Project Management in Product Development: Toward a Framework for Targeted Flexibility

As a discipline, project management has been accused of having lost its relevance for innovative initiatives because it emphasizes planning and control over the flexibility and learning-based strategies that are needed to succeed under uncertainty. Several authors therefore recommend adaptive project management practices - sometimes named “targeted flexibility” - that respond to project characteristics commonly found in innovation, namely novelty, complexity, speed and - as a result - uncertainty. This paper investigates how this proposed adaptation of project management occurs in a context with high levels of novelty that organizes work in projects and needs to accommodate projects of different pace, complexity and innovativeness: product development in small and medium enterprises that do research and development work in the same organizational unit. Results of a literature review and two exploratory studies, covering a total of 8 companies with multiple projects each, are presented. Implications for a future framework for targeted flexibility are developed, leading to the identification of the following needs for project management: (1) better understanding of the many ways in which project management impacts exploration and exploitation activities, (2) improved attention for the currently poorly supported pre-project and early initiation stages, (3) a shift of focus from monitoring against plans toward monitoring against achieved learning, and (4) the formulation of transition paths from current new product development practice to higher project management maturity

Heuristics in Decision Making

Heuristics are simple rules of thumbs for problem solving that follow a logic that is quite different from consequential logic. They have long been regarded, as an inferior technique for decision making that is the source of irrational decision behavior. Recently, decision making researchers have demonstrated that some heuristics are highly efficient and can compete with complex decision models in some application domains. This paper explores the different streams of research, summarizes the state of the art decision making model, and discusses its implications for complex decisions in engineering and technology management

An Investigation on Fast and Frugal Model for New Project Screening

Research in psychology is increasingly interested in decision-makers\u27 use of heuristics or rules of thumb because they have accuracies close to more complex decision rules and seem particularly useful in difficult decision-making contexts when uncertainty is high and speed is of the essence. One particularly difficult decision setting is the fuzzy front-end of new product development because a large number of product ideas need to be screened to identify the few that should be developed further. This process is currently poorly supported through decision tools and mainly occurs on the basis of managerial “gut-feel”. This study explores managerial “gut-feel” by investigating the performance of simple project screening heuristics: two so-called Fast and Frugal (F&F) heuristics, Take-the-Best and Tallying, and three logistic regression models with 3, 5, and 7 decision variables are used to screen a simulated dataset of 52 projects. Each model\u27s ability to recognize successful projects and correctly reject poor projects is compared against the predictions of the other decision models. The results how that the logistic regression models outperform the F&F models in overall prediction quality and in the ability to predict project failure. However, the Tallying model has an overall performance that is close to the logistic regression and both F&F models are better at predicting success than the logistic regression model. Furthermore, the regression model that only takes 3 decision variables into consideration performs better than the regression models with 5 and all 7 decision variables. This indicates that a simple “less is more” decision approach, which is the basis of managerial “gut-feel”, can be a successful strategy for front-end screening

Fast and Frugal Heuristics for New Product Screening - Is Managerial Judgment Good Enough?

Project screening in the fuzzy front-end of product development is dominantly based on managerial judgment, yet little is known about the quality of heuristic screening decisions. This research models three commonly discussed fast and frugal (F&F)heuristics for project screening (take-the-best, tallying and elimination-by-aspect) and explores their performance. An illustrative dataset of 52 new product development projects is used to compare the performance of F&F heuristics against that of regression models, which reflect compensatory judgment behaviour. The findings uncover a \u27less is more\u27 effect that justifies the use of simple heuristics in early stage product screening; two out of the three F&F heuristics reach accuracies of over 80% for project selection and 70% for project rejection and the best F&F model, tallying, performs similarly to the best regression model. The findings warrant a fresh look at managerial screening heuristics as \u27good enough\u27 decision making approach

An Investigation of Fast and Frugal Heuristics for New Product Project Selection

In the early stages of new product development, project selection is dominantly based on managerial intuition, rather than on analytic approaches. As much as 90% of all product ideas are rejected before they are formally assessed. However, to date, little is known about the product screening heuristics and screening criteria managers use: it has been suggested that their decision process resembles the fast and frugal heuristics identified in recent psychological research, but no empirical research exists. A major part of the product innovation pipeline is thus poorly understood. This research contributes to closing this gap. It uses cognitive task analysis for an in-depth analysis of the new product screening heuristics of twelve experienced decision makers in 66 decision cases. Based on the emerging data, an integrated model of their project screening heuristics is created. Results show that experts adapt their heuristics to the decision at hand. In doing so, they use a much smaller set of decision criteria than discussed in the product development literature. They also combine heuristics into decision approaches that are simple, but more complex than fast and frugal strategies. By opening the black box of project screening this research enables improved project selection practices

Heated and humidified high flow therapy (HHHFT) in extreme and very preterm neonates with respiratory distress syndrome (RDS): A retrospective cohort from a tertiary care setting in Pakistan

Objective: To determine the role of heated humidified high flow therapy (HHHFT) as primary respiratory support in spontaneously breathing moderate-late, very and extreme preterm neonates with respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) at a tertiary care hospital from a developing country.Design: Retrospective cohort study.Setting: Neonatal intensive care unit of Indus Hospital and Health Network, Karachi, Pakistan.Patients: All preterm neonates with RDS and who received HHHFT as primary respiratory support were included retrospectively, while neonates with orofacial anomalies, congenital heart and lung diseases other than RDS, abdominal wall defects, encephalopathy, congenital pneumonia and received continuous positive airway pressure or invasive ventilation were excluded.Interventions: HHHFT as primary respiratory support for RDS.Main outcome measures: Effectiveness, duration, failure rate and complications of HHHFT as a primary respiratory support in moderate-late, very and extremely preterm neonates were evaluated.Results: The cohort included 138 neonates during a period of 12 months. The median gestational age was 32 weeks, and the median birth weight was 1607 g. Grade 1-2 RDS was seen in 97%, surfactant instillation was done in 10.8% and HHHFT was provided in all the neonates as primary respiratory support. The total duration of HHHFT support was 94% of neonates. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia and pneumothorax until discharge or death were observed in one neonate, haemodynamically significant Patent Ductus Artriosus (HsPDA) in two neonates and intraventricular haemorrhage Grade ≥2 in five neonates, while only one neonate died.Conclusion: This study appears to show that HHHFT is a simple, safe, efficient and cheap mode of primary respiratory support that can be given to spontaneously breathing moderate-late, very and extremely preterm neonates with RDS, especially in low- or middle-income countries