Unravelling the routines in new product development portfolio management.

Product innovation is a key driver of growth. One of the biggest challenges facing an organisation in managing product innovation is determining the most promising new product development (NPD) projects from the many ideas generated. This selection process is known as NPD portfolio management, which is a strategic decision-making process. Despite its significance in terms of management practice, portfolio management is still not well understood, either by practitioners or academics. For example, much of what has been written focuses mainly on individual project selection rather than managing the entire process; at the same time, it is unclear how to manage the link between the portfolio decisions and business strategy. A systematic review was carried out of the different streams of literature addressing portfolio management, strategic decision-making, the strategy process and organisational routines. The review showed that the theoretical perspective of organisational routines has not been adopted in previous studies of portfolio decision-making. This is a significant omission, as organisational routines constitute an important theoretical perspective, able to uncover not only the formal but also the informal ways in which portfolio decisions are made. Based on the gaps identified in the systematic literature review, three research questions were adopted: 1) How is new product development portfolio management conducted?; 2) What organisational routines can be identified in the new product development portfolio management in companies?; 3) Is the company’s espoused business strategy considered in the new product development portfolio management (as evidenced in routines)? These questions were addressed by case study research conducted in four manufacturing firms based in Indonesia, from the cosmetics, food, consumer and automotive sectors. The study focused on how the firms conduct portfolio management. It used multiple sources of data: semi-structured interviews with directors and managers; inspection of portfolio management process documentation; attendance at a product development meeting; and a simulation exercise which involved observing the approach managers took in selecting a product portfolio. The findings show that across the four companies, a total of 12 routines could be identified that are connected to portfolio management. These routines were termed a ‘palette’ of routines connected to portfolio management, from which the routines relevant to a particular organisation can be selected. Further analysis refined these 12 routines into eight key routines. Five of the eight routines were identified to be ‘core’ (Market and Industry Analysis, Concept Selection and Development, Build Business Case, Portfolio Management Review and Product Development), as all four case companies used them. Two additional routines were found to be ‘essential’ (Business Planning and Project Prioritisation); one is ‘optional’ (New Product Research). While in the literature, portfolio management is centred solely upon making decisions about which projects will be selected, the palette of routines unveils the entire process of portfolio management as more wide-reaching and complex. Surprisingly, the study also discovered that a linkage between the routines and business strategy – something that the literature claims is missing – existed in all four case companies (albeit in largely informal routines rather than as part of formal processes). From a practical point of view, the study generated a generic framework for portfolio management. This enables a company to build its portfolio management on the seven routines that were identified as “core” and “essential”, supplemented with an extra routine if required, depending on the business strategy. This framework can help managers to design an effective NPD portfolio management process. Overall, portfolio management is an under-researched area, despite its strategic importance. This study has demonstrated that portfolio management is wider-reaching that previously thought; it is dependent on both formal processes but also undocumented routines, and it links much more closely to company strategy than previously thought. However, more research is needed.PhD in Leadership and Managemen

A Management Maturity Model (MMM) for project-based organisational performance assessment

Common sense suggests that organisations are more likely to deliver successful projects if they have systems in place that reflect a mature project environment based on a culture of continuous improvement. This paper develops and discusses a Management Maturity Model (MMM) to assess the maturity of project management organisations through a customisable, systematic, strategic and practical methodology inspired from the seminal work of Darwin, Deming, Drucker and Daniel. The model presented is relevant to organisations, such as construction and engineering companies, that prefer to use the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK™ Guide) published by the Project Management Institute (PMI), but without the disadvantages of excessive time and cost commitments and a ‘one size fits all’ approach linked to rigid increments of maturity. It offers a game-changing advance in the application of project-based organisational performance assessment compared to existing market solutions that are unnecessarily complex. The feasibility of MMM is field-tested using a medium-sized data centre infrastructure firm in Tehran

The digital transformation of business models in the creative industries: A holistic framework and emerging trends

