strained. But this situation creates new social conditions that incentivise new studies in postmodern and critical theory work (Alvesson & Deetz, 2005, p. 62). Therefore, other perspectives of control can arise from new studies.

Actually, Barker, citing Edwards, mentions three strategies of control: simple control, technological control and the common bureaucratic control. Barker proposes a fourth strategy of control, concertive control, where control emerges not from the rational hierarchical rules but from concertive, value-based actions of the organisation’s members and it becomes a more democratic system (Barker, 2005, pp. 212-214).

Barker’s proposal is very interesting, but extremist to some extent, and this will be discussed ahead.

Also, Harpum mentions that control is fundamental to all management endeavour and, to manage, control must be exercised. About project control, he states that it is about ensuring that a project delivers what it has to deliver and that project processes are operating adequately. The author mentions two types of control, the mechanistic control (mostly related to the use of tools and machines for the processes) and the soft control, people-oriented skills. Both types are of equal importance (Harpum, 2004). As mentioned before, this essay will not focus on the mechanistic side of control.

The importance of innovation, technological and organisational, is that it has been recognised as fundamental to economic and social well-being.

Innovation and change in an organisation often depend on projects, when launching new products or new reorganisations. So, innovation usually takes place in a project and can be considered a way to organising (Brady & Hobday, 2011, p. 273). Then, breaking the paradigm of traditional ways of control is a form of organisational innovation.

Also related to innovation are risk and uncertainty, and managing them in projects is related to decisionmaking, to people, to behaviours of leadership and teams, more than processes and tools (Winch & Maytorena, 2011). However, innovation and risk management vary throughout the project’s life cycle, which will be discussed ahead.

Then, innovation has the potential to bring many benefits to a project (for instance, financial and commercial), but at the same time it is also related to risk and uncertainty, and a wrong management of them could lead to failure of projects because project managers and team members underestimate this uncertainty and do not adapt their style of management for different situations (Brady & Hobday, 2011, p. 276).

THE ROLE OF THE STRATEGIC MANAGER OF PROJECTS. LEADERSHIP, POWER AND INFLUENCE AS MEANS OF GOVERNANCE AND CONTROL According to Morris (2013, pp. 118-119), the front-end of a project is the “strategic envelope” and is the key of the “Management of Projects” conceptualisation. In this level, leadership is essential. Therefore, the strategic manager of projects is the one involved in the project since the front-end, and is not only interested just in delivering and executing but also in achieving business results. Project managers are required to become leaders and must handle all aspects of leadership (Shenhar, 2004, pp. 570,571).

Then, the role of the strategic manager of projects in governing and controlling projects for innovation is not only to manage but to be a leader, to be a link with the corporate governance level and to establish the project governance according to the corporate governance, and also to exercise project control, of processes and of people.

Leadership, as stated by Morris, has a very important role in the front-end in creating and communicating the project vision, motivating and influencing people, negotiating high-level arrangements and shaping decisions (Morris, 2013, p. 151). Therefore, the strategic manager of projects becomes a link between the project and the high level, and his relationship with his team and other stakeholders is crucial.

There are many roles and responsibilities in a project but, according to Morris (2013, p. 147), there are two key roles: the sponsor and the project/program manager, and the relationship between the sponsor and the project team is relevant for effective project management. The sponsor represents the organisation, the client, the corporate governance level. So, the strategic manager of projects has the role to establish a positive relationship between the sponsor and the rest of the project members. The project manager is the “single point of integrative responsibility” (Morris, 2013, p. 148).

Apart from establishing the project governance, the strategic manager of projects needs to establish a relationship with the project members. Projects are about working with people, which means different professional and personal backgrounds, different personalities, expectations, interests and behaviours.

Control is a way to engage people.

In their analysis of identity regulation as organisational control, Alvesson and Willmott recognise that there are many mechanisms and practices of control, such as rewards, hierarchies and also leadership.

All of them interact to form the identity work of organisational members, which is a medium and

CRITICALLY EVALUATE WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE STRATEGIC MANAGER OF PROJECTS IN RESPECT OF GOVERNING AND CONTROLLING PROJECTS FOR INNOVATION

outcome of organisational control and contributes to the worker acceptance of the organisational values (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002, pp. 621,622). Then, different mechanisms for control can be used to achieve the desired goals.

influence, such as persuasion, integration and pressure (Magenau & Pinto, 2004, pp. 1038-1041). Therefore, the combination of power and influence, and its correct use, provides a base for the strategic manager of projects’ leadership.

Barker’s concertive control proposal could be one.

Previously, it was mentioned that Barker’s proposal could be extremist. This is because, according to his approach, between the governance level, represented by the organisation’s vice-president for example, and the work teams there are no intermediaries. From the perspective of a project, it could mean that, depending on the project governance established by the organisation, either the image of the project manager could be eliminated, or the governance level could be represented by the project manager as a link with the organisation. From the point of view of this work, the last is the most acceptable approach.

Recognising the maturity of the team members is important when varying the style of leadership and also when distributing leadership. A successful project, in developing and delivering, should show effective leadership at all levels, with the project manager as an integrator, with the responsibility for shaping the team and getting the best performance. And when talking about people, there are many aspects that the project manager should take in account, such as communication skills, trust, emotional intelligence, influence, power and negotiation, conflict management, problem solving, decision making, delegation, empowerment and motivation (Morris, 2013, pp.

200-211). Therefore, as an integrator and seeking to empower, the strategic manager of projects should know how to establish distributed leadership, according to people’s personalities and expertise.

Another mechanism is leadership. Project management cannot be successful without effective leadership (Morris, 2013, p. 199). In order to avoid the complications of a strict hierarchy of relationships and in recognising variety within a team, different styles of leadership can be used. Situational and distributed leadership are two of them, which are not mutually exclusive.

Situational leadership requires managers to vary their leadership style depending on the maturity of subordinates (Morris, 2013, p. 200). This maturity dictates not only the style of leadership but also the power base the leader should use to induce compliance and influence behaviour. Followers’ perception of a leader’s power induces compliance and influence (Hersey, et al., 1979).

Magenau and Pinto mention that successful project managers understand the constructive uses of power – as the ability to get things accomplished in an organisation the way one wants them to be done and the capacity to force compliance – and should recognise how to use it. Also, power is an important means to govern teams. But, as with control, some definitions of power imply a confrontational issue. In their definition of different types of power, effective project managers seek not only positional but also personal power, which offers project managers a wide range of options, from engaging with individuals to creating a powerful network of connections (Magenau & Pinto, 2004, pp. 1033-1037).

Also, Magenau and Pinto recognise the importance of influence for the project manager. An influencer cannot force others’ compliance, but can get another person to do something when no strong relationship of power exists. And, here also, there are different forms of

However, some caution should be taken when talking about distributed leadership, as some research done in the area tends to undermine the leading managerial role.

According to Gronn’s research, a manager has such a position because of a contract that establishes the authority relationship with employees. But, if employees can be convinced that their managers are also leaders, they will be likely to comply and also to make addedvalue commitments. In this sense, leadership is different from mere followership and division of labour is of major importance in distributed leadership (Gronn, 2002).

Then, the strategic manager of projects should engage his or her team and be seen as a leader, and also should know how to empower other people, recognise their skills and create value with the cooperation of the team. However, he or she should also know how to keep the leadership. To do so, project managers, apart from the actual characteristics of his or her leadership, need good negotiation skills. Negotiation process is related not only with the project members but also with other stakeholders, and there are many techniques and strategies to use (Magenau & Pinto, 2004, pp. 10461056).

Also, the different levels of control during the project must be recognised. Morris (2013, p. 151) mentions that there is a change from the front-end developmental creativity to execution control, a shift from “organic” to “mechanistic”. This means that at the front-end of the project, more creativity should be allowed. However, Harpum argues that control should be exercised as part of effective design management (Harpum, 2004, pp.

422-425). Creative people can be difficult to control,

but with an intelligent exercise of control, through all the aspects brought by leadership and also process control, a balance could be established. This also means that normally the executional part of the project is more mechanistic, less creativity is needed, and even in some cases, as explained by Davies, a project has many standardised sub processes which provide opportunities to create processes that can be structured in a controlled sequence, simplified in number, based on standardised modules and repeated in large scale (Davies, et al., 2009, p. 104).

CONCLUSIONS All in all, the role of the strategic manager of projects in governing and controlling projects for innovation should be as a link between the different levels of governance of a project, between the organisation and the team projects, as Morris states, the single point of integrative responsibility.

First, he or she should establish a fluent and positive relationship with the organisation, the client, and especially the sponsor, and should establish the corporate governance to the level of the project, the project governance.

Also, as the governance does not establish each person’s performance within a project, the strategic manager of projects, through a combination of control techniques, such as situational leadership, and elements of concertive control and distributed leadership, should exercise control over the project team, allowing people to perform according to their capacities, abilities, maturity, and also according to the project life cycle. This will also allow the strategic manager of projects to have the respect for his or her leading position. For this to happen, negotiation is also needed.

The basis of leadership should be the adequate, and ethical, use of power and influence, releasing the pressure that hierarchical structures brings on individuals. The team should work according to shared values and the project manager has a key role in fostering people’s commitment, transmitting the project governance and establishing scales of control.

A more democratic working system should motivate people, where the values and contributions are taken in account. Team work is important and the task of the strategic manager of projects is to pull all the pieces together.

REFERENCES Alvesson, M. & Deetz, S., 2005. Critical Theory and Postmodernism: Approaches to Organizational Studies. In: C. Grey & H. Willmott, eds. Critical Management Studies: A reader. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 60-106.

Alvesson, M. & Willmott, H., 2002. Identity Regulation and Organizational Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual. Journal of Management Studies, 39(5), pp. 619-644.

Barker, J., 2005. Tightening the iron cage: concertive control in self-managing systems. In: C. Grey & H. Willmott, eds. Critical Management Studies: A reader.

New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 209-243.

Brady, T. & Hobday, M., 2011. Projects and Innovation: Innovation and Projects.

In: P. Morris, J. Pinto & J. Söderlund, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Project Management. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 273-294.

Davies, A., Gann, D. & Douglas, T., 2009. Innovation in Megaprojects: Systems Integration at London Heathrow Terminal 5. California Management Review.

Infrastructure Meets Business: Building New Bridges, Mending Old Ones, 51(2), pp. 101-125.

Gronn, P., 2002. Distributed Leadership as a Unit of Analysis. The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 13, pp. 423-451.

Harpum, P., 2004. Design Management. In: P. Morris & J. Pinto, eds. The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, pp. 422-449.

Harpum, P., 2004. Project Control. In: P. Morris & J. Pinto, eds. The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc, pp. 5-29.

Hersey, P., Blanchard, K. & Natemeyer, W., 1979. Situational Leadership, Perception and the Impact of Power. Group & Organization Studies (pre-1986), 4(4), pp. 418-428.

Magenau, J. & Pinto, J., 2004. Power, Influence, and Negotiation in Project Management. In: P. Morris & J. Pinto, eds. The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, pp. 1033-1060.

Morris, P., 2013. Reconstructing Project Management. 1st ed. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Müller, R., 2011. Project Governance. In: P. Morris, J. Pinto & J. Söderlund, eds.

The Oxford Handbook of Project Management. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 297-320.

Shenhar, A., 2004. Strategic Project Leadership: toward a strategic approach to project management. R&D Management, 34(5), pp. 569-578.

Stoker, G., 1998. Governance as theory: five propositions. International Journal of Social Sciences, 50(1), pp. 17-28.

Winch, G. & Maytorena, E., 2011. Managing Risk and Uncertainty on Projects: A Cognitive Approach. In: P. Morris, J. Pinto & J. Söderlund, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Project Management. New York: Oxford University Press, pp.

345-364.

3

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO THE STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF EUROPEAN RESEARCH AND INNOVATION PROJECTS

Kimberly Cornfield k.cornfield@ucl.ac.uk

INTRODUCTION

PROJECT SUCCESS

For European research and innovation projects to tackle significant and complex societal challenges, such as health and environmental issues, inter-organisational and interdisciplinary collaborative approaches are essential, as the issues are too wide and significant to be solved by one organisation or one discipline and industry (Bammer, 2008 & Gray, 1985).

Müller and Jugdev’s (2012) research, which built upon Pinto, Slevin, and Prescott, who are considered experts in relation to project success and project critical success criteria, indicated that project success is primarily subjective, and what is considered a success will vary depending on each individual context and perspective (Jugdev and Müller, 2005 & 2012).

Traditionally, though, project success has been defined by three criteria: time, cost and quality / scope (Dvir et al., 2003, Müller and Jugdev, 2012, & Terry CookeDavies in Morris and Pinto, 2004). However, these criteria of project success are often disputed as the most accurate or complete criteria in which to measure project success (Dvir et al., 2003, Müller and Jugdev, 2012, & Terry Cooke-Davies in Morris and Pinto, 2004). Some align these success criteria to operational success as opposed to strategic success, as projects may fail in respect to some of these criteria, but may still be considered a success as they achieved client and/ or key stakeholder satisfaction (Terry Cooke-Davies in Morris and Pinto, 2004).

As outlined in Appendix I (attached), there are two central challenges that the Higher Education and Research Organisation sector is facing in terms of successfully obtaining, and increasing, European research and innovation grant funding: 1) changing requirements of European research projects, in particular the focus on innovation and post project impact, and 2) the required increase and improved inter-organisational and interdisciplinary collaboration with businesses and other sectors in order to enhance innovation. These challenges need to be addressed in order for these organisations to continue to: 1) successfully obtain, and increase, European research and innovation grant funding, 2) successfully implement these projects, and 3) achieve post project impact in Europe.

In order to effectively address these challenges and achieve long-term project and organisational success, the author proposes that a strategic manager of projects in this industry focuses on an inter-organisational as well as interdisciplinary collaborative approach, with further emphasis on establishing the ideals that influence the project work and collaboration. The paper will first analyse project success, then address collaboration from an intra and inter-organisational perspective. Finally, the paper will analyse collaboration from an interdisciplinary perspective, and address how this may connect to ideals that drive the interdisciplinary project work.

When considering the context of European research and innovation grant funding, time, cost, quality/ scope are essential criteria to meet for the project sponsor (European Commission), a key stakeholder.

However, a new criterion, post project impact, has been introduced by the sponsor, which goes beyond the traditional, time, cost, and quality criteria in this industry (Appendix I). The challenge for Higher Education and Research Organisations is to meet all four criteria while collaborating with various industries and disciplines (Appendix I).

Baker et al.’s 1988 research into 650 completed projects found that time overruns did not appear in the 29 project management characteristics significantly related to project failure, and cost and time success did not appear in the 23 project management characteristics significantly related to project success (Baker et al., 1998). What was discovered is that project success correlates most to the performance outcomes and a high level of satisfaction of the project outcomes by key stakeholders, i.e. important individuals within the sponsor/client organisation, project team, and end users (Baker et al., 1998). In many cases, projects that meet their planned time, cost and quality criteria have still been considered failures because they did not meet key stakeholders’ post project performance and outcome expectations (Dvir et al., 2003). Project success therefore correlates to the interactions of the various individuals and organisations, and managing their expectations (Müller and Jugdev, 2005 & 2012), thus it can be argued that a collaborative approach to managing these expectations is an important element in achieving project success.

A collaborative approach to the strategic management of projects is connected to the entire project life cycle, including the front-end project-planning phase, and research has indicated a correlation between project planning and project success (Dvir et al., 2003 & Jugdev and Müller, 2005 & Morris, 2013). Improved planning, which will require collaboration among the organisations and stakeholders involved in the project implementation and post project impact, can reduce uncertainty and improve projects’ chances of success, however, it does not guarantee success (Dvir et al., 2003).

Whilst success criteria may be subjective and should go beyond the traditional time, cost, and quality criteria, it is imperative not to discount the importance of time and costs measures (Dvir et al., 2003 & Jugdev and Müller, 2005 & Morris, 2013). For example, when investments are significant, such as the case in megaprojects, the effects of time and cost overrun can be detrimental and lead to the collapse of an organisation (Flyvbjerg et al. 2003). Therefore, cost, time and quality are still important measures of success, and will correlate to various stakeholders’ perception of success (Dvir et al., 2003 & Flyvbjerg et al. 2003).

COLLABORATION Gray (1985) defines collaboration, in the context of tackling complex societal issues, as the combining of resources by two or more stakeholders to solve a set of problems that cannot be solved individually (Gray 1985).

This is both practical and an essential approach to tackling the complex issues faced by society (Bammer, 2008 & Gray, 1985 & Katz and Martin, 1997), which is what Higher Education and Research Organisations are attempting to do when applying for European research and innovation grant funding.

Collaboration can then be differentiated by: 1) intraorganisational collaboration; 2) inter-organisational collaboration; 3) interdisciplinary collaboration and 4) inter-regional collaboration (Frenken et al. 2005). The industry discussed in this paper takes into account all four contexts of collaboration; however, this paper will focus on the first three contexts, which have been deemed as requirements for projects in this industry (Bammer, 2008 & Gray, 1985).

INTRA-ORGANISATIONAL COLLABORATION Given the industry requirement of inter-organisational and interdisciplinary collaboration, these have been deemed as very important elements of the collaborative approach (Bammer, 2008, & Gray 1985). However, the author does not disregard the importance of the intraorganisational context, and will therefore touch on this component before expanding into inter-organisational and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Intra-organisational collaboration requires attention because projects do not stand alone; they are linked to and affected by intra-organisational environmental factors. Research has indicated how environmental uncertainty has an impact on the internal conduct of an organisation, which in turn can directly affect projects within the organisation (Engwall, 2003).

Project success factors are usually correlated to the individual project (Engwall, 2003). This ties to the time, cost, and quality/scope success criteria described above, as these success factors are linked to the individual project at an operational level, and not a strategic perspective that takes into account wider variables, such as post project impact which includes stakeholder satisfaction (Engwall, 2003 & Terry CookeDavies in Morris and Pinto, 2004).

With projects increasingly representing a larger component of organisations’ usual business operations, and as projects are affected by the organisation, a strategic manager should take into account the intraorganisation environment contexts and history to more successfully develop and deliver projects within an organisation (Engwall, 2003).

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO THE STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF EUROPEAN RESEARCH AND INNOVATION PROJECTS

INTER-ORGANISATIONAL COLLABORATION A project manager coordinates the collaboration among stakeholders (Konstantinou, 2014), therefore the author proposes that a strategic manager of projects within this industry should focus on interorganisational collaboration to strategically develop and deliver projects in the long term. As indicated by Bammer (2008) and Gray (1985), inter-organisational collaboration is an essential component in European research and innovation grant funding, mainly for two reasons: 1) this is a requirement of the project sponsor and 2) the issues these types of projects are addressing are too significant and wide that they cannot be solved by one organisation (Bammer, 2008 & Gray 1985).

Whilst the context of the industry requires collaboration, and it is generally considered a worthwhile endeavour, there are specific benefits that have been identified in the research, as well as limitations, which a strategic manager of projects should consider when developing a collaborative approach (Katz and Martin, 1997).

Research indicates that to increase competitive advantage, an organisation must develop networks (Cox, 1999, & Dyer and Singh, 1998). Whilst organisations still compete against other organisations, this is becoming less common, and to gain competitive advantage organisations must compete in networks vs networks (Cox, 1999). Therefore, a strategic manager of projects should consider focusing on developing networks of organisation and these relationships, as this can result in long-term competitive advantage for their organisation (Dyer and Singh, 1998).

As a part of improving competitive advantage, interorganisational collaboration benefits include access to and sharing of knowledge, expertise, skills, equipment and other resources, which can result in cost savings, learning, enhanced reputation and influence, as well as improved access to research and innovation grant funding (Bammer, 2008 & Hardy et al. 2003).

Inter-organisation collaboration has clear advantages, particularly with regard to interdisciplinary knowledge sharing (Bammer, 2008 & Hardy et al. 2003). However, the limitations must also be taken into account (Bammer, 2008 & Hardy et al. 2003). When sharing knowledge and expertise within a network where the strategic benefits of the new knowledge is often readily transmitted to other members of the network, the network as a whole can enhance its competitive innovation, but this could be at the risk of reducing the competiveness of the organisation within the network (Hardy et al. 2003).

Bammer’s (2008) research, which builds upon Katz and Martin (1997), is specific to research collaboration, and also indicates that collaboration is linked to knowledge

sharing and creation, through bringing together a diverse set of knowledge, skills or attributes which will improve the understanding and proposed solution to the challenge (Bammer, 2008). Bringing together a variety of organisations, individuals, industries and ideas, interests and ideals has clear advantages, as described above; however, it has limitations as it can lead to futile conflict within the network (Bammer, 2008). The importance of the strategic project manager in understanding and managing these conflicts and differences, and building a network of the strongest organisations and individuals, therefore becomes important in effective collaboration and projects (Bammer, 2008).

