The Convergence of Planning and Execution: Improvisation in New Product Development

Moorman, Christine; Miner, Anne S.

doi:10.2307/1251740

Cited by 422 publications

(550 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Conceptual framework on the critical drivers of project learning and time-to-market necessary to handle the increasing amount of information. Innovative communication is necessary during the service innovation process, as successful innovations need experimentation and improvisation (Moorman and Miner, 1998;Eisenhardt and Tabrizi, 1995). The innovation process contains a lot of uncertainty that the firm has to manage by supporting creativity and the exchange of ideas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Antecedents of project learning and time‐to‐market during new mobile service development

Blažević

Lievens

Klein

2003

International Journal of Service Industry Management

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Mobile service innovations are crucial for the long-term success of companies operating in turbulent and uncertain environments. These innovations need to be introduced at a rapid pace while at the same time companies have to absorb market information during the new mobile service development. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to construct a conceptual framework on the critical antecedents of project learning and time-to-market during new mobile service development. An extensive case study research involving four innovation projects was performed in a leading Dutch telecommunications company. With respect to project learning, our research findings indicate the crucial influence of a flexible decision architecture, project team memory, a high information awareness and a good fit between information requirements and capabilities. Both innovative and coordinative communication are required throughout the service innovation process. With regard to time-to-market, our research results point to the essential impact of project complexity, top management support, information power of suppliers and technological synergy. Finally, a medium level of project learning is the ideal condition for a fast time-to-market during mobile service innovation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Antecedents of project learning and time‐to‐market during new mobile service development

Blažević

Lievens

Klein

2003

International Journal of Service Industry Management

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“…Improvisation is 'action as it unfolds' (Moorman & Miner, 1998a) or, if you prefer to articulate this in more project-based terms, planning simultaneous with execution.…”

Section: Pm Trendsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is project management the new management 2.0?

Warburton

Kanabar

2014

Organisational Project Management

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This paper considers the evolving nature of project management (PM) and offers a comparison with the evolving nature of management generally. Specifically, we identify a number of management trends that are drawn from a paper that documents a proposed 'Management 2.0' model, and we compare those trends to the way in which PM is maturing to embrace the challenges of modern organizational progress.Our investigations identify strong and robust parallels between the six forces identified by McDonald (2011), who suggests that the proposed trends are drivers of a future model of management. We also suggest that the direction in which PM has been evolving over the past decade or so is very much in the same manner as McDonald's forces. As a minimum, PM is responding to the same forces, but perhaps in a more coherent manner than traditional management.Some theoretical frameworks are offered that assist in explaining the shift from the historically accepted 'tools and techniques' model to a more nuanced and behaviorally driven paradigm that is arguably more appropriate to manage change in today's flexible and progressive organizations, and which provide a more coherent response, both in PM and traditional management, to McDonald's forces. In addition, we offer a number of examples to robustly support our assertions, based around the development of innovative products from Apple Inc. In using this metaphor to demonstrate the evolution of project-based work, we link PM with innovation and new product development. IntroductionThere has been much speculation lately about the future of work, and the forces that are redefining and shaping organizations. This brings up the interesting question of how both business managers and project managers will need to change in order to accommodate the needs of employees, customers, and markets (Gratton, 2011). It is also inevitable that as management evolves, and project-based management grows in scope and influence, such speculation will also affect the way in which the field grows and develops, and the way it is perceived by academics, practitioners, and other involved parties.

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“…We reviewed literature that is concerned with planning activities in NPD (e.g., Thieme, et al, 2003;MacCormack and Verganti, 2003;Miner, et al, 2001;Song and Montoya-Weiss, 1998;Moorman and Miner, 1998) and drew on propositions from our previous research findings (Herstatt, et al, 2004a;Herstatt, et al, 2004b) to develop a standardized questionnaire.…”

Section: Methodsologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research has shown that advanced planning in NPD projects positively contributes to a number of success measures, such as time, reduction of failure rates, financial returns and innovation levels (Moorman and Miner, 1998). However, traditional planning efforts have also been criticized for exerting too much formalism and control, and thereby hindering creativity (Bart, 1993).…”

Section: Aim Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The importance of these initial planning activities is documented in a number of studies (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1986;Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987a;Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987b;Gupta and Wilemon, 1990;Khurana and Rosenthal, 1998;). A second stream of research more recently questions the effectiveness of elaborated initial planning and contends that the ability to rapidly react to changes later in the process and to improvise may lead to success in NPD (Eisenhardt and Tabrizi, 1995;Ward, et al, 1995;Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997;Moorman and Miner, 1998;Miner, et al, 2001). This study aims at achieving a better understanding of these two management principles by investigating initial planning activities as well as planning carried out throughout the course of the project.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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NPD-Process and Planning in Japanese Engineering Companies — Findings from an Interview Research

Herstatt

Stockstrom

Nagahira

Management of Technology and Innovation in Japan

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In this paper we report on the results of an interview research about new product development (NPD) processes and planning in 15 Japanese mechanical and electrical engineering companies. We asked the companies to describe one successful and one less successful project. All in all, we collected data for 29 projects, 15 of which were successful. We explore how these companies structure their NPD processes and conduct their planning activities in order to strike a balance between the needs for efficiency and flexibility, which often carry opposing implications for organizing and managing new product development projects. While the majority of the companies in our sample build their NPD efforts on a similar process model, we find them to employ diverse procedures to achieve their aims. In the companies we interviewed, there is a strong inclination towards planning R&D activities. New product development projects are based on well-defined procedures and written documents, which represent a standard approach to the companies' R&D efforts. However, not all aspects are planned in equal depth and later phases of NPD projects, such as the implementation of the product concept into production, which exhibit lower uncertainty, are planned in much more detail. The need for flexibility in planning is highlighted by our finding that the less successful projects failed to anticipate changes -especially within the environment -and therefore were often carried out according to outdated plans and information. Our results suggest that the quality of the initial project plan with regard to the information it is based upon is closely linked to success. Despite the environmental turbulence, there seem to be no pronounced differences between successful and less successful projects concerning changes of the plan throughout the course of the project. Consequently, our interview partners consider the project managers of the unsuccessful projects to be less skilled in marketing and management than their successful counterparts.

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The Convergence of Planning and Execution: Improvisation in New Product Development

Cited by 422 publications

References 18 publications

Antecedents of project learning and time‐to‐market during new mobile service development

Antecedents of project learning and time‐to‐market during new mobile service development

Is project management the new management 2.0?

NPD-Process and Planning in Japanese Engineering Companies — Findings from an Interview Research

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