This paper examines how digital technologies facilitate business model innovations in the creative industries. Through a systematic literature review, a holistic business model framework is developed, which is then used to analyse the empirical evidence from the creative industries. The research found that digital technologies have facilitated pervasive changes in business models, and some significant trends have emerged. However, the reconfigured business models are often not ‘new’ in the unprecedented sense. Business model innovations are primarily reflected in using digital technologies to enable the deployment of a wider range of business models than previously available to a firm. A significant emerging trend is the increasing adoption of multiple business models as a portfolio within one firm. This is happening in firms of all sizes, when one firm uses multiple business models to servedifferent markets segments, sell different products, or engage with multi-sided markets, or to use different business models over time. The holistic business model framework is refined and extended through a recursive learning process, which can serve both as a cognitive instrument for understanding business models and a planning tool for business model innovations. The paper contributes to our understanding of the theory of business models and how digital technologies facilitate business model innovations in the creative industries. Three new themes for future research are highlighted

Managing design variety, process variety and engineering change: a case study of two capital good firms

Many capital good firms deliver products that are not strictly one-off, but instead share a certain degree of similarity with other deliveries. In the delivery of the product, they aim to balance stability and variety in their product design and processes. The issue of engineering change plays an important in how they manage to do so. Our aim is to gain more understanding into how capital good firms manage engineering change, design variety and process variety, and into the role of the product delivery strategies they thereby use. Product delivery strategies are defined as the type of engineering work that is done independent of an order and the specification freedom the customer has in the remaining part of the design. Based on the within-case and cross-case analysis of two capital good firms several mechanisms for managing engineering change, design variety and process variety are distilled. It was found that there exist different ways of (1) managing generic design information, (2) isolating large engineering changes, (3) managing process variety, (4) designing and executing engineering change processes. Together with different product delivery strategies these mechanisms can be placed within an archetypes framework of engineering change management. On one side of the spectrum capital good firms operate according to open product delivery strategies, have some practices in place to investigate design reuse potential, isolate discontinuous engineering changes into the first deliveries of the product, employ ‘probe and learn’ process management principles in order to allow evolving insights to be accurately executed and have informal engineering change processes. On the other side of the spectrum capital good firms operate according to a closed product delivery strategy, focus on prevention of engineering changes based on design standards, need no isolation mechanisms for discontinuous engineering changes, have formal process management practices in place and make use of closed and formal engineering change procedures. The framework should help managers to (1) analyze existing configurations of product delivery strategies, product and process designs and engineering change management and (2) reconfigure any of these elements according to a ‘misfit’ derived from the framework. Since this is one of the few in-depth empirical studies into engineering change management in the capital good sector, our work adds to the understanding on the various ways in which engineering change can be dealt with

Integrating sustainability into Project Management practices: the perspective of professional institutions

This is paper is based on a work in progress research project, therefore results and conclusions are preliminary.Synopsis: ‘Sustainability’ in its broadest meaning has acquired a great importance in modern society, and consequently influences almost every aspect of social life. This paper analyses the transformation that the project management profession is undergoing towards the integration of sustainability into its core values and practices.Research design: This research uses qualitative data from a mix of semi-structured interviews and archival evidence – professional bodies of knowledge,codes of ethics, newsletters, websites, social media platforms, blogs, onlinedatabases, and international standards – with the intention of answering thefollowing research question: ‘what is the influence of professional associationswith regard to the institutionalizing of sustainability practices into projectmanagement (PM) tools and techniques?’Main findings: There are different players which influence, in different ways, thePM profession. Our analysis reveals that the nature of these actors is veryheterogeneous, and the influence of the professional world of PM on theinstitutionalization of sustainable project management is manifested in thedifferent actions carried on by the entities we highlighted above. Therefore, theshift towards SPM is the result of the combination of each actor’s individualstrategy (Muzio, Brock, & Suddaby, 2013).Research implications: The analysis of sustainable project management (SPM) isaimed at contributing to the PM academic literature, describing thetransformation of PM practices, and to the practitioner literature, engaging withPM professional associations on the way they introduce the set of new practices