Differences in views, motivations and processes will also provide potential sources of unproductive conict (Bammer, 2008). These challenges lead to the importance of understanding the component of interdisciplinary collaboration.

INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION Building upon Gray (1985), Katz and Martin (1997) and Bammer (2008), in order for research and innovation to effectively address a significant societal challenge, such as issues surrounding healthcare with an aging demographic, and environmental issues such as climate change, inter-organisational and interdisciplinary approaches are essential. These issues are too wide and too significant to be solved by one organisation and cannot be solved by one discipline or industry (Gray, 1985, Katz and Martin, 1997, & Bammer, 2008).

However, as described above, these interdisciplinary collaborations can lead to unproductive conflict as these organisations and individuals may hold varying views, motivations and processes (Bammer, 2008).

Building upon the ideas of Konstantinou (2014), who reconsidered and analysed the relationship between the project professional and the work, based on Maurice Blanchot’s (1985) ideas of work, the author considers the interdisciplinary challenges in connection with this idea of work (Konstantinou, 2014). Blanchot (1985) separated the concept of work from tasks, with the fundamental difference being that work is directly linked with an ideal, with the ideal being the focus and drive of work (Konstantinou, 2014).

When considering the interdisciplinary nature of projects within European research and innovation grant funding, there is a challenge for a strategic manager of projects to manage the collaboration of organisations and individuals (Bammer, 2008). This is because of the motivations of the various disciplines involved in projects (Bammer, 2008), and the author proposes that this may be linked to ideals, building upon the ideas

of Konstantinou (2016). Many disciplines involved in European research and innovation projects require certification from professional bodies before practice, such as healthcare (Konstantinou, 2014). Therefore, the author has considered that organisations and the individual practitioner’s work may be derived from a higher ideal linked to their discipline. The ideals which drive the project work may not be in line with each other (Bammer, 2008), therefore, the author proposes that when taking a collaborative approach to strategically managing projects in this industry, the potential ideals within each project are explored, as they may drive and affect the collaboration and project work (Konstantinou, 2014).

Aside from the disciplines within research and innovation projects, such as healthcare and engineering, the strategic project manager’s discipline of project management could be considered (Konstantinou, 2014). It is a relatively new discipline and whilst it has professional bodies which provide certification, practice is not dependent on certification (Konstantinou, 2014).

This leads to consideration of project work, and the ideal of project work. The author therefore proposes that when taking an inter-organisational and interdisciplinary collaborative approach to strategically managing research and innovation projects, the strategic manager of projects considers the ideals of the organisations and individuals involved, as well as his or her own ideals.

CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS This paper addressed the challenges that the Higher Education and Research Organisation sector is facing in terms of obtaining, and increasing, European research and innovation grant funding to tackle significant societal challenges. It was established that within this sector, inter-organisational and interdisciplinary collaborative approaches are essential, as these significant societal issues cannot be solved by one organisation nor one discipline (Bammer, 2008 & Gray, 1985).

Considering the industry, and considering project success is strongly correlated to the interactions of the various individuals and organisations, and managing their expectations (Müller and Jugdev, 2005 & 2012), this paper proposes that a strategic manager of projects in this industry focuses on a collaborative approach, specifically inter-organisational as well as interdisciplinary. Developing strong inter-organisational and interdisciplinary collaborations and relationships can increase an organisation’s competitive advantage and increase its chance of success in obtaining European research and innovation grant funding (Dyer and Singh, 1998). Additionally, these types

of collaborations facilitate knowledge and resource sharing, which can also directly result in cost savings (Bammer, 2008 & Hardy et al. 2003). However, there are limitations with knowledge sharing, as this can affect an individual organisation’s competiveness (Hardy et al.

2003). Additionally, given the interdisciplinary context, the collaboration can involve diverse views and motivations which can result in unproductive conflict (Bammer, 2008), therefore a collaborative approach is proposed, with emphasis on understanding the interdisciplinary ideals that may influence the project work and collaboration.

Further research into the concept of interdisciplinary collaborations and a connection to the ideal of project work, which was built upon the ideas of Konstantinou (2014) discussed in this paper, is recommended.

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO THE STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF EUROPEAN RESEARCH AND INNOVATION PROJECTS

REFERENCES

APPENDIX I – EUROPEAN RESEARCH AND INNOVATION PROJECT GRANT FUNDING

Bammer, G. (2008). Enhancing research collaborations: Three key management challenges, Research Policy, 37(5), pp. 875-887.

The industry analysed in this paper is the Higher Education and Research Organisation sector, and specifically this industry in the context of European research and innovation grant funding.

Blanchot, M. (1989). The Space of Literature. University of Nebraska Press: USA. Cooke-Davies, T. (2004). “Project Success”. In: Morris, P.W.G, and Pinto, J.K, eds. The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects. John Wiley and Sons Inc., pp.

99 – 122.

Cox, A. (1999). Power, Value and supply chain management, Supply Chain Management, 4(4), pp. 167-175.

Dvir, D., Raz, T., and Schenhar, A. (2003). An empirical analysis of the relationship between project planning and project success, International Journal of Project Management, 21(2), pp. 89-95.

Dyer, J.H., and Singh, H. (1998). The relational view: Cooperative strategy and sources of interorganizational competitive advantage, 23(4), pp. 660 -679.

Engwall, M. (2003). No project is an island: linking projects to history and context, Research Policy, 32(5), pp. 789-808.

Flyvbjerg, B., Bruzelius, N, and Rothengatter, W. (2003). Megaprojects and Risk, an Anatomy of Ambition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Frenken K., Hölzl, W., de Vor, F. (2005). The citation impact of research collaborations: the case of European biotechnology and applied microbiology (1988–2002), Journal of Engineering and Technologu Management, 22(1-2), pp.

9 -30 Gray, B. (1985). Conditions facilitating interorganisational collaboration, Human Relations, 38(10), pp. 911-936.

Hardy, C., Phillips, N., Lawrence, T.B. (2003). Resources, Knowledge and Influence: The Organisational Effects of Interorganisational Collaboration, Journal of Management Studies, 40(2), pp. 321-347.

Jugdev, K., and Müller, R. (2005). A retrospective look at our evolving understanding of project success, Project Management Journal, 36(4), pp.

19-31.

Katz, S.J., Martin, B.R. (1997), What is research collaboration?, Research Policy, 26 (1), pp. 1-18.

Konstantinou, E. (2014). “Blanchot – the new black: an essay on the nature of project work and the relationship between the project professional and the work”. Unpublished Essay.

Morris, P.W.G. (2013). Reconstructing Project Management. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Müller, R., and Jugdev, K. (2012). Critical success factors in projects, Plinto, Slevin, and Prescott – the elucidation of project success, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 5(4), pp. 757-775.

In Europe, there is a seven-year multi-billion euro funding programme (Horizon 2020) specifically dedicated to research and innovation that was launched by the European Commission in 2014. It is the eighth successive programme and largest of its kind, as it has had circa €79 billion earmarked for research and innovation funding, circa €30 billion more than the preceding programme. This programme focuses significantly on the impact of the research and innovation on European society, socially, economically and technologically. This increased focus on innovation and impact has required Higher Education and Research Organisations to work more closely with business and industry to ensure the research leads to innovation, which will be taken forward after the end of the projects (Horizon 2020, 2016).

Two main challenges facing the Higher Education and Research Organisation in this context: Changing requirements of European research projects, in particular an increased focus on innovation and post project impact; Required increase and improved inter-organisational and interdisciplinary collaboration with businesses and other sectors, in order to enhance innovation.

Higher Education and Research Organisations need to address these challenges in European research and innovation grant funding in order to successfully: Obtain and increase European research and innovation funding; Implement these projects, on time, to budget to the agreed quality; Achieve post project impact within Europe.

4

CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF RUNNING PROJECTS IN THE LONG TERM

Wayne Dalton wayne.dalton.15@ucl.ac.uk

INTRODUCTION

PART I

Long-term project considerations are a growing requirement by the client, but are often a neglected area in both practice and theory. Integrated solutions (IS) are systems employed to link products and services “that address a customer’s unique requirements throughout the life cycle [of a project], from development and design to systems integration, operations and decommissioning” (Brady, Davies & Gann, 2005a, p.571). They are quickly becoming an increasingly common practice across many industries, changing the nature of competitiveness (Hobday, Davies & Prencipe, 2005; Meyer, Chase, Roth, et al., 1999).

STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITIES

Part I of this essay will critically evaluate the risks and opportunities of adopting a long-term orientated project, introducing the concept of ‘Project Legacy’, and emphasising the importance of IS to strategically managing competitive projects in the long term.

In Part II, this essay will identify a long-term project from the construction industry and illustrate how it may be strategically managed in the long term, with reference to relevant theory, analysing what factors should be prioritised and why. The author is essentially asking the question ‘what happens after the delivery of the project?’ and how that can become a new foundation for competitiveness and further value.

The long-term management of projects, exerted through utilising integrated solutions, allows the provision of additional value, leveraging specialist knowledge, defining competitiveness, position and improving relationships between the project organisation and its sponsors.

“Delivering IS to meet user needs means combining products and systems with services in order to specify, design, deliver, finance, maintain, support and operate a system throughout its life cycle” (Brady, Davies & Gann, 2005a, p. 360). This approach delivers a unique and distinctive contribution to the client, with a unique set of capabilities; a dynamic and comprehensive offering where the value of the project is enhanced and extends beyond a traditional scope, where a number of determinations are fulfilled.

Research shows that there are ‘two faces’ of systems integration. The first face concerns the internal activities of the project-based organisation as it develops, innovates and integrates; for example topdown direction and support, bottom-up learning and optimisation of middle management. The ‘second face’ is one that is becoming ever more important, with regards to the external activities of projectbased organisations as they assimilate knowledge, mechanisms and skills from other organisations (Hobday, Davies & Prencipe, 2005). Best (2003) systems integration has become a key factor in the operations, strategy and competitive advantage of major corporations in a wide variety of sectors (e.g. computing, automotive, telecommunications, military systems and aerospace argues that a “key role” of the integrated solution firm is to “exploit the technological capabilities which reside in other firms”. An example of

this opportunism may be seen in Part II of this essay.

Strategically, systems integration as a capability offers competitive advantage for two reasons. Firstly, systems integration underpins product development and introduction. Secondly, when addressing the value stream at the level of industry, systems integration is the technological capability by which the project organisation chooses how and where to locate itself. This is an influencing factor in how a project organisation defines its competitiveness, and selecting who it collaborates and competes with (Hobday, Davies & Prencipe, 2005).

IS offer an opportunity to leverage knowledge, as “strategically [the] most important resource of the firm is knowledge, and if knowledge resides in specialized form among individual organizational members, then the essence of organizational capability is the integration of individuals’ specialized knowledge” (Grant, 1996, p. 375). IS project transactions are less focused on technologies and resources of a physical nature, but are now concentrating on the “acquisition of knowledge as a mechanism for learning” (Alderman & Ivory, 2010, p. 1132). To exploit this the project-based organisation is key and central to the product service integration paradigm (Antonacopoulou & Konstantinou, 2008; Hobday, 2000), as it is a flexible structure.

The traditional concept of project management is controlling; planning, organising and directing project resources to achieve a specific objective or short-term goal. However, by linking services to products through integrated solution delivery projects, they have the means to transform customer relationships (Brady, Davies & Gann, 2005b). Profoundly altering the way in which the project organisation orientates, emphasis is placed on a long-term relationship with the customer, with the two parties involved.

ASSOCIATED RISKS Within projects that are considered long-term orientated there are intrinsic risks. The nature of integrated solution is long term, and therefore projects will operate within an “inherently volatile environment … [that] may change substantially during their lifetime” (Alderman & Ivory, 2010, p. 1140). Firstly, this has an impact on knowledge transfer; secondly, raises problems with monitoring successful outcomes; and thirdly, has potential to lead to loss of corporate identity. It must also be noted that potential risks are not only limited to these elements.

A risk that is at the fore of adopting a long-term orientation in projects is the dynamics of change, learning, and “tacit or informal procedural knowledge” (Bresnen & Haslam, 1991, p. 165). As knowledge is

“localized, embedded, and invested within a function” (Carlile, 2002, p. 443), it raises inherent concerns with the transfer of information and knowledge across boundaries when working across functions (Kellogg, Orlikowski & Yates, 2006) and knowledge may therefore be lost.

On a corporate level there needs to be a high degree of engagement, and an objective definition of project success needs to be set. Project success in its own right is wide-ranging, ambiguous, and multi-faceted, defying consensus on its definition and measurement (Ika, 2009, p. 13). Thus, there is the need for understanding the multiple perspectives within the organisation (Davis, 2014).

Corporate identity is at risk, as it is refers to the core “of what an organisation is, what it represents”.

Transcending disciplinary boundaries within an organisation, corporate identity can be affected through ‘short-termism’ in mergers and acquisitions (for example, the transition to an IS-based project model) to the detriment of long-term identity, and therefore add communication difficulties (Balmer & Dinnie, 1999).

Changing from a product-orientated company to a service-orientated organisation has much risk involved. In this situation there may be a risk of a loss of corporate identity – the attributes that distinguish the project organisation from competitors (Balmer & Dinnie, 1999; Antonacopoulou & Konstantinou, 2008) – and concerns whether the workforce within the project organisation adapts to the new orientation and values.

If strategic organisational change is not correctly and carefully balanced it may undercut the strategic initiative of the product-service orientation. There are also sociopolitical risks associated within the project seeking to “negotiate multiple and competing priorities”, what Antonacopoulou & Konstantinou called the “corporatist perspective”, where top management are blind to the the workforce’s viewpoint, where their perspective is not taken into account (2008, p. 858). New capabilities are therefore inherently difficult, for the knowledge that is embedded in new principles and relationships and the social fabric required to support new learning are unknown (Kogut & Zander, 1992).

ADDRESSING ‘PROJECT LEGACY’ In the traditional project management point of view the end of the project coincides with the delivery of said project and thus the legacy of the project becomes “superfluous to consideration” (Ika, 2009).

In contradiction to this, IS challenge the notion of the project as finite, and therefore the measurement of success becomes increasingly difficult.

CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF RUNNING PROJECTS IN THE LONG TERM

‘Project Legacy’ is set apart, and is seldom addressed in the strategic management of projects. It can be viewed as both opportunity and risk, as it can be hard to express in terms of a perceptible and/or weighted aspect. ‘Project Legacy’ is an output of strategy implementation, a subjective notion that can be both tangible and/or intangible, can take both positive and/or negative forms and its resilience can be time dependent. For these very reasons ‘Project Legacy’ is often not a consideration when strategically managing projects.

Paradoxical in nature, ‘Project Legacy’ can possibly be planned for, but cannot be controlled. Passing of time, shifting or nascent culture, values and ethics, environment and socio-political climates to name but a few transient elements, have an influence on the legacy of a project.

Therefore ‘Project Legacy’ as a concept must be a consideration in the strategic management of long-term orientated projects, weighing what will endure long after project delivery.

PART II THE SHANGHAI TOWER The focus of this essay will now move forward to addressing a long-term project from the construction industry and illustrate how it may be strategically managed in the long term - what happens after the delivery of the project that can become a new foundation of competitiveness and further value, not only for the project sponsor, but to further the competitiveness of the project organisation. A problem of addressing a case study of this kind is the “counterfactual difficulty” (Hobday, 2000, p. 872) which is the difficulty of making assessments based on assumptions and speculative outcomes under different circumstances, for example using another organisational approach. The essay will therefore proceed under these limitations.

The Shanghai Tower is the tallest building in China, and the second tallest building in the world. Gensler, a prestigious multi-national architectural practice, provided to the sponsor (Shanghai Tower Construction and Development) a service in the form of the architectural design (Gensler Publications, 2015). A contract was awarded to an outside consultant to develop property management and building operations strategies (or facilities management) for the Shanghai Tower “[as] a building’s operational stage represents 80% of a building’s life cycle cost” (European Commission, 2015) and “Facilities Management (FM) as the total management of all services supports the core businesses of an organisation in a building” (Arayici, Onyenobi & Egbu, 2012, p. 55).

To the sponsor, operation of the asset becomes integral to the Shanghai Tower project, and the relationship between strategy and operation become allied.

Gensler did not compete for the operations contract, a move from architectural design to Facilities Management, for Gensler perhaps considered it an entry into a foreign market. Arguably, Gensler had the possibility and organisational capability to create a competitive integrated solution for its client in parallel with its architectural design at the initial proposal.

Integrated solutions are not a move from product to service-centric project business models, but a move to a customer-centric focus (Brady, Davies & Gann, 2005b). Integrated solutions, can “profoundly alter[s] the way in which business handles its customer relationships and defines its value adding activities” (Brady, Davies & Gann, 2005a, p. 364), shifting Gensler’s consideration away from an outdated concentration on delivery and support within the boundaries of a warranty period, toward a long-term reflection of what may materialise in the future of the project: “the future

perfect state of the accomplished project” (Clegg, et al. in Hodgson & Cicmil, 2006; Alderman & Ivory, 2010, p.

1141).

To strategically manage the Shanghai Towers in the long run, the challenges faced by construction project organisations wanting to transition into integrated solutions are inherently associated with building the organisational capability and expertise needed to compete and operate (Brady, Davies & Gann, 2005a).

Indeed, it is evident that “systems integration is much more than an operational or technical task” (Hobday, Davies & Prencipe, 2005, p. 1127); it is a core “technical, strategic and organizational capability” (Ibid, p. 1138) transcending conventional forms of delivering projects, representing what Alderman and Ivory call a “meta-project“ or “meta narrative”, a holistic and complete viewing of the project (2010; Alderman, Ivory, McLoughlin, et al., 2005). Therefore, there needs to be a willingness to invest in knowledge and new skills within the organisation to achieve the leveraging and accumulating of specialist knowledge, providing additional value and cultivating exchanges throughout and amongst the project organisation and its sponsors (Brady, Davies & Gann, 2005a).

Gensler was strategically placed to leverage a parallel architectural design and facilities and operations management strategy. The firm’s inherent knowledge of the technical nature, complexity and scope may have given the organisation a competitive advantage, as “technological knowledge is also arguably more problematic since design decisions need to take account of through-life implications rather than being driven by the length of the warranty period” (Alderman & Ivory, 2010, p. 1133).

However, the move into the FM market for Gensler as a practice offers “greater similarities between existing and required capabilities [which may] increase the applicability of the firm’s existing expertise and the ability to relate its resources across two activities” (Madhok, 1997, p. 43).

Knowledge is of priority for Gensler’s “foreign market entry” into facilities management, and the costs, values, risks, opportunities, capabilities and resources required would need to be evaluated. If Gensler were to compete for an FM integrated solution, it may have been considered a transformation of existing knowledge and enhancement of capabilities to exploit the advantage the firm already possessed in securing the architectural contract, and develop a new base of competitiveness (Ibid, 1997). This gain is supported by Carlile (2004, p. 566) who states “effectively managing knowledge across the various types of boundaries in an organization is what drives competitive advantage” (Carlile, 2004, p. 566).

If the market requirements for activity were vastly differing from Gensler’s available knowledge, temporary collaborations and joint ventures become useful in bolstering knowledge where lacking, exploiting the capabilities which lie in other organisations (see ‘Strategic Opportunities’ above) (Madhok, 1997).

CONCLUSION Through the course of this essay the risks and opportunities of adopting a long-term orientation in projects have been considered and critically evaluated through the medium of ‘integrated solutions’. This allows us to appreciate that these issues raise the concept of ‘Project Legacy’ that challenges the notion of the project as finite, and therefore this intangible facet of long-term projects has also been addressed and felt to be an important consideration in the management of long-term projects.

When developing a core capability in IS, what is necessary is an in-depth knowledge of the sponsor’s needs. An integrated solution is a possible holistic change in organisational values, corporate identity, capabilities and predominantly knowledge based, to an alignment with a customer-centric focus, in which essentially, “learning mechanisms” (Brady, Davies & Gann, 2005a) are required for both the customer and the project organisation.

As depicted by evaluating the case of the Shanghai Tower, Gensler’s failure to monopolise the opportunity of securing both architectural design and operations contracts stemmed from lack of flexibility, entrepreneurial, experimental and progressive culture.

Therefore, although there is no business model to ensure success when transitioning to an advanced integrated solutions supplier, project organisations must be dynamic, have the ability to learn, when necessary readjust and tailor the project structure to customer demands.

If the main risks of knowledge forfeiture, lack of easy measurement of successful outcomes, and the loss of corporate identity and stability of relationships are effectively managed and mediated through leveraging and accruing specialist knowledge, the advantages of additional value and improving relationships throughout and between the project organisation and its sponsors may outweigh these. The potential benefits of foreign market entry, transforming corporate identity, and exploiting knowledge can provide the sponsor with greater return on investment and dynamic progressive relationships, and also the project organisation with access to new markets, enhanced capabilities and a new base of competitiveness.

REFERENCES

FURTHER READING

Alderman, N. & Ivory, C. (2010). Service‐led projects: understanding the meta‐ project context. Construction Management and Economics. [Online] 28 (11), pp.

1131-1143. Available from: doi:10.1080/01446193.2010.506644.

Carlile, P.R. & Rebentisch, E.S. (2003). Into the black box: The knowledge transformation cycle. Management Science. 49 (9), pp. 1180-1195.

Alderman, N., Ivory, C., McLoughlin, I. & Vaughan, R. (2005). Sense-making as a process within complex service-led projects. International Journal of Project Management. [Online] 23 (5), pp. 380-385. Available from: doi:10.1016/j. ijproman.2005.01.004.

Antonacopoulou, E.P. & Konstantinou, E. (2008). The New Service Model: a review, a critique and a way forward. The Service Industries Journal. [Online] 28 (6), pp. 845-860. Available from: doi:10.1080/02642060801990403.

Arayici, Y., Onyenobi, T. & Egbu, C. (2012). Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Facilities Management (FM): The Mediacity Case Study Approach.

International Journal of 3-D Information Modeling. [Online] 1 (1), pp. 55-73.

Available from: doi:10.4018/ij3dim.2012010104.

Balmer, J.M.T. & Dinnie, K. (1999). Corporate identity and corporate communications: the antidote to merger madness. Corporate Communications: An International Journal. [Online] 4 (4), pp. 182-192. Available from: doi:10.1108/13563289910299300.

Brady, T., Davies, A. & Gann, D. (2005a). Can integrated solutions business models work in construction? Building Research & Information. [Online] 33 (6), pp. 571-579. Available from: doi:10.1080/09613210500285064.

Brady, T., Davies, A. & Gann, D.M. (2005b). Creating value by delivering integrated solutions. International Journal of Project Management. [Online] 23 (5), pp. 360-365. Available from: doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2005.01.001.

Bresnen, M.J. & Haslam, C.O. (1991). Construction industry clients: A survey of their attributes and project management practices. Construction Management and Economics. [Online] 9 (4), pp. 327-342. Available from: doi:10.1080/01446199100000026.

Carlile, P.R. (2002). A Pragmatic View of Knowledge and Boundaries: Boundary Objects in New Product Development. Organization Science. [Online] 13 (4), pp.

442-455. Available from: doi:10.1287/orsc.13.4.442.2953.

Carlile, P.R. (2004). Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for Managing Knowledge Across Boundaries. Organization Science.

[Online] 15 (5), pp. 555-568. Available from: doi:10.1287/orsc.1040.0094.

Davis, K. (2014). Different stakeholder groups and their perceptions of project success. International Journal of Project Management. [Online] 32 (2), pp. 189201. Available from: doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2013.02.006.

European Commission (2015). Cordis Project.

Gensler Publications (2015). Gensler Design Update | Shanghai Tower. [Online].

2015. Gensler Design Update. Available from: http://du.gensler.com/vol6/ shanghai-tower/ [Accessed: 28 February 2016].

Grant, R.M. (1996). Prospering in dynamically-competitive environments: Organizational capability as knowledge integration. Organization science. 7 (4), pp. 375-387.

Hobday, M. (2000). The project-based organisation: an ideal form for managing complex products and systems? Research Policy. [Online] 29 (7–8), pp. 871893. Available from: doi:10.1016/S0048-7333(00)00110-4.

Hobday, M., Davies, A. & Prencipe, A. (2005). Systems integration: a core capability of the modern corporation. Industrial and Corporate Change. [Online] 14 (6), 1109–1143. Available from: doi:10.1093/icc/dth080.

Hodgson, D. & Cicmil, S. (2006). Making Projects Critical. Palgrave Macmillan.

Ika, L.A. (2009). Project success as a topic in project management journals.

Project Management Journal. [Online] 40 (4), pp. 6-19. Available from: doi:10.1002/pmj.20137.

Kellogg, K.C., Orlikowski, W.J. & Yates, J. (2006). Life in the trading zone: Structuring coordination across boundaries in postbureaucratic organizations.

Organization science. 17 (1), pp. 22-44.

Kogut, B. & Zander, U. (1992). Knowledge of the firm, combinative capabilities, and the replication of technology. Organization science. 3 (3), pp. 383-397.

Madhok, A. (1997). Cost, value and foreign market entry mode: The transaction and the firm. Strategic management journal. 18 (1), pp. 39-61.

Meyer, A., Chase, R., Roth, A., Voss, C., et al. (1999). Service competitiveness – An international benchmarking comparison of service practice and performance in Germany, UK and USA. International Journal of Service Industry Management. [Online] 10 (4), pp. 369-379. Available from: doi:10.1108/09564239910282334.

Prencipe, A., Davies, A. & Hobday, M. (2003). The Business of Systems Integration. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Davies, A. (2004). Moving base into high-value integrated solutions: a value stream approach. Industrial and Corporate Change. [Online] 13 (5), pp. 727-756.

Available from: doi:10.1093/icc/dth029.

Davies, A. & Brady, T. (2000). Organisational capabilities and learning in complex product systems: towards repeatable solutions. Research Policy. 29 (7), pp. 931-953.

Grimsey, D. & Lewis, M.K. (2002). Evaluating the risks of public private partnerships for infrastructure projects. International Journal of Project Management. 20 (2), pp. 107-118.

Johnstone, S., Dainty, A. & Wilkinson, A. (2008). In search of ‘productservice’: evidence from aerospace, construction, and engineering. The Service Industries Journal. [Online] 28 (6), pp. 861-875. Available from: doi:10.1080/02642060801990429.

Lam, P. (1999). A sectoral review of risks associated with major infrastructure projects. International Journal of Project Management. [Online] 17 (2), pp. 7787. Available from: doi:10.1016/S0263-7863(98)00017-9.

Soeters, J.L. (1999). Enhancing Organizational Performance. Organization Studies (Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG.). 20 (2), pp. 351-354.

Voss, C. (1992). Applying Service Concepts in Manufacturing. International Journal of Operations & Production Management. [Online] 12 (4), pp. 93-99.

Available from: doi:10.1108/01443579210011633.

5

CRITICALLY EVALUATE HOW THEORY CAN IMPROVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

“Project management is not only a scientific discipline; it is also a professional discipline – that is, a practice” (Bourgault, Lalonde and Findeli, 2010, pp. 21)

In this essay I will examine what is meant by the discipline of project management and what constitutes a theoretical contribution. Looking at these two concepts, I argue that although project management practice has its foundations in empirically-based theories, it should no longer continue to view itself as such because it will impede the improvement and progression of the practice. By only defining improvement/success through time, cost and quality criteria, projects will struggle to meet the client objectives. Project management is also constricted in striving towards a traditional model of the professional.

The fundamental issue with this path is that social sciences cannot meet the rigid, inflexible nature of scientific, theoretical contribution. The implication is that project management needs to be more progressive in its outlook of practising and the practitioner.

Matthew Harrison matthew.harrison.10@ucl.ac.uk

PROJECT MANAGEMENT Project management as a term did not appear until the 1950s in the US Defence Aerospace Sector, but as a concept it has been around for thousands of years.

The common thread that defines all projects is the similar sequence of “idea, outline concept and strategy, detailed planning, execution and completion” [project life cycle] (Morris, 2013, pp. 12-13). The discipline of project management can be defined “as a specific objective to be completed within certain specifications, with defined start and end dates, funding limits (if applicable), and which consume resources (i.e. money, people, and equipment)” (Kerzner, 1997 cited in Morris, 2002, pp. 83).

There are numerous examples of differing definitions of project management, but the one distinguishing feature is the project life cycle. The various schools of thought, people and projects that have shaped project management today illustrate how it is not just one theory that underpins the discipline. Rather, it is a broad discourse of information from various sources, making it a nebulous concept with which to contend.

THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION To discuss the importance of theory for project management practice, firstly I will establish what theory is and how theory has been seen to contribute. Theory is: “a statement of concepts and their interrelationship that shows how and/or why a phenomenon occurs” (Corley and Gioia, pp. 12); “A statement of relations among concepts within a set of boundary assumptions and constraints. It is no more than a linguistic device used to organise a complex empirical world” (Bacharach, 1989, pp. 496).

Although the world of academia and theory are often seen negatively as theorising for the sake of theory,

academics have attempted to qualify the contribution theory has. Theory has been understood to be a contribution if it is original and useful, however, these two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Expanding on originality, a theory can either advance knowledge incrementally or it can be revelatory where theory “reveals what we had not seen, known, or conceived” (Corley and Gioia, pp. 17). For example, Morris and his Management of Projects approach was revelatory for project management. It was a paradigm shift in thought, revealing something people had not seen, namely the need to focus on the front-end (Morris, 1994).

The second contribution criterion, utility or usefulness, can be sub-divided into scientifically useful, “an advance that improves conceptual rigour or the specificity of an idea and/or enhances its potential to be operationalised and tested” and practically useful, in the sense that it is “directly applicable to a problem that practitioners face” (Corley and Gioia, pp. 18). A good example of scientific utility would be the Monte Carlo simulations used for risk and schedule management as it can be directly applied to project management practice modelling scenarios (Morris and Pinto, 2007).

Adding to these criteria, Corley and Gioia argue that the dialogue between theory and practice should be more intertwined and academics should focus on what they term “theoretical prescience”. This is defined as “the process of discerning what we know and influencing the intellectual framing of what we need to know to enlighten both academic and reflective practitioner domains” (Corley and Gioia, pp. 23). This is more than just originality and utility, rather it is the vanguard of knowledge. The focus should be on future problem domains and sense giving: “the way the sense affects the character of both academic and reflective practitioner discussions” (Corley and Gioia, pp. 24).

This new dimension would support the improvement of project management practice through theory, helping to identify future trends and problems.

This being said, it is important to note that all theories “are bounded by the theorist’s assumption” (Bacharach, 1989: pp. 498). Theory is designed to make complex problems understandable and predictable. However, it cannot account for all situations.

IMPROVING PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE A way in which we can measure the improvement of practice is through successful delivery of projects.

Project management is the life cycle and success is measured by the ability to go through this life cycle successfully (Morris, 2002, pp. 83). Morris contends that “most definitions of a project management would agree that, at a minimum, there is: integration of the work of others needed to assure project success [and the] application of certain project management practices” (Morris, 2002, pp. 84). From the most simplistic level, there is project control, and managing people. The nearer the project manager gets to the “front-end”, the more complex the project will become (Morris, 2002, pp. 84). Therefore, success is threefold: (1) ‘project management success: was the project done right?’ This is the traditional view, which uses the three cornerstones of time, cost, and quality to define success. More often than not, this is also just focused on the execution phase of the life cycle. However, for a project to be truly successful requires (2) ‘project success itself: was the right project done?’ This is a wider outlook, focusing on the project objectives and link to business strategy. Lastly (3) consistent project success: ‘were the right projects done right, time after time?’ (Terry Cooke Davies, 2004, pp. 110).

Therefore, to complete a project successfully we require more skills than currently codified by the project management associations. The main problem for the discipline of project management is that there is no wholly true truth that will make a project successful.

The reason being that the numbers of variables during a project make empirical, evidence-based observations almost impossible; it is almost impossible to repeat projects (Morris, 2002, pp. 87). This being said, there are areas of project management that can be measured and reduced to a refutable form, such as critical path scheduling and risk management. These concepts have demonstrated their scientific and practical utility. As a result, the ‘systems approach’ to project management has greatly influenced how project management has been seen by the associations and their Bodies of Knowledge (BOKs), focusing on the execution phase of the project.

The ‘systems’ school has broadened this approach with the ‘soft’ systems such as organisational development and organisational learning (Morris, 2002, pp. 88). The five ‘disciplines’ put forward by Senge for effective change use the traditional ‘hard’ systems as the integrator and the ‘soft’ systems as the people aspect, where the front-end can be shaped (Senge, 1990 cited in Morris, 2002, pp. 88).

CRITICALLY EVALUATE HOW THEORY CAN IMPROVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE.

This systems approach demonstrates that theory can positively influence practice, providing a framework to structure the project around. This could be taken further in that the more theories you know the more opportunity there is to find the most applicable one. However, this does not adequately explain all the facets of knowledge for project management practice. There may be a set of frameworks based on theory, which are empirically tested, but not all of the practice is as explicit as this.

PROFESSIONALISM AND PRACTICE To adequately discuss the merits of theory and its applicability in improving practice, we need to define knowledge and professionalism (practice).

All knowledge does not need to be scientifically refutable – it is both tacit and explicit. Tacit knowledge is born out of experience and is by definition intangible.

Conversely, explicit knowledge is tangible and structured. The discipline of project management has met the crossroads of these differing concepts.

The firm definition of a profession is “characterized by systematic, scientifically based theory, long formal education, autonomy, ethical rules, a distinct occupational culture, client orientation, socially sanctioned and authorized” (Alvesson, 1993, pp.

998). Project management, however, would not meet all of these criteria. Although project management is partially based on scientific theory (critical path, risk management etc.), project management professionals do not have a long formal education, as perhaps a medical practitioner would. This traditional view has been elaborated upon by Reed, differentiating three different kinds of knowledge-based occupations as (1) liberal or collegiate professions – established and defined by their ability to hoard knowledge and restrict membership; (2) organisational professions – supported by strong professional bodies, but are subject to the structures of the professional bodies, to which they belong as a requirement for employment and in many cases [also] as a measure for reward and promotion; (3) finally, the entrepreneurial professions – employed by large organisations [as] part of weak professional associations and define themselves through specialised skills and themselves are bound to client demands and their employers (Reed, 1996 cited in Hodgson and Muzio, 2011, pp. 3-4). With this approach, project management professionals would sit in the entrepreneurial professions with the professional association not being a requirement of employment.

Despite this, the associations are striving to become an organisational profession and using these traditional definitions to define themselves.

As such, the project management associations and their BOKs have been seen as key for their professionalism.

They seek to codify knowledge, which can then be held as the defining feature for a profession. In order to legitimise themselves, they need to base their practice on explicit knowledge, but the project management associations have little reliance upon “academic research for legitimacy” (Hodgson and Muzio: p. 10).

There is a juxtaposition created by the associations as they seek to define themselves as professionals through this historic channel. Both the Project Management Institute and Association for Project Management launched their accreditation schemes in the early 1990s, primarily testing explicit knowledge (Hodgson and Muzio, p. 7), but failed to understand that explicit knowledge doesn’t adequately test project management capability as there are so many variables during a project life cycle. More recently, to some degree, the associations have recognised this limitation and in their knowledge specialisms, such as risk management, they demand a certain level of experience or tacit knowledge from the practitioner. This test to demonstrate the higher level of competency, including situated knowledge, highlights the Associations’ recognition of the broad ranging scope of project management and theoretical thought.

More contemporary views of newer professions view professionalism as “more the joint production of human interaction” (Scarbrough, 1999 cited in Konstantinou, 2015). They are recognising that there are other sources of knowledge, such as situated knowledge, client demands and priorities which define what is “professional practice” (Konstantinou, 2015, p. 23). Therefore, the academic and the practitioner can define and legitimise the knowledge (theoretical/ subjective) that is important for practice and therefore professionalism in project management (Konstantinou, 2015, pp. 23).

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For practitioners, their role “is to assist their clients in both diminishing the complexity of their empirical world and explaining and predicting events. The goal of theory is to diminish the complexity of the empirical world on the basis of explanations and predictions” (Bacharach, 1989, pp. 512-513). There is a commonality, as theory leads to practice and practice generates theory.

Therefore, the practitioner/ professional, in order to improve, should legitimise their sources of knowledge and start considering the wider perspectives of project management. If project management moves away from its position, rooted in time, cost and quality with ambitions to become a traditional professional, it could be a more effective profession for the client. This can be driven by the academics, as has been done already, but focusing on and embracing “theoretical prescience” and legitimatising the knowledge base.

Lalonde, P., Bourgault, M. and Findeli, A. (2010). Building pragmatist theories of PM practice: Theorizing the act of project management. Project Management Journal, 41(5), pp. 21-36.

Alvesson, M. (1993). Organizations As Rhetoric: Knowledge‐Intensive Firms And The Struggle With Ambiguity. Journal of Management Studies [online] Vol. 30(6), pp. 997-1015 Available from: www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com. [Accessed: 23rd October 2015].

Bacharach, S. (1989). Organizational Theories: Some Criteria for Evaluation.

The Academy of Management Review, 14(4), p. 496.

Corley, K., Dennis, A. Gioia. (2011). Building Theory About Theory Building: What Constitutes A Theoretical Contribution? Academy of Management Review, 36(1), pp. 12-32.

Cooke-Davies, Terry (2004). Project Success. In Morris, Peter W. G., Pinto, Jeffrey K. The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.

Hodgson, P. and Muzio, D.(2011). Prospects of professionalism in project management. In Morris, P., Pinto, J. and Söderlund, J. The Oxford Handbook of Project Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ch.4.

Morris, Peter W. G. (2002). Science, objective knowledge and the theory of project management. Proceedings of the ICE Civil Engineering – [online], Vol. 150(2), pp. 82-90 Available from: www.icevirtuallibrary.com. [Accessed: 17th October 2015].

Morris, Peter W. G. (2013). Reconstructing Project Management. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Morris, P. (1994). Management of Projects. London: T. Telford.

Morris, P. and Pinto, J. (2007). The WileyGuide to Project Control. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.

Konstantinou, E. (2015). Professionalism in Project Management: Redefining the Role of the Project Practitioner. Project Management Journal, 46(2), pp.

21-35.

6

CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE ROLE OF SUPPLY CHAINS AND/OR NETWORKS IN STRATEGICALLY MANAGING PROJECTS

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates the role of the supply chain in projects from a critical perspective. It indicates the characteristics of the supply chain and outlines the key factors of the operation of management. The paper also introduces a supply chain project in the tourism industry to showcase how value is defined and discusses the implications of the supply chain as well as its benefits and considerations. In conclusion, the role of the supply chain in projects is to create value and meet customers’ expectations by defining the relationships, developing the partnering and integrating the knowledge of suppliers.

INTRODUCTION Nowadays, projects play a crucial role in dealing with the complex and fast-changing business environment.

According to Shenhar and Dvir (2007), project execution is stated as the only method for organisations to upgrade and develop a strategic endeavour and competitive advantage. In addition, project organisation has been suggested as the means for organising the complex process in the industry (Drucker p. 1993).

However, the high failure rate of projects is notorious although the applications of projects are increasing.

The task of improving project performance has drawn the attention of many academic researchers and practitioners to generate theories and examinations by observing different sectors in different industries.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in inter-organisational collaboration within both supply chains and project-based settings (Bresnen, 2007).

The potential of an integrated supply chain in project management has been realised by more and more project organisations and managers in terms of reducing the length of the project, cost overrun and

Chi-Dien Lee chi-dien.lee.15@ucl.ac.uk

rate of failure. On the other hand, in order to optimise the values for projects, the goal has to be focused on the entirety of the supply chain instead of individual companies or departments (Venkataraman, 2004).

Moreover, business success has also been defined by the performance of supply chain management (SCM) (Cox, 1999) and business competition will no longer be between companies but rather supply chain against supply chain (Cox, 1999; Christopher, Mouritsen el al., 2003; 2005; Venkataraman, 2004).

For an extended scope, a supply network should be developed for more effective business performance by coordinating or supporting different supply chains.

Mitchell (1969) pointed out that a network is a particular kind of relation associated with a certain set of individuals, matters or occasions, and companies in the supply chain have to establish networks to generate complementary relations between internal and external capabilities (New and Westbrook, 2004). Furthermore, Rice and Hoppe (2001) stated that competition in the future business environment will compete with supply network capabilities. In other words, in enhancing business success, the supply network carries the responsibility of linking different supply chains comprising different suppliers and sectors. Therefore, the supply chain is the fundamental of supply network development. Customer expectation is another key influence on the supply chain. Leading-edge companies need to realise that customer experience now is based on cross-sectoral factors and expectations are increased by globalisation (Meyer et.al., 1999). Thus, the development of the supply network is complex and it is challenging to incorporate the project supply chain.

It is necessary to understand the characteristics of the supply chain, SCM and its influence before evaluating the role of the supply chain in projects. This paper starts with the characteristics of the supply chain, SCM and the effectiveness in the project-based world.

Next it addresses the key factors of the operation of SCM. Then a supply chain project of the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) is introduced to define value for stakeholders and demonstrate the operation of SCM. Finally, a summary of critical evaluation is conducted through these findings to outline the role of the supply chain in projects.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SUPPLY CHAIN The supply chain involves all events connected with the flow, manufacturing and transformation of goods, information and related service (Nichols, 1999; Ayers, 2004). In addition, the fundamental mission of the supply chain is to meet the satisfaction and requirements of customers (Ayers, 2004) by linking the network of organisations upstream and downstream (Christopher, 1992). Moreover, Pryke (2009) described the focal point of the supply chain as creating value for customers and even improving profitability levels industry-wide. One example that demonstrates the positive outcome of supply chain approach is that of Procter & Gamble which saved $65 million for its retail customers by working more closely with manufacturers and suppliers to create a joint business plan (Venkataraman, 2004). Furthermore, Cox (1999) stated that the supply chain is not only the concept of operational perspective but also a strategic importance. The operational supply chain idea is grounded in replicating or executing the basic understandings of lean production which Toyota has effectively demonstrated. However, the idea of firms identifying themselves in a strategic supply chain is still immature in business strategy and it is increasingly important in the dynamic business environment.

Although the approach of the supply chain is fairly widespread in retail and manufacturing sectors, its use and acceptance have fallen behind in project-based organisations (Venkataraman, 2004). For instance, the poor performance of quality, low margin and overrun project cost and timetable still plague the engineering and construction industry worldwide (Yeo and Ning, 2002, cited in Venkataraman, 2004). However, it must be noted that the applications and functions of the supply chain vary considerably and it is imperative to manage it in different ways according to its nature.

The increasing use of the supply chain in business means SCM is gaining popularity globally. Oliver and Webber (1982) discussed the possibility to integrate the inner business tasks of purchase, manufacture, sales and distribution (Harland, 2005). According to Nichols (1999), SCM is considered as the integration of the business process via enhanced supply chain relationships to achieve the competitive advantage and

satisfy the needs of end-users (Cooper et al., 1997, cited in Mouritsen el al., 2003). Moreover, SCM also involves information systems and the integration of planning and controlling tasks (Pryke, 2009). So simply, SCM integrates the process, flow and activities of the supply chain to satisfy customer expectations and provide value. Several cases have shown the benefits to industries of managing the supply chain effectively.

Based on the study by Peter J. Metz of the MIT Center for eBusiness carried out by Venkataraman (2004), there are tremendous pay-offs from managing the entire supply chain from suppliers’ supplier to customers’ customer; for example, a 50% decrease in inventories and 40% increase in on-time deliveries (Betts, 2001).

The importance of the supply chain and SCM then leads to the questions of how to execute the management of the supply chain properly in order to create value.

KEY FACTORS IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN Many authors have indicated the trend of the importance of and attention to supply chain relationships being highlighted in both academic and practical fields (Harland, 2005). The purpose of developing relationships is for overall business outcome and growing profit (Smyth, 2015). Some industries even emphasise more long-term relationships, such as the craft-based Italian industries and the Japanese automobile industries reported by Harland’s (2005) summary of several authors’ findings. However, there is still concern that the benefits produced by relationships between organisations might hinder the autonomy of a company and inhibit its freedom to make decisions to develop advanced advantage. Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) stated that organisations will inevitably lose partial autonomy if adopting the relationship formation (Oliver, 1991). Nevertheless, based on the study of Oliver (1991), it is irrelevant for organisations to lose autonomy by entering into the relationship with one another and there are no methods to determine whether the loss of organisational autonomy is caused by the establishment of relationships.

According to Loraine (1994), the National Economic Development Office report in 1991 stated that partnering is recognised as a relationship that endures for a duration of time instead of a single contract.

It is also a lasting obligation between two or more organisations to maximise the effectiveness of utilising the resources for achieving the purpose of particular business goals of common good. The development of partnering with suppliers is to strengthen the efficiency of the supply chain to manufacture quality products or provide a service in order to meet the company’s expectation and customer satisfaction. Venkataraman

CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE ROLE OF SUPPLY CHAINS AND/OR NETWORKS IN STRATEGICALLY MANAGING PROJECTS

(2004) stated that applying partnering in supply chain management can not only reduce the impact of uncertainties but also improve future performance. On the other hand, during the process of partnering, price competition usually leads to confrontation and in most cases price can be the only factor that individuals or organisations with higher level skills consider. Therefore, price discipline is a must in terms of partnering (Loraine, 1994).

It requires a wide range of knowledge to coordinate supply chains, execute SCM and establish partnerships.

A project practitioner in a supply chain has to learn new knowledge and develop the ability to manage it.

The dissemination of know-how has been considered beneficial to the enhancement of working ability (Konstantinou and Fincham, 2010). In addition, the learning of information and experience from different sources can help to cultivate new knowledge for practice (Cabrera and Cabrera, 2002; Constant et al., 1994, cited in Konstantinou and Fincham, 2010).

However, knowledge sharing and management is a difficult task because of the tacit nature of knowledge and its stickiness (Carlile, 2002). According to Mauss’s framework, knowledge is not always seen as positive and practices of withholding and blocking knowledge appropriately are often deemed as obligations for conducting best performance (Konstantinou and Fincham, 2010).

The main purpose of managing the supply chain is to create value and to enable the project stakeholders to define the ecology of the supply chain during the process of production (Pryke, 2009). However, Davies (2013) reminded that many authors share the views that stakeholders in the 21st century are more focused on short-term goals rather than the benefits of the wider organisation. Contradiction would occur when industry pursues long-term relationships, partnering or the appropriate value. Cox (1999) indicated that business is about conducting appropriate value for oneself instead of passing it to customers, unless it is for maintaining the relationships. Moreover, academically the ideal scenario in business is to create the prospect of putting oneself in a position where stockholders cannot leverage value from you, while placing yourself in a certain position to leverage all of them. In other words, everyone is looking for the appropriate value in the chain for themselves and hoping to maximise the value from participation. In light of these circumstances, the recognition of power regime in the supply chain has been suggested as a solution for creating appropriate value. There is also plenty of attention paid to the influence and effects of power in inter-organisational relations (Marshall, 2006; cited in Bresnen, 2007). Cox (1999) stated that although types of supply chain can

vary, it is still a must to manage supply chains given corresponding power structures. Moreover, a hierarchy of the power regime in a supply chain shows who is the dominant player and who is able to own and control key resources that appropriate value. In order to create value in a supply chain project, it is crucial to define who are the stakeholders and then identify the power structure.

THE MISSION OF HONG KONG TOURISM BOARD According to the World Development Indicators of the World Bank (2014), Hong Kong was the world’s most popular city tourist destination for the sixth consecutive year. The number of arrivals in 2014 was more than 25.6 million, and that makes the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) a highly resourceful official tourism agency.

Besides attracting more visitors, HKTB’s most important annual project is to improve the quality of products and services of tourism industries in order to meet visitors’ expectations.

Airline companies, travel agencies, museums, hotels, restaurants, banks, media, shopping malls and theme parks all take part in HKTB’s supply chain as stakeholders.

According to the definition by Ayers (2004), the HKTB’s supply chain project belongs to the Scenario 3 – “Supply chain networks headed by a channel master” where HKTB is the dominator of the tourism supply chain that integrates services and products to create entertainment packages. Lower level suppliers such as travel agencies, and mid-level suppliers such as airlines and hotels, all need to cater to HKTB’s preference and priority in order to win HKTB’s procurement. This enables HKTB to be at the top of the power hierarchy and in a position to define the value in the supply chain.

As the supply chain manager, HKTB needs to select and develop partnerships with qualified suppliers of quality and price advantage. Knowledge sharing and management between suppliers of different sectors also need to be carried out by HKTB so that the suppliers know how to choose the right partners and produce quality tourism packages that can attract more visitors to Hong Kong. Therefore, HKTB’s management of the supply chain is crucial and directly influences the performance of the whole industry. HKTB also plays the role of information-sharing platform that gives visitors feedback and suggestions to suppliers, which greatly help the suppliers improve their performances. By doing so, HKTB encourages the suppliers to adapt to market changes and compete with quality or price advantages.

Correspondingly, visitors can enjoy improved products and services which helps HKTB to achieve its annual

goal of increasing tourist numbers by meeting customer expectations. On the other hand, HKTB needs to properly manage expenditure according to its annual budget and also meet its suppliers’ profit expectations.

How to establish the power structure and match complementary suppliers with appropriate knowledge sharing are also considerations for HKTB’s project managers.

REFERENCE Ayers, J.B. (2004). Supply Chain Project Management: a Structured Collaborative and Measurable Approach.

Bresnen, M. (2007). Deconstructing partnering in project-based organisation; seven pillars, seven paradoxes and seven deadly sins, International Journal of Project Management, 25(4), pp. 365-374 Bresnen, M., Edelman, L., Newell, S., Scarbrough, H., Swan, J. (2003).

Social practices and the management of knowledge in project environments.

International Journal of Project Management, 2003, Vol.21(3), pp. 157-166 Carlile, P. (2002). A pragmatic view of knowledge and boundaries: boundary objectives in new product development. Organization Science, 13, pp. 442-455.

CONCLUSION

Cox, A. (1999). Power, Value and supply chain management, Supply Chain Management, 4(4), pp. 167-175

This paper has indicated that the supply chain can serve as a strategic approach that helps industries create value and meet customer satisfaction. Moreover, good SCM helps the integration of suppliers and business process. For the SCM to be productive, relationships, partnering, knowledge sharing and management, and the recognition of the power regime are the key factors that need to be considered.

Davis, K. (2013). Different stakeholder groups and their perceptions of project success. International Journal of Project Management, 32(2), pp. 189-201.

HKTB’s supply chain project demonstrates the necessity and effectiveness of the power structure that enables it to define the values for stakeholders.

Additionally, HKTB’s case shows the importance of selecting partnerships and establishing long-term relationships with suppliers that offer quality services and products. Knowledge sharing and management also prove their importance in this case regarding the integration of resources.

In conclusion, the supply chain in projects greatly affects the chance of project success. The definition of value in the supply chain is greatly influenced by its power hierarchy and hence the management of the supply chain needs to establish a power structure and enable knowledge sharing which lead the development of the supply chain towards the direction that the stakeholders and customers expect.

Harland, C. M. (2005). Supply Chain Management: Relationships, chains and networks, British Journal of Management, 7(1), pp. 63-80.

Konstantinou, E., and Fincham, R. (2010). Not sharing but trading: applying a Maussian exchange framework to knowledge management, Human Relations, 64(6), pp. 832-842.

Loraine, R. K. (1994). Project specific partnering, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 1 Iss 1 pp. 5-16 Meyer, A., Chase, R., Roth, A., Voss, C., Sperl, K.U., Menor, L., and Blackmon, K. (1999). Service Competitiveness: an International Benchmarking Comparison of Service Practice and Performance in Germany, UK and USA, International Journal of Service Industry Management, 10(4), pp. 369-379.

Mouritsen, J., Skjott-Larsen, T., and Kotzab, H. (2003). Exploring the contours of supply chain management. Integrated Manufacturing Systems, 14(8), pp.

686-695 Oliver, C. (1991). Network relations and loss of organisational autonomy, Human Relations, 44(9), pp. 943-961.

Pryke, S.D.(ed.) (2009). Construction Supply Chain Management: Concepts and Case Studies, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford.

Shenhar, A. J., and Dvir, D. (2007). Reinventing Project Management: the Diamond Approach to successful growth and innovation, Harvard Business School Press Book Summary, Harvard Business School Publishing Smyth, H. J. (2015). Market Management and Project Business Development, Routledge, Abingdon.

Smyth, H. J., and Edkins, A. J. (2007). Relationship Management in the Management of PFI/PPP Projects in the UK, International Journal of Project Management, 25, 3, pp. 232-240.

The World Development indicators- The World Bank,” -2014 Venkataraman, R. (2004). Project supply chain management: optimizing value : The way we manage the total supply chain. The Wiley Guide to Project Technology, Wiley: UK.

7

CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE APPROACHES USED TO MANAGE INNOVATION IN PROJECT-BASED ORGANISATIONS

INTRODUCTION – PROJECT-BASED CONTEXT In the increasingly changing and competitive business environment, projects are becoming the vehicles for corporations to lead in their development, profitability and survival. Organisations are more willing to undertake greater risks to become more innovative in order to create value for their customers and partners; projects are the ideal tools to achieve innovation (Davies and Hobday, 2005). A project is the medium for organisations to realise market coordinating actions, involving buyers’ presence and corresponding resources.

Project-based organisations (PBO) are correlated mostly with manufacturing enterprises, however, the term is used within various environments, such as private and public organisations, consulting firms, and the advertising and marketing industry. The concept of PBO involves introducing innovation requirements where resources should be pooled and shared across other organisations. In routine tasks where functional job and engineering tasks prevail PBOs are weak (Davies and Hobday, 2005).

APPROACHES USED TO MANAGE INNOVATION IN PBOS Turner and Keegan (2004) consider two approaches to managing innovation in the project context: the linear-rational and the organic approach. The former focuses on solid processes which indicate a strict form of control and tight resource exploitation. This includes stage-gate models as a project planning technique whereby go or no-go decisions are appraised against rigid predetermined criteria before the project execution. The organic approach assists a more flexible management system which is characterised by loose resources and high levels of redundancy with the aim of

Maria-Eleni Papadaki maria.papadaki.15@ucl.ac.uk

giving space to the creativity needed for new products or services (Keegan and Rodney, 2002). Coming to an evaluation point, a linear approach may lead to efficiency as it facilitates risk management by trying and testing ideas before the project progresses, but it also involves controlling creativity. In some cases intentional redundancy can be seen as adverse but under the right circumstances much more effective.

Hence the use of the appropriate type of control relies on the nature of the project and the stage it is at; i.e for an innovation project at an initial research phase it may be more suitable to be organically approached and as it is reaching the final development stage it would be more suited to more rigid forms of control (Turner and Keegan, 2004).

Open innovation, introduced by Chesbrough (2003), is a popular approach to innovation management. In a world characterised by networks, well-educated and specialised people and knowledge-workers, organisations cannot depend just on their own innovation capabilities but must take advantage of others’ thinking (Heap, 2010). Such knowledge acquirement can be applied by several open innovation activities, such as integrating external intellectual property, capital venture, external networking and customer participation (Vrande et al. 2009). However, Vrande et al (2009), through their research by interviewing a sample of small-medium enterprises, addressed some considerations towards the open innovation model. As open innovation demands co-operation between different firms, in the case of venturing activities or involvement of external parties the inter-organisational relationships may lead to organisational and cultural issues concerning: communication difficulties between organisations; task division and responsibility assignment; as well as problems in keeping the balance between daily management tasks and innovation management.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES OF USED INNOVATION MANAGEMENT APPROACHES Formulation and adoption of innovation strategy is the way for organisations to meet their objectives for innovation and deliver value while in parallel gaining competitive advantage. Innovation strategy falls within the remit of appointing an Innovation Director role in many businesses or Chief Technology Officers (CTO) and Chief Innovation Officers (CIO) (Dodgson et al., 2008a). In this way, corporations, especially those that depend heavily on technology or scientific activities, place strategic importance on the role of R&D labs, designating research and technology directors to senior posts with responsibility for investment and delivery innovation. Oil and gas companies, such as Shell and Schlumberger, as well as Citibank from the financial services sector, have established CIO positions as an extension of R&D function to drive activities relating to internal communications, external relations and act as a broker on ideas exchange and development among different teams and business units. It is important that the designation of Innovation Director does not diminish the responsibilities of CEOs, Board of Directors or line managers for innovation; rather their authority includes: resourcing – research supervision and coordination, design of staff through recruiting and training processes; networking – internally with technical, design and operational departments and externally through nurturing relationships and partnerships with suppliers, regulators etc; and auditing performance by determining benchmarks, targets and key indicators for feedback (Dodgson et al., 2008a).

Developing innovation-supporting networks and communities is another approach for project-based organisations to manage and improve their innovative efforts (Dodgson et al., 2008b; Vanhaverbeke, 2006).

Networks are defined as a system of actors among whom there are interconnections that facilitate the relationships exchange (Giannakis, et al., 2004). In the case of Crossrail, the largest construction project in Europe, the aim was to invest in collective innovation and share innovative practices within an ecosystem of a shared agenda (DeBarro et al, 2015). In this direction, the PBO (Crossrail Limited) built a network of collaborators among its supply chain’s partners, including contractors, railway operators, universities etc. with the aim of facilitating the identification and evaluation of innovative ideas. The core characteristic was the formation of paths whereby people across the supply chain could channel their ideas for innovation, identify and access the resources for carrying them out and finally share the success throughout the organisation (Dodgson et al., 2015). Moreover, an online innovation portal – “innovate18” – has been developed

to provide a platform for submitting new ideas, learning from other leading innovative practices in different industries and in turn an ‘Innovation Management System’ used to record and spread their progress across organisational boundaries. In line with that, from a strategic innovation management perspective, the Crossrail Innovation Forum (CIF) was formed by all major partners’ participation to strategically direct and govern the project; its objective was to assess new opportunities identified for investment.

Coming to an evaluation point, strategically innovating in complex mega-projects is a demanding task; contractors’ commitment to collaborate in sharing innovative ideas is a challenge. Nonetheless the innovation strategy followed by Crossrail had a coherent effect which led to successful delivery of the project (on time within budget) and generation of new innovations.

Accreditations should be attributed to the systematised innovation strategy followed, which involved the integration of both a broad spectrum of groups in a transparent way and innovation coordinators (CIF, Innovation Director etc) who provided strategic oversight over the portfolio of innovation projects.

Moreover, the close relationships built within the open innovation environment helped in mitigating risks that could impede project development (Dodgson et al., 2015).

DEVELOPMENT OF INNOVATIVE CAPABILITIES INNOVATION STRATEGY A firm can be seen as a pool of resources (Penrose, 1959); as these resources by themselves do not create value, a firm should organise and utilise them.

In this way organisations develop their capabilities.

Having said capabilities, Richardson (1972) defines an organisation’s capabilities as the knowledge, experience and skills that an organisation brings. In the changing business environment firms have to develop strategic or dynamic capabilities in order to respond to new technologies and market potentialities (Davies and Brady, 2000). The term dynamic capabilities refers to an organisation’s capacity to ardently create, expand and reform its resource base (Helfat et al., 2007, p.4).

Close to dynamic are the innovative capabilities which are defined as bunches and patterns of skills used by enterprises to form and realise innovation strategy through creation, expansion and reformation of those resources (Dodgson et al., 2008). Developing innovation capabilities is inextricably linked to the formation of innovation strategy. Innovation strategy leads the decision-making over how resources should be used in order for an organisation to meet its objectives for innovation and develop competitive advantage through

CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE APPROACHES USED TO MANAGE INNOVATION IN PROJECT-BASED ORGANISATIONS

value creation (Dodgson et al., 2008). Thus the question of how project-based organisations develop innovative capabilities can be answered through the adoption of the appropriate innovation strategy. Courtney et al.

(1997) demonstrate that the innovation strategy that each firm should adopt depends on its position in the business environment and hence suggest three types.

The ‘taking big bets’ tactic is suited to highly uncertain environments, such as emerging technologies, where organisations with powerful technological leadership tend to move fast and capitalise the benefits. ‘Hedging bets’ technique is suitable for investments in stable markets where the expected returns are within reasonable range. The ‘wait and see’ behaviour, which appeals to firms positioned low in the leadership ladder, lets others bear the risk of uncertain technologies.

To build innovative capabilities, Helfat et al. (2007) suggests four core activities for organisations to focus on. ‘Searching’ involves market mapping so that opportunities can be discerned from threats. Tools such as Delphi or the GameChanger (which is used by Shell) can be employed to develop innovative capabilities.

Following that, ‘selecting’ includes the process of a company deciding which technology is designated for proprietary position and which is destined for complementary, based on the foregoing appraisal.

‘Configuring’ ensures the co-ordination and integration of innovation efforts and, finally, ‘deploying’ refers to delivery of the value resulting from the innovation.

Betz (2011) argues that there are two perspectives – both of them critical to business success – from which a company views its strategy and the implementation of innovation: the top-down and bottom-up perspectives.

Top-down view is associated with the strategic thinking of the big picture while bottom-up relates to the operational picture. However, in large organisations the political power of top-level executives makes the coordination between top and bottom levels difficult and deters upward communication of news. The integration of these two perspectives in innovation strategy can be accomplished by a series of steps, starting with ensuring that bottom-level strategy is concentrated on research and development projects towards innovation, middle-level strategy on entrepreneurial promoting of new technology business ventures, and that top-level strategy is focused on innovation through financing research and proper reward systems for internal entrepreneurial activity. In line with this, 3M’s top management emphasises organisational culture and promotes innovation by offering annual prizes to its best inventors. The Carlton Awards, named by its president Richard Carlton, are given to scientists that contribute to 3M’s technology development (Smith, 1980).

MANAGEMENT OF INNOVATION The model of closed innovation worked effectively for a considerable period of time, when large enterprises were developing and commercialising technologies in-house for internal use (Chesbrough, 2003). However, as the result of an increasingly skilled workforce, labour mobility and rise of capital venture, the innovation environment has changed and requires alternative innovation practices (Vrande et al, 2009). Towards this direction, open innovation is a paradigm that can be used by organisations to enhance their innovative capabilities. Deliberate knowledge influx and outflow can speed up organisational innovation and broaden the market by external use of innovation (Chesbrough, 2006). Having porous borders, organisations utilise internal and external paths to trade knowledge and finally mobilise and commercialise ideas. The Open Innovation model places R&D departments at the heart of an organisation’s activities; they do not invent exclusively new ideas but are open to assess and integrate external intellectual property (Chesbrough, 2003). In this way, as Lichtenthaler (2008) stated, organisations maximise their value and competencies by exploring and exploiting technology.

Apart from endogenic R&D activities, the creation of knowledge can be achieved by a firm’s ability to espouse existing exogenic technologies. This intersection of internal and external technologies can be accomplished through the formation of strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures, enhancing the firm’s innovative capabilities (Cohen and Levinthal, 1989). The project-based type of organisation is more effective, than functional one, in integrating different forms of knowledge and skills; PBO involves a concurrent, outward-looking form of project management which facilitates the innovation realisation through co-operation with customers and suppliers (Davies and Hobday, 2005). Hence in projects with complex networks where the supply chain is identified by multiple relationships with different levels of stakeholders, clear partnerships built on trust and network performance could be seen as a way to build bridges among distinct companies’ competencies, mobilise resources, add to business adaptability to environment changes and at the same time provide a greater base for generating innovation (Harland, 2005).

Developing relations with universities and research laboratories to explore the technical and commercial potential of new technologies can lead to radically new products (Betz, (2011).

As Håkansson (2006) stated, no business performs as an island; business strategy is concerned with an organisation’s effectiveness in its environment. The criteria for this effectiveness are determined by the

extent of interface and exchange between business and other parties in the environment. This interaction entails reciprocal knowledge wherein capabilities are jointly developed, resulting in interdependence between two parties. In that network formation a series of dyadic transactions unfolds, where knowledge and information flow and financial and contractual relationships among the nodes of network are built (Pryke, 2006). Through this web of relationships, distinct capabilities emerge, as no other sets of two entities are alike; therefore, the identity of a firm is created in interaction with its counterparts. Murray (2008) through his research suggests that construction companies need to modernise as the rate of change and innovation is remarkably low in the industry. He considers the fragmentation – namely the plethora of companies in the construction industry – a barrier to knowledge continuity on a project to project basis. Following that, he argues that the concept of strategic partnering is a way to improve the sector’s performance. In this direction Dainty et al. (2001) argues that an integrated supply chain plays a critical role in driving innovation and supporting incremental improvements.

CONCLUSIONS In a quickly changing and uncertain market landscape companies are dealing with on-off problems; hence stable and permanent organisations are not equipped to resolve them. By contrast, temporary PBOs seem more suitable to dealing with such turbulent business environments and managing innovation. Organic and linear-rational approaches are two models widely used within the innovation management context.

However, neither appears to be more appropriate than the other as under different circumstances their effectiveness differs. In an environment characterised by an increasingly skilled workforce, labour mobility and rise of capital venture, the importance of an ‘open innovation’ model has emerged. Crossrail’s management used an ‘open innovation’ strategy successfully within the supply chain – and with research partners and clients – in a way that incentivised them to achieve innovation within the project.

With changing business ecosystems companies have to develop strategic or dynamic capabilities in order to respond to new technologies and market opportunities. As developing innovation capabilities is inextricably connected with the formation of innovation strategy, organisations can develop their capabilities through the adoption of an explicit innovation strategy.

The integration of both the top-down and bottomup perspectives is crucial for the formation of such innovation strategy. Finally, the formation of value network could be seen as a way to build bridges among distinct companies’ competencies, mobilise resources, add to business adaptability to environment changes and at the same time provide a greater base for generating innovation.

REFERENCES Betz, F. (2011). Innovation and Strategy, pp.153-174, Chapter 8, In: Managing Technological Innovation: Competitive Advantage from Change, Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley 3rd ed.

Chesbrough, H. (2003) Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press Cohen, W., and Levinthal, D. (1989). Innovation and learning: the two faces of R&D. The Economic Journal, 99, pp. 569-96 Courtney, H., Kirkland, J., Viguerie, P. (1997). Strategy under uncertainty, Harvard Business Review, 75(6), pp.66-79 Dainty, S. Millett, G. Briscoe, S. (2001). New perspectives on construction supply chain integration, Supply Chain Management: Int. J., 6 (4) (2001), pp.

163–173 Davies, A., and Hobday, M. (2005). The Business of Projects - Managing Innovation in Complex Products and Systems, New York : Cambridge University Press Davies, A., and Brady, T. (2000). Organisational capabilities and learning in complex product systems: towards repeatable solutions, Research Policy, 29(7), pp.931-953 DeBarro, T., MacAulay, S., Davies, A., Wolstenholme, A., Gann, D., & Pelton, J. (2015). Mantra to method: Lessons from managing innovation on Crossrail, Proceedings of the Institute of Civil Engineers, (published online).

Dodgson, M., Gann, D., MacAulay, S., & Davies, A. (2015). Innovation strategy in new transportation systems: The case of Crossrail. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, (published online).

Dodgson, M., Gann, D., & Salter, A. (2008a). Innovation Strategy. pp. 94-132, Chapter 4, in The Management of Technological Innovation: Strategy and practice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press Dodgson, M., Gann, D., & Salter, A. (2008b). Networks and Communities. pp.

133-159, Chapter 5, in The Management of Technological Innovation: Strategy and practice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press Giannakis, M., Croom, S., and Skack, N. (2004). Supply Chain Paradigms In:.

New, S. and Westbrook, R., eds. Understanding Supply Chains: Concepts, Critiques and Futures. London: Oxford University Press Håkansson, H., Snehota, I. (2006). No business is an island: The network concept of business strategy, Scandinavian Journal of Management, 22(3), pp.

256-270 Harland, C. M. (2005). Supply Chain Management: Relationships, chains and networks, British Journal of Management, 7(1), pp. 63-80 Heap, J. (2010). Open Innovation, Management Services, Vol.54(2), pp. 26-27 Helfat, C., Finkelstein, S., Mitchell, W., Peteraf, M., Singh, H., Teece, D., and Winter, S. (2007). Dynamic Capabilities: Understanding Strategic Change in Organizations. Malden, MA: Blackwell Keegan, A., and Rodney, T. J. (2002). The Management of Innovation in ProjectBased Firms. Long Range Planning, 35(4), pp. 367-388 Lichtenthaler, U. (2008). Open innovation in practice: an analysis of strategic approaches to technology transactions. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management 55 (1), pp. 148–157.

Murray, M. (2008). Rethinking Construction: The Egan Report (1998), Construction Reports 1944–98, Chapter 13, pp.178-195, Oxford, UK: Blackwell Science Ltd Pryke, S. D. (2006). Construction Supply Chain Management: Concepts and Case Studies, Wiley Blackwell, Oxford Smith, Lee. (1980). The Lures and Limits of Innovation, Fortune, October 30, pp. 84-94.

Turner, R., and Keegan, A. (2004). Managing Technology: Innovation, Learning, and Maturity. pp. 568-590, Chapter 24, In The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects, (ed P.W.G. Morris and J.K. Pinto) Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons Vanhaverbeke, W., Cloodt, M. (2006). Open Innovation in Value Networks, pp.

258-281, Chapter 13. In : Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm. (ed.

Chesbrough et al.) Oxford: Oxford University Press Vareska, V., Jeroen, J., Vanhaverbeke, W., Rochemont, M. (2009). Open innovation in SMEs: Trends, motives and management challenges, Technovation, 29(6), pp. 423-437 West, J., Vanhaverbeke, W., Chesbrough, H. (2006). Open innovation: A Research Agenda, pp. 285-307, Chapter 14, In: Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm. (ed. Chesbrough et al.) Oxford: Oxford University Press

8

CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE ROLE OF SUPPLY CHAINS AND/OR NETWORKS IN STRATEGICALLY MANAGING PROJECTS

INTRODUCTION Supply chains are “the functions within and outside a company [or project] that enable the value chain to make products and provide services to the customer” (Cox et al., 1995). They are a powerful vehicle to achieve greater value through processes such as innovation and cost reduction in projects. This can require challenging undertakings such as establishing trustful relationships with stakeholders beyond traditional business practice, and the difficult task of bridging distant tiers of stakeholders within a supply chain.

Often seen as static, supply chains are the opposite, given that they are populated by stakeholders creating dynamic relationships between them and adding further complexity to their management (Harland, 1996 p. 64).

Supply chains are fundamental parts of modern day projects. It is often thought that supply chains are best viewed with a top-down perspective, i.e. closer to the clients’ end of the chain in order to extract best value for them. However, further inspection shows a very different reality. The fact that supply chains are characterised by inter-connected firms, highlights the complexity and challenges in projects arising at lower tiers of the supply chain, given that expertise often resides at lower levels of the supply chain and further away from the end client (Blecker and Kersten, 2006 p.

314). Reconciling the two brings many challenges for the supply chain management practice.

Given the ever-growing complexity of projects across industries, a solid supply chain for a project is the foundation of any modern-based project. The increasing importance of delivering the best end-product to clients whilst achieving innovation and growth along the way is why it is critical to understand the supply chain’s benefits and limitations for future project delivery practice.

Aleksandar Ralic aleksandar.ralic.15@ucl.ac.uk

This essay will critically evaluate the role of supply chains in projects in order to help advance the complex yet important opportunities which may be unlocked between different stakeholders. Furthermore, it will analyse a supply chain in the delivery of a project in the media sector by analysing its stakeholder values and evaluating benefits and considerations pertaining to them, aiming to observe recent important implications in these projects which go beyond the media sector itself.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Even though there is a tendency for large projectbased businesses to wish to appear as owning entire projects, the reality is that no one project or company can carry out a work in isolation (Lummus, and Vokurka, 1999). Projects rely on other stakeholders in their supply chains. In an ever more competitive and globally connected market, understanding this is of critical importance. This is because competitive advantages lie at the forefront of many project-based business strategies. Unfortunately though, competitiveness is often wrongly understood to be as a company versus another company, whilst through closer examination, it is clear that each company’s competitiveness is defined by its supply chain (Christopher, 2015 p. 18).

It is therefore of great importance to critically understand the role of supply chains in projects and how different stakeholder values are defined across them, and in so doing enable future projects and project-based businesses to unlock new, greater value.

THE ROLE OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN IN PROJECTS Supply chains are an important element of a project, helping them deliver value for clients and stakeholders.

On the other hand, if used incorrectly they can lead to bad business practice and potentially destroy partnering businesses and sectors. This can often be the case where a lack of ethical attention to supply chain stakeholder values takes place, coercing and threatening stakeholder margins and reducing their opportunity for growth (Robson and Rawnsley, 2001).

Supply chains are also an important vehicle for innovation, growth and knowledge creation. This becomes apparent when cross-tier work, knowledge sharing and communication occur between stakeholders (Cao and Zhang, 2010). The reality though is that supply chains cannot solely account for these to take place. Innovation is a complex field that relies on numerous factors which lie outside of the supply chain’s domain, such as an individual stakeholder’s proneness to sharing and co-operating with other stakeholders (Spekman et al., 1998).

This dependency on idiosyncratic human decisions and relationships raises the importance of risk and its management within supply chains. In fact, supply chains can be seen as risk management tools.

Diversifying risk across stakeholders rather than concentrating it all onto one partner allows a project’s risk to be lowered (Tsay, 1999 p. 1340). On the other hand, offloading risk onto external partners down the supply chain and onto smaller and more vulnerable stakeholders can increase risk if not properly managed (Waters, 2011 p. 60). Offloading risk to lower supply chain tiers with which higher supply chain tiers interact less, can cause a decrease in understanding of how specific elements of the projects may be progressing or failing at given points in time. This reliance on more vulnerable partners lower down the supply chain can therefore increase risk since failures may not become clear till much later down the project delivery timeline.

Offloading responsibilities of a project onto partnering stakeholders can not only be a powerful risk management tool but also a cost management tool from an operational standpoint. By splitting the project cost across partners, the project can offset upfront costs which may be seen as barriers for project commencement. Having the ability to rely on other stakeholders to bare the brunt of the cost across different time periods can have positive implications for a project’s financial operations over the short and long term. These types of dependencies can often arise in the form of strategic partnerships between stakeholders. In reality though, this reasoning can lead to short-term views that can cloud the greater value of

long-term supply chain strategies. If one were to take a long-term view of business growth, projects and cycles, it can be noted that these types of formations are more prevalent in times of economic crisis since they can help offset an unwillingness of projects to take internal investments which may be seen as too risky (National Research Council, 1992 p. 23). Strategic partnerships in supply chains allow project-based businesses to offer great quality of service at a competitive price but without the barriers to investment that can sometimes occur at the start of a project. The downside of these types of formations is that they raise questions over areas such as Intellectual Property ownership and technological yields and potentials unlocked when compared to internal investment project strategies (Iansiti, 1998 p. 9).

Projects often use supply chains to outsource work, enabling them to focus their resources on core processes. This in turn helps project-based businesses operate projects more effectively, giving both strategic and operational benefits. By using supply chains to outsource work, projects are able to acquire expertise at lower costs than hiring internally (Tang et al., 2009 p.

78). This can lead to shortening project development time and the creation of new project capabilities which may lead to new market opportunities.

The implications of outsourcing practices in projects and their supply chains though are not all positive. This becomes more apparent when projects widen their remit of supply chain stakeholders (Handfield and Nichols, 2002 p. 129). It has been observed that projects can face unforeseen costs and complications when working with a wider remit of partners (Barthelemy, 2001).

Wider factors which go beyond original outsourcing agreements can take place such as, for example, a project’s supply chain stakeholder being taken over by another company, forcing the original project’s supply chain partner to shift their focus of work. In addition, working with international stakeholders across supply chains can create a clash of cultural differences in how business is carried out in projects (Smagalla, 2004).

Quality and delivery expectations, legal and fiscal differences between nations, lack of efficient national infrastructure and differing regulatory requirements to name a few, can all lead to supply chains becoming ever more complex within a project.

In order to counteract the difficulties of working internationally, and aid national development and growth, many governments and trade sectors have opted to develop specialised supply chain clusters (Patti, 2006). These can open up the opportunities for increased productivity via knowledge and technology sharing. By clustering a supply chain, its stakeholders gain greater proximity to the end product being

CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE ROLE OF SUPPLY CHAINS AND/OR NETWORKS IN STRATEGICALLY MANAGING PROJECTS

developed. This in turn can promote cross-tier work to take place, increasing innovation and allowing for the formation of new shared resources and intellectual property (Cooke, 2001). Given the dependency of each stakeholder on each other, supply chain clusters can also add risk to the project (Haraguchi and Lall, 2015).

Supply chains have accounted for important industry innovations and economic developments. An example is the high-tech supply chains formed around Silicon Valley, which have evolved into hotbeds of innovation that go beyond their initial technology and media focused fields. As business models shift, it is important to critically understand the role of supply chains and how new and different types may affect future projects and their stakeholders.

THE SUPPLY CHAIN IN THE MEDIA SECTOR An example of why we should pay closer attention to understanding the role of supply chains in projects and how value is perceived by stakeholders in supply chains is highlighted by the recent changes which have taken place in the media industry.

The advent of digital communications and distribution of products and services has reshaped all media sector stakeholder models and values, redefining once offlimits project components such as time and cost (Cope and Mason, 2001). This can be seen in the digitisation of the distribution arm of the media sector’s supply chain, transforming stakeholders’ work into immediate product delivery at negligible costs. In addition, the importance of quality has now reached the top of the industry’s value chain, given the nature of a new infinite online distribution market (Hughes, 2016). Therefore, where value was once clearly defined for each stakeholder in the supply chain, the digitisation of the sector has enabled stakeholders to expand their remits of works and in turn changed their values.

Producers, for example, were once predominantly concerned with producing content and having a healthy project pipeline with their clients (distributors, broadcasters and media integrators). Nowadays they are confronted with the risks and opportunities of entering relationships directly with a set of new clients; media consumers from the general public (Huiden et al., 2008). This brings to life challenging dimensions of shifting values in their projects away from competitive costs and on time deliveries to broadcasters and media integrators, and instead to offering the best quality product for the end consumer.

This shift in the supply chain giving the client full direct power to interact with lower tier stakeholders has created great pressure on higher tier stakeholders such

as distributors and integrators. Distributors used to operate in a world where markets were geographically confined and, although restrictive, it allowed them to extrapolate greater value for the same content across different regions. Now with the rise of online media consumption they are confronted with a market where geographic regions don’t apply (Ulin, 2013 p. 79). This will in turn push them in the future to seek new value from their products. Integrators on the other hand have lost their primetime position of being the sole product deliverers to the end client. This has caused disruptions to their financial models which were once based on scarcity of competitors given the high capital expenditures required to launch similar businesses (Mansell, 1999). Their value has now shifted towards quality of product, a challenging change given the complexity of areas such as creativity which permeate the media industry.

All of these changes in values across stakeholders in the media supply chain have had ground shaking effects, bringing great opportunities and risks to media businesses worldwide as seen, for example, in August 2015, when in a two-day period more than $60 billion was wiped off media businesses listed on the stock market (Littleton, 2015).

“Have a healthy disregard for the impossible” Larry Page, Cofounder of Google

CONCLUSION As consumers get accustomed to products and services delivered to them instantly whilst advances in robotic technology start replacing more and more of the human necessity in assembling physical products, the changes which are taking place in the media sector will serve as lessons for physical product industries, such as the automotive and infrastructural sectors.

As consumer experiences become more and more digitally driven, the physical product may become less significant as the driver of value itself. This can be seen taking place rapidly in traditional sectors such as the automotive industry, once deemed to be untouchable by the digital revolution. The industry is now waking up to a future that is less about the car and more about the software present in it (Porter et. al, 2016). As automotive experiences turn away from the physical act of owning and driving a car, and turn towards sharing ownership models and the importance of in-travel experiences, the industry’s supply chain, just like the media sector’s, will be revolutionised; from component manufacturers to car sellers and insurance providers. The same can be said about the retail real estate industry. Given the advent of immediate free deliveries of physical products

championed by online retailers and logistics company Amazon, it will reduce the general public’s need and therefore value of the widespread existence of high street physical stores. One can quickly imagine how different our future cities will look without high street physical shops, parking spaces, with fewer roads, lower urban congestion and so forth. With this vision of the future one cannot but think of the impact this will have on all those stakeholders currently present in our everyday supply chains. As new strategic managers rise through different company ranks across stakeholders present in different supply chains, the challenge for them will be to juggle their present business’s modus operandi and contemporarily shift towards a digital supply chain led future.

In an effort to expand knowledge and inform future stakeholders in supply chains in this transitionary period, project-based businesses across sectors should remind themselves of past lessons learned which may appear at first worthless in the new digital economy, yet when examined more closely may not be. In the 1970s the oil industry introduced scenario planning lessons championed by the Dutch oil giant Shell (Schoemaker, 1995 p. 25). Nowadays, supply chains should learn from similar, new but more proactive rhetoric championed by many Silicon Valley digital supply chain stakeholders in the form of “having a healthy disregard for the impossible” (Vise and Malseed, 2008 p. 11). Instead of planning for impossible scenarios to happen to them, stakeholders in supply chains should do things that others would deem to be impossible and by doing so not only manage risks and benefits but also open up themselves to a new world of potential value.

REFERENCES Barthelemy, J. (2001). The hidden costs of IT outsourcing, MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 42, No. 3, p. 60 Blecker, T. and Kersten, W. eds., (2006). Complexity Management in Supply Chains: Concepts, Tools and Methods (Vol. 2), Erich Schmidt Verlag Cao, M. and Zhang, Q. (2010). Supply chain collaborative advantage: a firm’s perspective, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 128, No.1, pp.

358-367 Christopher, M. (2005). Logistics and Supply Chain Management: Creating Value Added Networks, Pearson Education, UK Cooke, P. (2001). Regional innovation systems, clusters, and the knowledge economy, Industrial and Corporate Change, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 945-974 Cope, B. and Mason, D, (2001). Digital Book Production and Supply Chain Management, Common Ground, Manchester.

Cox, J.F., Blackstone, J.H. Spencer, M.S. (eds), (1995). APICS Dictionary, American Production and Inventory Control Society, Falls Church, VA. Haraguchi, M. and Lall, U. (2015), Flood risks and impacts: A case study of Thailand’s floods in 2011 and research questi.ons for supply chain decision making, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Vol. 14 pp. 256-272 Harland, C.M. (1996). Supply chain management: relationships, chains and networks, British Journal of Management, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. S63-S80 Hughes, S. (2016). Game of Thrones is back, but HBO needs other success stories, retrieved 17th April 2016 http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/ apr/17/game-of-thrones-hbo-vinyl-netflix Huiden, R., Scholte, V., Steen, M., Vlasveld, F. and Huizer, E. (2008). Internet Broadcasting: Viable or Not? The Producers Point of View, In Workshop Interactive Television Commerce and Advertising, 6th European Conference EuroITV. Salzburg, Changing Television Environments, TICSP Adjunct Proceedings of EuroITV. Littleton, C. (2015),. Turbulent TV Scene Shook Up Media Stocks in 2015, retrieved 14th April 2016 from http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/media-stockshaken-up-in-2015-by-turbulent-tv-scene-1201671530/ Lummus, R.R. and Vokurka, R.J. (1999). Defining supply chain management: a historical perspective and practical guidelines, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 99, No 1, pp. 11-17.

Mansell, R. (1999). New Media Competition and Access The ScarcityAbundance Dialectic, New Media & Society, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 155-182.

Marco Iansiti, (1998). Technology integration: making critical choices in a dynamic world, Harvard Business Press National Research Council (US) Committee on Japan. (1992). US-Japan strategic alliances in the semiconductor industry: technology transfer, competition, and public policy, National Academies Press Patti, A.L. (2006). Economic clusters and the supply chain: a case study, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 266-270 Porter, B., Barasz, Z. and Yeh, P. (2016). It’s not the car it’s the code, retrieved 14th April 2016 from http://recode.net/2016/03/25/its-not-the-car-its-the-code/ Robson, I. and Rawnsley, V. (2001). Co-operation or coercion? Supplier networks and relationships in the UK food industry, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 39-48.

Schoemaker, P.J. (1995). Scenario planning: a tool for strategic thinking, MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 36, No. 2 Smagalla, D. (2004). Supply-chain culture clash: differences in emphasis and approach make global supply-chain management even more of a challenge, MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 6-7 Spekman, R.E., Kamauff Jr, J.W. and Myhr, N. (1998). An empirical investigation into supply chain management: a perspective on partnerships, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 3, No.2, pp. 53-67 Tsay, A.A. (1999). The quantity flexibility contract and supplier-customer incentives, Management science, Vol. 45, No. 10, pp. 1339-1358 Ulin, J. (2013). The business of media distribution: Monetizing film, TV and video content in an online world, CRC Press, Atlanta.

Vise, D.A. and Malseed, M. (2008). The Google Story: For Google’s 10th Birthday, Random House Digital, Inc., UK. Waters, D. (2011). Supply chain risk management: vulnerability and resilience in logistics, Kogan Page Publishers, UK

9

CRITICALLY EVALUATE HOW THEORY CAN IMPROVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

Alvaro Tapia a.tapia@ucl.ac.uk

INTRODUCTION

CONTEXT OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

Project Management has gained ground beyond the borders of defence and construction, becoming a vehicle of change across multiple industries for delivering innovation, business transformation and product development, however, there is still evidence of underperforming projects and common mistakes (PwC, 2014).

Contextualising project management practice requires understanding the field’s roots. Firstly, in contrast to other traditional fields of knowledge like law, project management as a formal discipline emerged approximately 60 years ago in the US defence industry (Morris, 2013), under a normative approach highly influenced by engineering, and focused into developing planning and control tools and techniques for managing complex undertakings.

By conceptualising project management as a discipline where knowledge plays a core role (Morris, 2013), a question arises about how theory can improve practice.

From a knowledge perspective, this essay argues that because of the lack of an agreed strong theoretical basis, as well as the influential role of situated knowledge into practice, theory under its current state does not have enough arguments for substantially improving practice. However, there are spaces for contribution subject to the development of an adequate theoretical framework as well as collaborative work in theory co­production and reflective learning development among researchers and practitioners.

The essay starts by highlighting key features and findings in project management practice, followed by a critical evaluation of the role and the current state of theoretical contribution to field practitioners, and concludes with recommendations and implications for execution.

Secondly, the absence of classic attributes of established professions such as the evidence of a mastering of knowledge, and the legitimation of it by means of accreditation (Konstantinou, 2015), have driven the role of professional associations such as the Project Management Institute and the International Project Management Association in promoting an institutional field identity and disseminating a distinctive profession knowledge (Morris, 2013). This has resulted in the development of specific bodies of knowledge, complemented with professional certification programs for practitioners around the world.

However, despite the effort deployed by professional associations in terms of knowledge standardisation, criticism has arisen from both academics and practitioners about the effectiveness of its application regarding several issues not considered to date (Morris, 2013). For example, the excessive normative view of the field, conceptualising the “adoption of project management as a method for solving complex organisational problems” (Söderlund, 2004, p. 183), without taking into consideration the holistic view of the field, as well as the complexity related to its contingent nature (Packendorff, 1995). Also, the execution-oriented

model focused on planning and control tasks for delivering projects on time, within cost and to scope, without getting involved in the front-end management and the strategy definition (Morris, 2013).

Thirdly, the uniqueness, complexity and timelimitedness as features of projects (Packendorff, 1995; Söderlund, 2004), together with the fact that situated knowledge has become the main source of learning for practitioners, have impacted negatively on the way knowledge is captured, structured and disseminated across the industry. In this sense, Bresnan et al. (2003) examined the problems faced in project-based contexts as a result of the discontinuity in the flow of personnel and information related with the particularity of each project, as well as issues regarding the geographic fragmentation and background diversity of project teams, highlighting the role of social communities in improving knowledge transfer.

Finally, in terms of performance, despite the effort of contributing to delivering successful projects, the empirical evidence does not offer promising results.

In the late 1980s the study Anatomy of Major Projects (Morris, 2013) focused on projects’ success and failure.

After reviewing more than 1,600 projects, it found common failure factors related to unclear success criteria, changing sponsor strategy and poor project definition, among others. Nowadays, the big picture does not show significant advances in matters of performance or knowledge management. Findings from the 4th Global PPM Survey carried out by PwC (2014) show that despite the development of methodological tools, basic issues related to the front-end have remained as recurring causes of failure during the last 10 years (see Table 1).

Even more, despite the explosive worldwide growth in the rate of professional accreditation, 55% of project management professionals received their project management training “on the job” instead of formal training, supporting the finding of situated knowledge as the main source of learning for practitioners.

The context presented above reveals a project management practice characterised as relatively novel, without the classic attributes of a profession; the influence of professional associations in promoting a body of knowledge with weaknesses in the conceptualisation of reality; the tacit and situated nature of knowledge acquisition among the practitioners’ community; and finally the evidence of poor performance in practice. Under this gap evidence the need for doing things differently becomes evident, thus the question that arises is how theory can help to improve the practice from a knowledge perspective.

DISCUSSING THEORY CONTRIBUTION Answering the question makes necessary to set to what extent practice is considered within the scope of theory contribution. By taking the definition from Corley and Gioia (2011), a theoretical contribution can be defined under two dimensions: Originality (incremental or revelatory) and Utility (scientific utility and/or practical utility), where practical utility refers when the theory has direct implications for solving problems faced by practitioners. A stronger approach about how theory can contribute to improving practice arises from the role that the academia plays in the society. Katz and Kahn (1966 cited in Corley and Gioia, 2011) identified

2004 2007 2012 2014 Bad estimates/missed deadlines

Bad estimates/missed deadlines

Scope changes Scope changes

Poor estimates in the planning phase

Poor estimates in the planning phase

Lack of executive sponsorship

Change(s) in scope mid-project

Changes in Insufficient Poorly defined environment resources goals and objectives Table 1: Top 3 reasons for project failure (Source: 4th Global PPM Survey 2014)

Insufficient resources

CRITICALLY EVALUATE HOW THEORY CAN IMPROVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

two key roles: the maintenance role, related to structure, stabilising, institutionalising and disseminating the knowledge through practitioners; and the adaptive role focused on anticipating, conceptualising and influencing future problem domains. Based on that, the answer looks clear and consistent, under the assumptions of academic theory as the main source of knowledge as well as the role of academia as the knowledge holder; however, this statement seems to be distant from the reality of the project management arena.

Firstly, regarding the structuration and stabilisation of knowledge, despite the diversity of models raised by the practitioner and the academic, still there is no agreed convergence in a theoretical basis for answering fundamental questions such as “what project management is, what is the scope and content and how it should be applied” (Morris, 2013, p.91).

Even more, there are substantial differences among theoretical approaches. On one side there is the top-down normative and prescriptive approach promoted by professional associations, stressing the hard system model (Winter et al., 2006) focused on planning and control, and what the practitioner should do under a general theory applicable to all kind of projects. On the opposite side, sponsors of interpretive project-as-practice approach (Blomquist et al., 2010), supported in insights from social science, argue that theory needs to be constructed from a bottom­up perspective. It means starting from researching the particular actions of communities of project practitioners into a specific context, and from these findings develop overall theories.

Based on the above, a theoretical contribution for practice should be done by answering the question about what kind of theories are needed in order to set a solid basis for both project management research and practice. However, it requires a different approach, by taking into account the particularities of projects associated with uniqueness, complexity and time-limitedness. According to Söderlund (2004), this approach implies a balance between general and specific aspects of project management. It means to develop universal theories based in theoretical research (top-down approach) for state fundamental concepts as those indicated by Morris, well as develop specific theories based in empirical research (bottom-up) for explaining issues in different typologies of projects.

Secondly, in terms of the usefulness for practice and the knowledge dissemination, the fact that most of the relevant knowledge used and legitimated by practitioners resides in practice instead of theory produced by academic and professional associations, as illustrated by Konstantinou (2015), challenges

the unidirectional paradigm of theory as the driver for improving practice, supporting the idea of interdependence between both types of knowledge: academic (theory) and situated (practice).

In this sense Corley and Gioia (2011) point out that “theoretical knowledge does not exist as a set of theory-building rules independent of actual practice; rather, it becomes inextricably intertwined with the manifestation of knowledge in practice (and vice versa)”. However, despite situated knowledge being the preferred way of learning, the complexity of managing knowledge in a project-based context offers an opportunity for theoretical contribution because of the existing gap in enabling reflective processes. For example, Keegan & Turner’s (2001) research of project­based learning practices in Europe, together with evidencing the importance of informal networks as the most relevant way to transfer knowledge between individual and project teams, highlights time pressure of project teams, as well as the deferral of the learning process to the future.

These were found to be common organisational practices that hindered project practitioners’ development of a reflective process about past actions for retaining and disseminating knowledge throughout the organisation and consequently the industry.

The situation described above sets a challenge for theoretical contribution related to engaging and taking advantage of practitioner experience, in order to find new ways of developing theory that fits the actual complexity of projects, and contributes to knowledge dissemination. In that context Cicmil et al. (2006) propose a collaborative approach named Project Actuality, focused on the social process of project management practice, looking to produce knowledge useful for practice but at the same time capturing the interest of the academic and practitioner worlds.

The proposed way for theorising practice combines situated knowledge from practitioners with empirical analysis from academics with both the practitioner and the academic playing symmetric roles based in critical thinking to co-produce theory. In terms of theory dissemination, Walter et al. (2008), based on the successful examples of collaborative work between reflective practitioners and supportive researchers (e.g. medical profession), proposes three models for enabling and disseminating effectively this reflective learning to the industry.

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

Project management practice is a young discipline highly influenced by normative approaches promoted by the professional associations. The uniqueness, complexity and time-limitedness of projects; the situated nature of applied knowledge in practice; and the fragmentation of learning have impacted the poor performance in projects success. Under this context a question arises about how theory can contribute to the practice.

Blomquist, T., Hallgren, M., Nilsson, A., and Soderholm, A. (2010). Project-as­ practice: In search of project management research that matters. [pdf] Project Management Journal. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.libproxy.ucl. ac.uk/doi/10.1002/pmj.20141/epdf [Accessed 17 October 2015].

By contrasting the definition of theoretical contribution against the divergent theoretical development of the discipline as well as the critical influence of situated knowledge on practice, it is possible to conclude that nowadays theory does not have enough tools to make a substantial contribution to practice.

As a way of solving gaps detected in current project management theory, two recommendations are proposed. First, building theory taking into account particularities of the field, by developing a general approach for fundamental concepts, and also specific theories for addressing issues in different typologies of projects. Second, adopting a collaborative approach between researchers and practitioners for co-producing theory, promoting reflective processes into project teams and disseminating the knowledge in an effective way throughout the industry.

Implementing these recommendations requires the development of a shared vision between professional associations and the academic community to unite positions around the enrichment of current theory, looking for a solid theoretical basis of the discipline.

Also, industry organisations and universities must be willing to collaborate to generate joint longterm research and training programs for enabling practitioners with reflective capacity. In turn, these practitioners must share their experience with researchers in the co-development of theories with practical utility to address current and future complexities of project management practice, and thus pursue the adaptative role conferred by the society to the academia.

Bresnan, M., Edelman, L., Newell, S., Scarbrough, H., and Swan, J. (2003).

Social practices and the management of knowledge in project environments. [pdf] International Journal of Project Management. Available at: http://www. sciencedirect.com.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S026378630200090X [Accessed 24 October 2015].

Cicmil, S., Williams, T., Thomas, J., and Hodgson, D. (2006). Rethinking Project Management: Researching the actuality of projects. [pdf] International Journal of Project Management. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ article/pii/S0263786306001244 [Accessed 20 October 2015].

Corley, K. and Gioia, D. A. (2015). Building theory about theory building: what constitutes a theoretical contribution? [pdf] Academy of Management Review.

Available at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/275714295_Building_ Theory_About_Th eory_Building_What_Constitutes_a_Theoretical_Contribution [Accessed 10 October 2015].

Keegan A. and Turner J. R. (2001). Quantity versus quality in project-based learning practices. [pdf] Management Learning. Available at: http://search. proquest.com.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/docview/209891757?0penUrlRefId=info:xri/ sid:primo&accountid=14511 [Accessed 23 October 2015].

Konstantinou, E. (2015). Professionalism in project management: Redefining the role of the project practitioner. [pdf] Project Management Journal. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/doi/10.1002/pmj.21481/epdf> [Accessed 2 October 2015].

Morris, P. W. G. (2013). Reconstructing Project Management. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Packendorff, J. (1995). Inquiring into the temporary organization: New directions for project management research. [pdf] Scandinavian Journal of Management.

Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/science/article/ pii/0956522195000180 [Accessed 18 October 2015].

PwC. 2014.1 4th Global Portfolio and Programme Mananagement Survey. [pdf] PwC. Available at: http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/advisory/consulting/ portfolio-programme-management/global-ppm-survey-2014.html [Accessed 17 October 2015].

Soderlund, J., (2004). Building theories of project management: past research questions for the future. [pdf] International Journal of Project Management’ Available at. http://www.researchgate.net/Jblication/222549276_Building_ Theories_of_Proj ect_Management_Past_Research_Questions_for_the_Future [Accessed 12 October 2015].

Walker, D., Anbari, F., Bredillet, G., Cicmil, S. and Thomas, J. (2008).

Collaborative 1 academic/practitioner research in project management: Theory and models. [pdf] International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. Available at: http://www.lsearch.proquest.com.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/ docview/232630019/fulltextPDF?a ccountid=14511 [Accessed 21 October 2015].

Winter, M., Smith, C., Morris, P., and Cicmil, S. ( 2006). Directions for future research in project management: The main findings of a UK governmentfunded research network. [pdf] International Journal of Project Management.

Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/science/article/ pii/S0263786306001268 [Accessed 18 October 2015].

10

PROJECT REQUIREMENTS SHOULD LEAD TO PROJECTS THAT ARE PROFESSIONALLY SOUND AND COMPETITIVE IN THE LONG RUN. CRITICALLY EVALUATE

ABSTRACT Experience so far indicates that meeting a project’s short-term goals is not equivalent to project success.

There seems to be a need to consider long-term goals as well as the impacts of a project’s outcomes to requirements management. Implications of a shift to this approach for project managers are examined. Findings show that a restructure of stakeholder mapping is needed to include all factors affecting or being affected by the project, directly or indirectly, as well as their interrelation. Project managers may need to expand their knowledge and scope of work in order to be able to display competence throughout the project’s delivery to operation and develop ethical attentiveness to act in their stakeholders’ best interest. This could lead to projects that are competitive and professionally sound in the long run, increasing value for the project manager, their client and other stakeholders.

INTRODUCTION The high percentage of failed projects is an unfortunate fact (Kharbanda & Pinto, 1996). Most projects that will start will not succeed to meet the client’s expectations and a big part of them will be cancelled before even being completed, either because of their high cost or a lack of support. One of the main reasons behind these disappointing numbers is the unrealistic goals to be achieved by the projects and neglect of the relation between the project and its environment. By the latter what is meant is the lack of attention to how external elements (environment, society, end-users etc.) can be affected by the project’s outcome and also how they can affect its success.

The term ‘requirements’ is used to describe the desired outcome of a project, “a statement identifying a capability, physical characteristic, or quality factor that

Dimitrios Vergitsis dimitrios.vergitsis.14@ucl.ac.uk

bounds a product or process need for which a solution will be pursued” (Hood, et al., 2008). The project manager is responsible for collecting and documenting these requirements and then managing all actions and taking necessary decisions in order to produce a result that will better fulfil the set goals. Until recently the project manager’s duties covered the delivery of a successful project judged against three main criteria: budget, cost and quality as set by the client (Atkinson, 1999). History has shown that meeting these requirements doesn’t necessarily lead to a product (or service) that is well received by its end-user. Also, a project can be delivered falling short of meeting these goals but its product may enjoy outstanding success.

What also is not covered by these criteria is how the project can affect other factors which may not be directly involved with it but be part of its surroundings.

From the above, questions may arise whether long-term goals fall under the project manager’s responsibilities and whether he has ethical responsibility for the impacts of the project.

Using examples from literature, a definition of project success is attempted and the difference between short- and long-term goals is analysed. The classic view of requirements focusing on the short-term goals seems inadequate and a need emerges to take into consideration requirements related to the afterdelivery phase of the project with respect to all affected parties. Challenges that may be encountered should be examined at this point. Project managers will have to broaden their scope and identifying all stakeholders will be the key task in collecting and managing requirements that will lead to projects that will be competitive and professionally sound in the long run.

WHAT IS SUCCESS?

URBAN HYPERTROPHY

Until very recently success of projects was measured against three criteria: budgeted cost, scheduled time and requested quality. Even today there is a belief that in order for a project to be considered successful it needs to be completed on time, its final cost shouldn’t exceed the planned budget and requirements set by the client should be met. The following examples, however, illustrate the problem of measuring success in those terms.

Urban planning during the recent past focused on the development of big cities driven by market increase without having any ecological consciousness. The repercussions for the environment were the first to be observed but there were other implications too. Identity crisis, vulnerability of urban safety and unhealthy way of living were also side effects of the phenomenon (Bianchini, 2004).

FORD TAURUS The development of the first generation of Ford Taurus resulted in higher than expected cost, and the release was delayed (Shenhar, 2004). Sales, however, were better than imagined, making it one of the most successful cars of its time. Having in mind the golden rule of project management the project was declared a failure and the project manager was fired, despite its success in the market.

ATHENS OLYMPIC GAMES The announcement that the Olympic Games were to be hosted in Athens created expectations in Greece that the event would deliver a range of benefits, such as increased tourism, financial growth, and investment in undeveloped areas. There was also an emotional investment as the Games would return to their birthplace. It was a time-sensitive project and the main goal of being ready for the opening ceremony was achieved, giving the Greek people a sense of pride and providing pleasure for spectators. Although the budget overran, research shows that in the years between awarding the Games to Athens and one year after the Games ended, financial benefits were achieved (Kissoudi, 2008). Years later, however, failure to plan the exploitation of the venues left the government with high maintenance costs (Panagiotopoulou, 2014). This added to the already failing Greek economy, and the feelings of pride turned to disappointment and anger.

HEATHROW TERMINAL 5 Despite Heathrow Terminal 5 being one of the few mega-projects to be delivered on time, on budget and to the quality requested, failure to thoroughly plan the transition from project delivery to operation resulted in a disastrous opening day (Brady & Davies, 2010).

Problems that arose on the first day of operation caused several flights to be cancelled.

The purpose of using these examples is on one hand to illustrate the insufficiency of judging project success against these three criteria and on the other hand to illustrate how this problem extends to multiple fields.

It becomes clear that a project’s success criteria extend further than the traditional project management scope, as perceived until recently, including pre-planning and the after-delivery stage of the project (Brady, et al., 2005). In order to manage a successful project, a project manager will have to plan for, or even manage, the future use of the derived system. Furthermore, evolution from project management to management of projects has extended the focus of the project manager to front-end and corporate strategy (Morris, 1997).

Creating a project that will meet both short- and longterm goals is his responsibility (Morris & Pinto, 2004). It is also apparent that the parties interested or affected by a project extend from the traditional one-entity client to different stakeholders such as end users, society, environment and others. Project managers need to be aware of the consequences of their project and act accordingly, with public good in mind and following the principles of professionalism (Konstantinou, 2015; Shenhar, 2004) as not doing so “is one of the safest roads to project failure” (Kharbanda & Pinto, 1996).

CHALLENGES Although the need to take into account requirements associated with the effects of the project in the long run is becoming obvious, there are several obstacles that can discourage project managers from adopting this approach. In the already unstable environment in which projects take place, increasing the duration of involvement will create more uncertainty. The need arises for the project manager to foresee needs in the even longer future. What makes this task even more difficult is not only the expansion of the duration of management requirements but also the diversity (PM cost time quality). The requirements for implementation and operation can be completely different and require discrete knowledge which makes it difficult to link them.

This distinction between implementation and operation complicates the definition of the client (Newcombe,

PROJECT REQUIREMENTS SHOULD LEAD TO PROJECTS THAT ARE PROFESSIONALLY SOUND AND COMPETITIVE IN THE LONG RUN. CRITICALLY EVALUATE

2003). The project manager not only has to identify different parties as the client but will also have to be able to adjust to changes in their dynamics that will occur. As the project progresses, the influence and interests of people involved change and conflicts are inevitable (Shenhar, 2004). By increasing the length of the project and adding more interested parties to the equation the complexity grows significantly and so does the level of effort and risk for the project manager.

Stakeholder management is the key challenge as clients must be convinced of the value the change will bring to them. Clients tend to rely on solutions that they have tried and satisfy them (Bresnen & Haslam, 1991) while ethics is not at the top of their requirements (Davies, et al., 2012). The project manager will play the role of setting a common vision, defining each party’s role on the project and elucidating all parameters and consequences of the project’s outcomes (Tzortzopoulos, et al., 2006).

SUGGESTIONS Overcoming the above challenges is not an easy task. Attentive planning and cooperation are vital and flexibility is needed to restructure the project team in a way that conflicts of interest can be eliminated (Turner & Muller, 2004). Good communication and balance of control are essential to achieve an environment of trust and cooperation. The most crucial part is recognising all parties that can affect or be affected by the project during all its life cycle. Stakeholder analysis should be done carefully in order to provide the clearest image for the stakeholders’ level of interest and their power on project decisions and influence between them (Newcombe, 2003). All of the above will most probably change during the project’s life cycle so stakeholder analysis is a continuing process that needs to be monitored as the project progresses (Hood, et al., 2008).

Analysing the interrelations of stakeholders gives a clearer image of the project’s requirements. By including all requirements and analysing their importance at all stages will help prioritise and acknowledge those that have to be fulfilled to guarantee the project success in the long run. In addition, it will help identify the key sponsors that will help towards this success at any point. These key players must be kept involved at all times. To achieve this the project manager must be responsible for keeping them informed and creating the necessary conditions to ensure feelings of safety and satisfaction (Schneider & Bowen, 1999).

As mentioned previously in this paper, taking into account operational requirements and connecting them to the goals of project success means that there is a gap, before and after delivery that needs to be

filled (Muns & Bjeirmi, 1996). The project manager will have to work closely with, or even acquire the role of, operations manager (Alderman & Ivory, 2010). Offering integrated solutions would help guarantee a smooth transition from project creation to operation and a proper incorporation of operational requirements to project requirements. Inevitably, by increasing the level of involvement in a project so too the level of project risk for the project manager will rise. In order to step up to these challenges project managers will have to pay extra effort to planning and expanding their knowledge in order to be able to provide competence throughout the project. In addition, they have to be trained to think critically and act in a way to take the right decisions for the project stakeholders’ best interests with regard to its general environment (Helgadottir, 2008).

BENEFITS Risk and effort will be higher for the project manager but there is still much to gain from this approach.

Instead of successfully delivering a project, delivering a project that will be successful, and competitive, that will benefit the client in the long run, is what will create a feeling of delight which is more likely to lead to longer collaboration that is to the benefit of the project manager (Turner & Muller, 2004). The project’s long-term success falls under the project manager’s duties (Morris & Pinto, 2004; Muns & Bjeirmi, 1996). With the use of integrated solutions the project manager will be able to create more value for his/her client by taking the risk for him/her and offering longer-term benefits, while in the meantime ensuring continuous earnings for him/her (Brady, et al., 2005).

By incorporating operational goals, the project manager will be able to get the support of new sponsors that may offer support during the implementation phase.

Crowdfunding is an innovative example of that, having end-users buying in to the project sponsoring and allowing it to kick off (Mollick, 2014). The significance of the awareness of the environmental impact has been mentioned previously in this paper.

Not only will it allow the project manager to capture in advance possible threats to the project (Flyvbjerg, et al., 2003) but it can also have financial benefits for the client or end-user. Sustainable development has been proven to lead to economic gain by energy saving and decreasing maintenance costs (Collados & Armijo, 2009). Finally, such an ethical attentiveness to a common good would benefit the profession of project management as it would be an answer to accusations of a lack of ethical code (Morris, et al., 2006).

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

It seems to be clear by now that delivering a project on time and on budget is no guarantee of a project’s success. Each project’s goal is to give an answer to its stakeholders’ wants and needs so requirements should be directly connected to achieving these goals.

The perception of the client being a single entity has been replaced by the idea of a network of stakeholders whose interest in the project will vary and so will their power. Identifying them and the dynamics between them is necessary to capture the requirements that the project must meet. Effectively managing them will allow the project manager to recognise the key sponsors who will support the project and those who may sabotage it. By expanding his knowledge and integrating with operations he will expand his scope and be responsible for meeting the project’s long-term goals. Project managers need to be trained to think ethically, to take responsibility for their actions and their project’s consequences for stakeholders as well as the environment.

Alderman, N., & Ivory, C. (2010). Service-led projects: understanding the metaproject context. Construction Management and Economics, Volume 28, pp.

1131-1143.

The project manager needs to get out of his comfort zone and rise to the challenge. By doing this he will be able to provide greater value to his clients.

Managing a project that is successful and competitive in the long run, instead of just delivering a project within its short-term constraints, is what will lead to a delighted client. A delighted client, in comparison to a satisfied one, is more likely to become a loyal client.

Taking responsibility for the project’s impact on its surroundings and ethical attentiveness to public good will answer the arguments about project management’s standing as a profession. The risk and effort to lead a project to be competitive and professionally sound in the long run seems to be higher but it is worth it to achieve a successful project and satisfied customers.

Atkinson, R. (1999). Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, it’s time to accept other success criteria.

International Journal of Project Management, 17(6), pp. 337-342.

Bianchini, F. (2004). A crisis in urban creativity? Reflections on the cultural impacts of globalisation, and on the potential of urban cultural policies. Osaka, international symposium The Age of the City: the Challenges for Creative Cites.

Brady, T., & Davies, A, (2010). From hero to hubris – Reconsidering the project management of Heathrow’s Terminal 5. International Journal of Project Management, Volume 28, pp. 151-157.

Brady, T., Davies, A., & Gann, D. (2005). Creating value by delivering integrated solutions. International Journal of Project Management, Volume 23, pp. 360365.

Bresnen, M., & Haslam, C. (1991). Construction industry clients: A survey of their attributes and project management practices. Construction Management and Economics, Volume 9, pp. 327-342.

Collados, E. & Armijo, G., (2009). Impact of an energy refurbishment programme in Chile: More than energy savings. In: D. Mumovic & M. Santamouris, eds.

A handbook of sustainable building design & engineering. Earthscan from Routledge.

Davies, A., Gann, D., & Douglas, T. (2009). Innovation in megaprojects: systems integration at London Heathrow Terminal 5. California Management Review, 38(1), pp. 101-125.

Davies, I., Lee, Z., & Ahonkhai, I. (2012). Do consumers care about ethicalluxury? Journal of Business Ethics, 106(1), pp. 37-51.

Flyvbjerg, B., Bruzelius, N., & Rothengatter, W. (2003). Megaprojects and risk: An anatomy of ambition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Helgadottir, H. (2008). The ethical dimension of project management.

International Journal of Project Management, Volume 26, pp. 743-748.

Hood, K., Wiedemann, S., Fichtinger, S. & Pautz, U. (2008). Requirements management - The interface between requirements development and other system engineering processes. Springer: USA. Kharbanda, O. & Pinto, J. (1996). What made the Gertie gallop?: Lessons from project failures. Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Kissoudi, P. (2008). The Athens Olympics: Optimistic legacies. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 25(14), pp. 1972-1990.

Konstantinou, E. (2015). Professionalism in project management: Redefining the role of the project practitioner. Project Management Journal, 46(2), pp. 21-35.

Mollick, E. (2014). The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study. Journal of Business Venturing, Volume 29, pp. 1-16.

Morris, P. W. (1997). The management of projects. Thomas Telford.

Morris, P. W. G. et al. (2006). Exploring the role of formal bodies of knowledge in defining a profession - The case of project management. International Journal of Project Management, Issue 24, pp. 710-721.

Morris, P. W., & Pinto, J. K. (2004). The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects.

Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Muns, A. & Bjeirmi, B. (1996). The role of project management in achieving project success. International Journal of Project Management, 14(2), pp. 81-87.

Newcombe, R. (2003). From client to project stakeholders: a stakeholder mapping approach. Construction Management and Economics, 21(8), pp.

841-848.

Panagiotopoulou, R. (2014). The legacies of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games: a bitter–sweet burden. Contemporary Social Science, 9(2), pp. 172-195.

Schneider, B. & Bowen, D. (1999). Understanding customer delight and outrage. MIT Sloan Management Review, 41(1), p. 35.

Shenhar, A. J. (2004). Strategic project leadership: toward a strategic approach to project management. R&D management, 35(5), pp. 569-578.

Turner, R. & Muller, R. (2004). Communication and co-operation on projects between the project owner as principal and the project manager as agent.

European Management Journal, 22(3), pp.327-336.

Tzortzopoulos, P., Cooper, R., Chan, P. & Kagioglou, M. (2006). Clients’ activities at the design front- end. Design Studies, 27(6), pp. 657-683.

11

DESIGN CANNOT BE MANAGED. CRITICALLY EVALUATE

ABSTRACT The radical changes and various customer demands create competitive relationships in the global market, which forces firms to produce unique or distinctive products or services to achieve competitive advantage.

Interest in design has grown as the result of global competition and the increasing importance of nonprice competitiveness. Good design enables firms to compete profitably with excellent products, quality or services. Therefore, design management is crucial for many firms today. Unlike the view that considers design cannot be managed, this essay will critically evaluate that design can be managed from four different perspectives: alignment with corporate strategy; improvement of design process; control of implementation; and management of creative people.

Some limitations that may increase the difficulty of design management will also be considered.

INTRODUCTION In over-supplied global markets, many firms become design-driven and depend on creative and innovative products or services to develop a competitive position and gain sustainable development. Many firms attempt their new design through projects and consider design as their strategic business tool. Within an organisation design can be active on both strategic and operational levels, in setting long-term strategy or in controlling the implementation. Design is the creative capability and a new way of thinking which builds the bridge between the organisation and customers. Therefore, effective design management can help firms pursue and achieve their commercial goals (Best, 2006).

However, design management is complicated because it crosses a range of disciplines, such as architecture, engineering, aesthetics, and even fine art. Moreover,

Bo Wang uczlbw0@ucl.ac.uk

design is also impacted by both internal and external context. According to Best (2010), the internal context contains budget, schedule, client requirements and project goals; while the external context includes business environment, technological development and market trends. These factors interact mutually and make design management even more difficult.

Therefore, some people may believe design cannot be planned, controlled and managed, since they consider that all design needs to be stimulated by inspiration and occurs with uncertainty. However, Silvio (2015) argues that this attitude is invalid and obsolete in the modern study of design management. According to Silvio (2015), project design is a process which can be modified and then applied to other projects, so it can be refined, improved and managed. The purpose of the essay is to argue design can be managed from different perspectives for strategic and tactical success.

DEFINITIONS OF DESIGN, DESIGN MANAGEMENT, CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION There is still no universal agreed definition of design in the scientific community. From the commercial aspect, design is the development of new products or services to meet customer demands and to achieve business objectives (Best, 2010). From the creative aspect, Braha and Maimon (1997) claim that design is a process of problem solving, which begins with the dissatisfaction of the current status and then produces creative solutions. However, considering the significance uncertainty plays, Peter (1995) defines design as a planning activity – it produces something that does not exist at present but will happen in future.

Likewise, there is no single definition for design management. According to Best (2006), design management is effective deployment of design

resources by design managers to achieve business objectives. Harpum (2004) states that design management means managing creative people who are the sources of innovative ideas. Silvio (2015) argues that design management is a leadership activity that focuses on managing the creation of new concepts.

Although the definitions are different, the essence is to achieve corporate and project success through effective management of design.

Best (2006) claims that creativity is the process of generating new ideas; while innovation explores these new ideas and makes use of them into new products or services. Design is the combination of creativity and innovation, which enables them to be practical for users or customers. However, Lawson (2006) argues that it is unnecessary for all design to be mould-breaking, radical innovative and purely original, and further argues that the value of good design is to fulfil the demand of users or customers rather than merely pursue excessive innovation.

REVIEW AND ANALYSIS ON CONTRADICTORY VIEWPOINTS OF DESIGN MANAGEMENT Contradiction of tight schedule often exists between designers and design management. Designers need more flexibility and freedom to produce creative solutions for problems, so they do not like to be restricted by a limited and rigid time period (Harpum, 2004). Many designers complain the time constraint forces them to work as machines. Such conflict enables some people to believe design cannot be managed because designers are not ideas-producing machines and they need passion or inspiration to create new concepts. However, Rothenberg (1995) argues that in very rare occasions intuition, unconsciousness and inspiration contribute to creative discoveries. Michael (2000) also argues that creative ideas do not come out in a vacuum, and that skills, experience and knowledge are the key factors to generating creative ideas.

Creative people who are the key contributors of design are reluctant to be managed strictly. According to Michael (2000), creative people often deal with challenging problems, display curiosity and show interest in learning. These people are independent, self-confident and self-disciplined – they behave according to their own ideas and interests and care less about what others expect them to do. Therefore, they do not like to be controlled by a restricted schedule, requirements or managerial approaches. However, even though designers refuse to be restricted, design must be managed in order to ensure the success of projects (Allinson, 1997).

DESIGN CAN BE MANAGED BY ALIGNING WITH CORPORATE STRATEGY Design can be managed through understanding and aligning with corporate strategy. Corporate strategy can be developed according to the market trends, customer needs, technological development and competition within an industry. Producing a differentiation strategy or extending into new market segments has different consequences for design, since it determines what differentiation needs to be enacted, and how to satisfy customers in a new market. Therefore, designers should define different concepts and create different products in order to align with corporate objectives.

As a result, a clear understanding of the corporate strategy is crucial for designers to create valuable and profitable products or services for achieving business objectives (Best, 2006). One of the key tasks of designers is to understand market trends that identify the commercial opportunities, technological development and what competitors produce. Therefore, design should closely link with market trends in order to create differentiation, develop competitive position, generate profits and increase added value for firms.

Another task is to know customer needs. Many designs are just ‘makeable’ rather than being marketable, because they have no market value. However, the purpose of firms is still to make profits and achieve commercial value, so designers should create products or services which satisfy customer needs and then bring commercial benefits for firms.

However, few firms have a clear understanding about the relationship between corporate strategy and design.

Many firms just associate design with aesthetics and styling, rather than a crucial tool which underpins the core competence and competitive advantage of organisations (Myfanwy and Jobber, 1998). Few firms devote sufficient resources to design because they still prefer to invest money where they can get tangible benefits and immediate return. Khurana and Rosenthal (1997) argue that design with misalignment of business objectives and inadequate planning in the front end may cause firms to lose their market position. Walsh et al. (1992) also argue that many firms with best-design products still go bankrupt because they fail to catch market trends or fail to explore potential customers.

Therefore, good design should link closely with corporate strategy and facilitate business success.

DESIGN CANNOT BE MANAGED. CRITICALLY EVALUATE

DESIGN CAN BE MANAGED BY IMPROVING DESIGN PROCESS Effective improvement of the design process can shorten the product life cycle, reduce defects, simplify complexity and feed back to the market rapidly. The ever-growing market demands on sophisticated products and services increase the complexity of the design process. Best (2010) defines the design process as a problem-seeking and problem-solving process that identifies the ill-defined problem first and then provides creative solutions. According to this definition, good design is a process that breaks down the goal into smaller ones and then resolves them more easily.

Hence, how efficient the process is directly impacts the quality and efficiency of design.

One approach to improve the design process is to enhance the quality and reduce the design defects (Silvio, 2015). Qualified design focuses on the best quality with minimal defects, which aims to reduce the hidden cost caused by defects during the design process. The hidden cost includes inspection, rework, waste materials or time, customers’ dissatisfaction and the increasing after-sales services. Every defect presents a hidden cost. In order to increase profits and achieve a good reputation, firms attempt to reduce the hidden cost by improving the design process.

The concepts of “total quality” and “zero defect” in the design process originated from the Japanese automobile industry. The purpose is to enhance the quality and eliminate all defects in the design process to bring the maximum profits for firms.

However, good design without defect is often the goal for many designers. Good design cannot be produced without sufficient knowledge, skills and experience or long period of time in a domain (Michael, 2000).

Without sufficient expertise, it is difficult to redefine and restructure a problem effectively and impossible to develop creative solutions. Therefore, it is better and easier to improve the design process based on the existing organisational strengths such as process, knowledge or experience and then to make further creative improvement.

DESIGN CAN BE MANAGED BY CONTROLLING IMPLEMENTATION Design can be managed by controlling the implementation in terms of budget, scope and quality.

During the implementation, project management translates the concept of design into final outcome, but it also requires design to obey the planned schedule, budget and scope. Morris (2013) argues that the heart of controlling execution is to ensure that projects

complete on time, within budget and to scope. Even though management of design at operational level is a stereotype, it is fundamental for the successful delivery of design.

Harpum (2004) claims that the execution of design can also be managed through stage gate control which divides design into four stages: concept, feasibility, outline and details. Different criteria are set for each stage gate. During the design life cycle, when design is at a certain milestone it must meet the criteria set for this stage gate. Stage gate is an effective approach to inspect whether design achieves the phased targets or not.

However, design is a creative process which needs inspiration and flexibility to create novelty, so over-rigid control on criteria, budget, schedule and scope may kill creative ideas (Turner and Keegan, 2004). According to Harpum (2004), greater freedom should be given to designers in the early phase of the project life cycle, since in this phase more possible solutions may be produced, while the degree of flexibility diminishes when the final solution for design is clear. Therefore, effective control of the implementation needs to make a fine balance between over-rigid control and indulgence.

DESIGN CAN BE MANAGED BY MOTIVATING CREATIVE PEOPLE People are the key contributors of creative ideas.

According to Harpum (2004), design is an activity related to creativity, so the nature of design management is to manage creative people. Lawson (2006) claims that creative people tend to be intelligent, highly motivated, persistent, self-sufficient and perhaps self-centered or even aggressive. Most of these creative workers are reluctant to be managed, since they prefer to manage themselves. Design managers’ key responsibility is to collect the collective wisdom of those people and to deliver valuable design for firms.

For many firms, one of the most challenging jobs is to manage knowledgeable workers. Drucker (1996) argues that the effective approach for leaders is to create the organisational culture which encourages creative behaviour. Through contribution, the individual competence, achievements and value are acknowledged by firms. Michael (2000) also argues that the only two ways which leaders can impact creativity are providing support and building confidence. In doing so, design managers should provide sufficient information and create a relative flexible time schedule for designers. Moreover, efficient management of creative people focuses on creativity instead of production, on guiding people towards the goals rather

than merely pursuing outcomes, and on motivating collective collaboration rather than individual behaviour (Pedler, 2004).

However, managers in many industries, such as finance, are reluctant to encourage radical creativity because of the high risk. According to Csikszentmihalyi (1995), creativity can be classified into two types: adaptors who create within the original domain focusing on resolving existing problems stably, and innovators who create a complete new domain radically with high risk, such as the internet. Even though managers have their own concern, from organisations’ viewpoint, nurturing people to resolve existing problems or motivating people to generate a radical creation are both crucial.

Therefore, design managers should balance the value and encourage various forms of creativity.

However, design is restricted by planned budget, schedule and scope, which trigger conflicts between design and design management. The conflicts enable some people to believe design cannot be managed. However, this essay critically evaluates that design can be managed by aligning it with corporate strategy, improving the design process, controlling the implementation and managing creative people.

This essay also identifies some limitations of design management from psychological and design-thinking perspectives. Even though these limitations may increase the difficulty of design management, effective design management is still considered an indispensable business tool for achieving commercial success in the global market.

LIMITATION OF DESIGN MANAGEMENT

REFERENCES

Even though design can be managed from different perspectives, to some extent, design management has its limitations because of the impact of psychology and design thinking.

Allinson, K. (1997). Getting there by design: An architect’s guide to design and project management. Oxford, UK: Architectural Press.

From a psychological viewpoint, after testing 91 creative people with contrasting personality traits in various industries, Csikszentmihalyi (1995) argues that intrinsic motivation is the key contributing factor which drives people to explore what they are curious about.

Csikszentmihalyi (1995) further argues that if it is not the right time or proper opportunity in a domain, people’s creativity cannot be recognised no matter how gifted they are. Therefore, it is difficult to manage intrinsic motivation of creative people and then to apply it at the correct time or opportunity.

In terms of design thinking, it is difficult to manage designers’ mental process. Lawson (2006) classifies mental process into two styles: reasoning and imaginative thinking. A designer’s thinking is a process of reasoning which should be logical, structured, ordered and problem-solving oriented; while an artist’s thinking, which focuses on expressing their own thoughts, is liberal and unconscious. Even though reasoning thinking can help the designers’ work to be more relevant to the practical world, sometimes imaginative thinking is also essential. It is a crucial skill for designers to combine reasoning and imaginative thinking. However, the combination is quite difficult to manage.

CONCLUSION In an over-supplied global market, competitors within an industry shift to a non-price competitiveness through creative design. Many firms consider design as their powerful strategic tool to achieve commercial objectives, so effective management of design is crucial to being sustainable in the current environment.

Best, K. (2006). Design management: managing design strategy, process and implementation. Switzerland: AVA Publishing.

Best, K. (2010). The fundamentals of design management. Lausanne, Switzerland: AVA Publishing.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: flow and the psychology of discovery and innovation. New York: HarperCollins.

Drucker, P. F. (1996). The leader of the future : new visions, strategies, and practices for the next era. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass.

Harpum, P. (2004). Design management. in P. W. G. Morris, and J. K. Pinto, eds.

The Wiley Guide To Managing Projects. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Khurana, A., and Rosenthal, S. R. (1997). Integrating the Fuzzy Front End of New Product Development. Sloan Management Review, Vol.38(2), p.103.

Lawson, B. (2006). How designers think: the design process demystified.

Oxford : Architectural Press 4th ed.

Michael, D. M. (2000). Managing Creative People: Strategies and Tactics for Innovation. Human Resource Management Review, [e-journal] Vol.10(3), pp.

313-351. Available through: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S1053482299000431 [Accessed 20 Jan 2016].

Morris, P. W. (2013). Control. In: P.W. Morris, Reconstructing Project Management. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. pp. 123-144.

Myfanwy, T., and Jobber, D. (1998) . Competing through design. Long Range Planning, [e-journal] Vol.31(4), pp.594-605. Available through: http://www. sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024630198800526 [Accessed 15 Jan 2016].

Pedler, M., Burgoyne, J., and Bodydell, T. (2004). A manager’s guide to leadership. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill.

Peter, G. (1995). Managing design in an uncertain world. European Management Journal, [e-journal] Vol.13(1), pp. 120-127. Available through: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/026323739400064E [Accessed 24 Jan 2016].

Rothenberg, A. (1995). Creative cognitive process in Kekule’s discovery of the structure of the benzene molecule. American Journal of Psychology, [e-journal] 108(3), pp. 419-438. Available through: http://www.jstor.org/stable/ pdf/1422898.pdf?acceptTC=true [Accessed 15 Jan 2016].

Silvio, M.B. (2015). Product design management and global competition.

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Turner, R., and Keegan, A. (2004). Managing technology: innovation, learning and maturity, In P. W. G. Morris, and J. K. Pinto (eds), The Wiley Guide to Managing Projects. USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Walsh, et al. (1992). Winning by design: technology, product design, and international competitiveness. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

12

CRITICALLY EVALUATE HOW THEORY CAN IMPROVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

1. INTRODUCTION Project management is an effective tool in integrating diverse resources and complex activities during a project’s lifetime (Munns and Bjeirmi, 1996; PMI, 1999). Nevertheless, conventional project management has focused on operational performance. This is ascribed as a reason for project failure (Morris, 2013).

Moreover, Koskela (2002) underlines the deficiency of the theoretical foundation in project management.

Along this line, several researchers have referred to the need to develop a new theory in order to improve project management (Bacharach, 1989; Morris, 2013; Koskela, 2002). This is because theory helps us acquire a comprehensive picture and develop knowledge (Johnson, Kast and Rosenzweig, 1963). Furthermore, it allows people to share a common language or framework to cooperate (Koskela, 2002). However, the development of a theory is not enough to rectify the problem of conventional project management because there are several practical obstacles and limitations derived from ingrained conventional thinking. These limits in thinking call for a collaboration between researchers and experts to resolve current problems in project management.

This essay will explore the relationship between theory and project management practice to find some potential solutions. In this journey, critical thinking will drive the direction to determine the effectiveness of theory in practical project management and find practical obstacles. Lastly, this essay will address a direction of the development of theory and potential solutions to overcome practical limitation, so that theory helps project managers to establish sustainable project management practice.

Yun Joung Ji yun.ji.15@ucl.ac.uk

2. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND THEORY Currently, the rapidly changing business environment and fierce global competition have converted the project to a competitive and efficient business tool (Shenhar, 2004). In parallel, the scope of project management has been broader than before to deliver change. The elements in project management have also been broader, which includes not only implementing elements regarding project delivery, but also external elements to provide satisfaction of shareholders and project value (Munns et al., 1996).

These management elements are spread over diverse areas. Firstly, the implementation elements include project criteria (time, cost, and quality), shareholders, outputs, strategy, control, planning, resources, technique (Munns et al., 1996) and uncertainty in accordance with the attributes of a project. Secondly, external elements contain social change, client satisfaction, value and impact of a project, environment, government policy, and ethics (Munst et al, 1996; Morris, 2013). Given this, project management includes various elements. As a result, it might be necessary for project managers to have instructions that help them to facilitate the integration and control for objective accomplishment (Johnson et al., 1963).

Theory is able to be an aid to provide this instruction, even though many new concepts, which are practically used, are derived from the practice world (Corley and Gioia, 2011). A theory fundamentally consists of a concept established from observing causal relationships in a subject. This conceptual simplification provides a common language or framework to help understand and control a complex situation (Koskela, 2002). For example, a Decision Tree is a useful theoretical tool to find a radical decision when faced with complexity and psychological bias (Gilbos, 2011), which is utilised across industries in decision-making.

When it comes to the relationship between project management and theory, diverse theories have been developed in different areas such as control, leadership, professionalism, planning, decision, process, innovation, and risk management. However, despite the scholars’ thoughtful and diverse endeavors, it is not enough to have a comprehensive understanding in project management practice (Koskela, 2002); theory helps project managers to integrate diverse elements and seek a relevant direction against uncertainty and a rapidly changing society.

stage decision making of both product and process modelling (Kam and Fischer, 2004).

Fifthly, some theories discover practical problems and challenges to extend existing knowledge (Shenhan and Dvir, 2007). For example, Morris (2013) suggests the reconstruction of project management in which project managers join the front-end which is normally managed by client.

3. THE EFFECT OF THEORY ON PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

Lastly, but not least, some theories have tried to generalise a phenomenon in matrix organisation. For example, PMBOK by the Project Management Institute (PMI) provides a guide for project management. As mentioned above, theory provides diverse benefits through the observation of an intricate phenomenon.

3. 1. THE EFFECT OF THEORY ON PROJECT MANAGEMENT

3. 1. 2. NEGATIVE EFFECT AND LIMITATION

3. 1. 1. POSITIVE EFFECT Theory brings about diverse effects on project management. In terms of positive effects, it firstly allows project managers to have a broadened view. For instance, Strategic Project Leadership

by Shenhar (2004) reveals seven principles which contain leadership, strategy, project plan, vision and spirit, adaptation, and integration. This provides an opportunity to project managers to consider wide areas to control their projects successfully.

Secondly, theory also identifies criteria from the complex reality. The Body of Knowledge (BOK), for example, identified six knowledge areas: scope, time, resources, cost, quality, communication, and human.

These criteria have been applied to establish strategy or evaluation performance across industries.

Thirdly, there are some theories suggesting methods or tools to measure a project’s performance over its life cycle. Earn Value Management (EVM) helps businesses measure and expect project performance by the correlation between earned money and project schedule (Morris, 2013).

Fourthly, some theories can be used to prove a situational problem or persuade others. For example, several studies state the current problems in conventional project management such as the lack of planning in the front-end of projects (Morris, 2013), poor judgement, deficiency of theory (Koskela, 2002), and narrow perspective (Johnson et al., 1963). These theories could have been used as evidence to improve project management. As another example, some academics have been trying to provide visual evidence via cooperation with hands-on workers and stateof-the art anaylsis. For example, Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) provides visual evidence to aid early

Despite these diverse advantages, experts are sceptical about theory (Corley et al, 2011). This is because the real situation in which project managers are encountered entails uncertainty which theory is unable to cover, which drives project failures, even though project managers try to apply a theory to their project. Moreover, there are deviations from theoretical assumption. For example, the management style of Steve Jobs, who is one of the successful entrepreneurs and project managers, tends to be a contradiction of conventional management (Hoboken, 2012).

What is more, the generalising phenomenon in a specific area is likely to restrict our thinking. PMBOK, as an example, tried to establish a unique project management guide; this limited knowledge for the domain and discipline of project management (Morris, 2013).

However, society is rapidly changing with the development of technology and this gives rise to diverse changes in the life of the end user and the organisation. That is, a narrow perspective view in theory would be detrimental in the development of system and scholarship. Hence, we are likely to need to develop interdisciplinary studies that have flexibility and broaden the view in the development of theory (Johnson et al., 1963).

3. 2. THE EFFECT OF THEORY IN PRACTICE The progress in project management is able ultimately to give rise to the development of organisations through helping build a system to manage a project successively over the project’s life cycle. This is because project management is an effective method to handle the alien and complex phenomenon (Munns et al, 1996).

However, it is unlikely to be able to prevent project

CRITICALLY EVALUATE HOW THEORY CAN IMPROVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

failure (Wit, 1988) because there are different reasons that are not covered by project management such as poor judgement, project managers’ lack of experience and other problems caused by uncertainty (Keeling, 2003). Having said that, if project managers sufficiently examine the feasibility and potential risk of a project and redefine the scope, ensuring to plan in the early stage of the project, it might be possible to alleviate such problems (Morris, 2013; Munns et al., 1996).

When it comes to an individual level, project managers are bound to learn the general process and tools from existing theories. This will help them to understand a matrix project in order to foresee the potential outcome from their decisions (John et al., 1963).

4. PRACTICAL LIMIT OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE Despite various theoretical approaches for the progress of project management, there are still practical obstacles and limitations. This is because most organisations have been using the conventional attitude toward project management, focusing on delivering projects and making output. In addition, the structure of organisations and the business environment also have a clear boundary between clients and agents, which restricts project managers joining the front-end of project management. What is more, a lack of awareness of the importance of the front-end drives the creation of a narrow perspective which prevents the integration of the external elements in project management (Morris, 2013). Project managers are usually isolated from external elements which prevents them from adapting to a dynamic business environment (Shenhan and Dvir, 2007).

Therefore, education ought to help improve project management in order to overcome practical limitations.

In the meantime, organisations are likely to have to change their ingrained conventional thinking and provide an environment for project managers to establish a sustainable project management system.

5. THE RELATIONSHIP OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT ACROSS ACADEMIC AREA Project management elements include not only project implement elements, but also external elements such as social change, client satisfaction, value and impact of project, environment, government policy, ethics and other things in accordance with the attribution of projects (Morris, 2013). That is, effective project management will connect the management of the project to business management through branding,

technology, psychology, environment and policy. In this sense, Johnson, Kast, and Rosenzweig (1963) refer to providing a comprehensive picture of the network of interrelated and subsystem parts which form a complex whole. Hence, study in project management ought to pursue a multidisciplinary approach in order to help project managers facilitate integration of diverse elements and adaptation to rapidly changing society.

6. THE DIRECTION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEORY Project management is in a transitional stage from focusing on operation management to integrating different areas. However, this progress has several practical limitations and obstacles derived from ingrained conventional perspective.

In this phenomenon, theory is required not only to observe the coming change, but also to attempt to tailor the conceptual conversation by effecting the premises on which the conversation is expected (Corley et al, 2011). In order for this to happen, theory building requires a multidisciplinary approach to lead project management to have a broadened view to integrate different areas’ elements. In parallel, it is necessary to identify key factors in overall project life cycle to help the project manager seek an effective strategy and to measure project performance even after finishing a project for sustainable project management.

Simultaneously, organisations and hands-on workers such as project managers and clients need to change their deeply ingrained narrow perspective to a broadened view in which they are aware of a project’s diverse elements. Adding to this, they also need time and endeavor to learn and accommodate new theories and models. However, theory might not easily be applied to all projects because theory itself is unable to produce leverage and to develop into a foundation on which to build a system (Shenhar et al., 2007).

Hence, the project team ought to integrate theory with their experiences, instinct and organisational culture throughout a project’s life cycle. In this process, they also need to find a way that controls and measures a project’s performance by combining key factors and theoretical models, such as the development and deployment of earned value management. By doing this, they are able to build a systemic management which evaluates performance and figures out problems of project out of the intricate business environment, and this will facilitate sustainable project management practice. Eventually, the organisation and individual could develop and enhance their competency in an increasingly fierce competitive business environment.

7. REFERENCES Bacharach, S. B. (1989). Organizational Theories : Some criteria for evaluation, Academy of Management review, 14(4), pp. 496-515 Corley, K. G. and Gioia, D.A. (2011). Building theory about theory building: What constitutes a theoretical contribution?, Academy of Management Review, 36(1), pp. 12-32 Gilboa, I. (2011). Making better decisions: Decision theory in practice. West Sussex: Wiley-blackwell Johnson, R. A., Kast, F. E., and Rosenzweig, J. E. (1963). The Theory and Management of Systems. The United States: McGraw-Hill Book Company Kam, C., and M, Fishcher. (2004). Capitalizing on early project decisionmaking opportunities to improve facility design, construction, and life-cycle performance-POP, PM4D, and decision dashboard approaches, Automation in construction, 13, pp. 53-65 Koskela, L. (2002). The underlying theory of project management is obsolete, Project Management Institute Morris, P. W. G. (2013). Reconstructing Project Management. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Munns, A. K., and B. F. Bjeirmi. (1996). The role of project management in achieving project success, International Journal of Project Management, 14(2), pp. 81-87 Shenhan, A. J., and Dvir, D. (2007). Reinventing Project Management: the diamond approach to successful growth and innovation, Harvard Business School Press Book summary, Harvard Business School Publishing Shenhar, A. J. (2004). Strategic Project Leadership: Toward a strategic approach to project management, R&D management, 35(5), pp. 569-578

THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE HAVE CONTRIBUTED THEIR IDEAS AND EXPERIENCE IN DISCUSSION WITH THE STUDENTS. WE ARE GRATEFUL FOR THEIR INSIGHTS AND FRIENDSHIP. Dr Sheriff Abdullahi Managing Consultant PA Consulting Group

Tim Carroll FATCA Programme Director Standard Chartered Bank

Tim Banfield Consultant The Nichols Group

Dr Victor Carter-Bey Director, Certification Project Management Institute

Professor Richard Barkham Chief Economist, Global CBRE

Dr Dave Chapman Deputy Director UCL School of Management

Nick Borwell Director, Project Delivery Profession Infrastructure and Projects Authority, Cabinet Office Manon Bradley Development Director Major Projects Assocation Professor Tim Brady Professor of Innovation in the Centre for Research in Innovation Management Brighton Business School Andrew Bragg Chief Executive Andrew Bragg Consulting Laura Brock Benefits and Savings Lead Infrastructure and Projects Authority, Cabinet Office Rafaela Broft Supply Chain Management Consultant ARPA – Training & Consultancy BV Professor Andrew Brown Interim Director Institute of Education, University College London Mike Brown Former Head of Programme Management Rolls-Royce Ben Brownlee Programme Assurance Director BBC Professor Tim Broyd Chair in Built Environment Foresight UCL Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment

Nisrine Choudhury Project Manager, Farringdon Crossrail Mike Conway Director of UK Operations Sodexo Justice Services Richard Copland Principal Innovation Consultant Logica Alan Couzens Capital Portfolio Director Highways England Professor Andy Davies Professor in the Management of Projects The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management Tim DeBarro Consultant The Nichols Group Juliano Denicol PhD Candidate The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management Dr Meri Duryan KTP Research Associate The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management Professor Andrew Edkins Professor in the Management of Complex Projects The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management

Tony Ellender Emerging Talent Manager, Balfour Beatty UK Balfour Beatty Tim Embley Group Innovation & Knowledge Manager Costain Stuart Fenn Finance Director, EMEIA Business and Application Services Fujitsu Tim Fitch Director Invennt Ltd Ian Gee International Organisation Development Consultant Edgelands Consultancy Ltd Dr Chris Gentle Managing Director Torridon Advisory Dr Joana Geraldi Associate Professor DTU Management Engineering Technical University of Denmark Guy Giffin Managing Director Prendo Simulations Ltd Will Glendinning Founder and Director Not Indoors, Allium Group Rob Greenslade Senior Territory Development Manager UK FSI Services Microsoft Dr David Hancock Construction Team Director Infrastructure and Projects Authority, Cabinet Office Professor Peter Hansford Professor in Construction and Infrastructure Policy The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management Adam Harman Project Director UCL East UCL Estates

Dr Pete Harpum Managing Director Kotronias & Harpum Visiting Professor, Grenoble Ecole de Management Bill Harpum Viola Kamo Quartet Terri Harrington Head of Portfolio Insight Infrastructure and Projects Authority, Cabinet Office Alan Hayes Senior Consultant Advance Consultancy Limited Bal Hegedus-Pickvance Consultant ProjectOne Spencer Hobbs Project Manager Network Rail Andrew Hockley Managing Consultant PA Consulting Paul Hodgkins Executive Director Paul Hodgkins Project Consultancy Jonathan Horn Managing Director Investment Banking Citigroup Esil Inam Project Specialist Freelance Dominic Ingham 1st Violin Kamo Quartet Bridget Jackson Head of Benefits High Speed Two (HS2) Ltd Vicki James Project Manager for Consents and Properties Transport for London Nicola Kelly Operations and Commercial Leader Laing O’Rourke

Joosse Koen Director Global Public Affairs at Philips and Program Manager at Philips Foundation Phillips International Dr Patty Kostkova Principal Research Associate UCL eHealth Deanna Landers Portfolio Manager IBM, Global Technology Services Former Director, PMI Donald Lawrence Visiting Professor, Director Computational Finance, UCL Market Manager Genesis Corporation Rob Leslie-Carter Director Arup Peter Lewis External Initiatives Manager Transport for London Christopher Liddle Architect HLM Architects Lotte Little Artist Dr Sebastian MacMillan Programme Director Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment University of Cambridge Gillian Magee Managing Consultant Business Transformation PA Consulting Paul Mansell Major Programmes Director Impaqt Consulting Ltd. Nikhil Markanday Partner Ashurst LLP Peter Mason Business Development Director Balfour Beatty Jessica Mentz Project Leader Evolution Design Dr Grant Mills Senior Lecturer in Project and Enterprise Management The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management

Professor Peter Morris Professor in Construction and Project Management The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management Dr Ralf MĂźller Professor of Project Management BI Norwegian Business School Dr Darryl Murphy Partner KPMG LLP Alex Murray Research Associate and Teaching Fellow The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management James Nicholls Head of Public Sector BDO Healthcare Jenny Nolan Head of the EMEIA Procurement Enablers Fujitsu Jayson Otke Associate Director Corporate Reputation Teva Pharmaceuticals Andrew Percival Managing Director UPP Projects Limited Laurens Price-Nowak Cello Kamo Quartet Dr Stephen Pryke Senior Lecturer and Director of CONA Programme Leader, MSc Project and Enterprise Management The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management Dr Kamran Razmdoost Lecturer in Enterprise Management The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management Simon Richards 2nd Violin Kamo Quartet Janet Roberts Development Director Glasgow Caledonian University

Dr Joe Sanderson Senior Lecturer Head of Procurement and Operations Management Department University of Birmingham Business School Walid Sarieddine Assistant General Manager, Head of Islamic Finance Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.

Europe Ltd Dr Natalya Sergeeva Lecturer in the Management of Projects The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management Stuart Edward Shearer Artist Stuart Edward Shearer Steve Skelton Director Project Control Stratford at Westfield Professor Alan Smith Professor of Detector Physics Director of UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory Head of UCL Department of Space and Climate Physics Cameron Smith Partner Ashurst LLP Professor Hedley Smyth Professor of Project Enterprises The Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management David Stringer-Lamarre Managing Director Fortis Consulting London Jan Stripling Ballet Dancer Dr Satu Teerikangas Principal Lecturer Metropolia University of Applied Sciences Mark Thurston Regional Managing Director, Europe CH2M John Tifft Chief Executive Officer Ambac Assurance UK Limited Gary Travers Managing Director Organisation Human Systems International

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