Project Innovation: Where are We Now, Where do We Need to Go Jonas Söderlund BI Norwegian Business School Highlights from presentation at ” Projektnäring ” Stockholm November 15 2019 Project Future 1
“The C orporation” “The Project” Sustainable competitive advantage Transient competitive advantage Strategy Projects Permanence and survival Temporariness and death Divisions Temporary organizations Entry (year of birth) Exit (year of death) Going concern Deadlines Evolution/revolution Lifecycle Logic of appropriateness Logic of consequentiality Corporate profit and growth Societal costs, benefits and impact Top managers, founders Project managers, engineers Organization man Project man Collectivism Rugged collectivism Shareholders Stakeholders Private sector Public sector Project History 2
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Motala… • “the cradle of Swedish manufacturing industry“ • Canal development and production • Bridge design and production • Railway design and production • Locomotives • Ship design and production • Complex machinery • Complex engines ”den svenska verkstadsindustrins vagga…” ? 4
Baltzar Bogislaus von Platen Born 1766 in Dornhoff, Germany. Died 17 December 1829 in Kristiania (Oslo). In 1822 he had the pleasure to attend the completion of the Västgöta part of Göta Canal, but the Östgöta part, between Vättern and the Baltic Sea was completed as late as 1832, three years after his death. 1827 he was appointed ”riksståthållare” in Norway. 9 Thomas Telford (1757-1834) 10 5
Projects are key to innovation… • New products • New processes • New knowledge • New technologies • New systems Project Innovation 6
Innovation is about “creative destruction” “The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumers’ goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates.” This process of Creative Destruction “incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old , incessantly creating the new. ” Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy , (1943) “An Innovation is a new idea , which may be a recombination of old ideas, a scheme that challenges the present order, a formula, or a unique approach which is perceived as new by the individuals involved.” Van de Ven, Central Problems in the Management of Innovation (1986) Management Science 7
What does that mean? Product Innovation Process Innovation Project Innovation Söderlund, 2012, Projekt och tid. 8
Project Innovation • Project innovation is the novel ways and new combinations of how we organize and manage projects and how we use projects to ensure new ideas and improvements of product and process innovation. • It involves both the way we do projects and how we ensure that projects contribute to the ongoing influx of new ideas and knowledge. Pattern: • We need to pay more attention to project innovation. Project innovation is often more important than product and process innovation, at least it is a forerunner to both of them. 9
”Nokia’s success rests on its ability to continuously develop new phones with new features that customers need, that they were rapid in responding to changing lifestyles, and were much more interested in the actual use of the phones than its competitors. They were early with gaming technology and applications that could help people in their everyday life. The phone became more than a phone.” 10
What does that mean? Line Innovation 11
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Re-organization The Customer demands results delivered • with the right quality Projects • at the right time • at the right price Success Factors • Customer satisfaction • Project orientation • Competence development Competence Networks Vision & Strategic direction Support functions 13
Bredin and Söderlund, 2011, HRM in project-based organizations, Palgrave. Pattern: • Line innovation is always critical to project innovation. Analyze the line and you will find sources to project innovation. 14
Beyond the Line I ss Interdependence ∆K Knowledge Development 15
I ss Interdependence ∆K Knowledge Development 16
The studio system is an organizational arrangement used during the Golden Age of Hollywood. It was dominated by a small number of “major” studios in Hollywood between the 1920s and 1950s: (a) producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel and actors often using long-term contracts and permanent employment relations, and (b) dominating exhibition through vertical integration, i.e. the ownership or effective control distributors and cinemas, guaranteeing additional sales of films. By 1954, with television competing for audience and the last of the operational links between a major production studio and theater chain broken, the historic era of the studio system was over. Pattern: • Modern forms of project innovation call for approaches that go beyond the line: Beyond the line organization, as well as beyond the organizational boundary line. 17
What does that mean? 36 18
Source: STD, 2019 37 38 19
Organization Organizational activities Organizational activities fostering rotation fostering mobility of knowledge Swift transition Organizational ensures activities ensure sustainable opportunities for knowledge individual skill cycling development Swift transition Knowledge cycling Individual skills Knowledge cycling ensures ensure value creation organizational and knowledge processes and development capability Individual activities Individual activities fostering development through swift fostering rotation mobility of knowledge transition Individual Pantic-Dragisic & Söderlund, 2019, Swift transition and knowledge cycling, Research Policy. Forthcoming. Pattern: • Modern forms of project organizing call for a closer partnership with other providers of line resources and line management services. They play an increasingly critical role for project innovation. 20
Execution or Learning? Execution Exploitation projects Exploration projects Learning 21
Ambidextrous Projects What does that mean? 22
Type C: Execution Type A The ambidextrous project Type B Learning Pattern: • Projects need to execute and deliver on their promises – and they need to capitalize on their potentials. Learning is essential to any form of project-based organizing. You live as long as you learn. Project ambidexterity becomes increasingly important. 23
Project Success Project Success Client Efficiency Business People Capability success success success success success • Schedule • Client • Sales • Individual • New satisfaction learning technology • Budget • Profits • Client • New core • Skill • Specifications • ROI benefits development competency • Extent of use • Personal • New development organizational capability Adapted from Shenhar and Dvir, 2011, Reinventing project management. 48 24
What does that mean? Evaluate Control Objectives Objectives Control Evaluate 25
Pattern: • Learning needs to be controlled. And control needs to be nurtured - through goals and objectives as well as monitoring during project execution. Deadlines 26
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Fast and Lagom! What does that mean? 28
Deadlines… • …produce a ’rationalistic break’ – breaks the spell. • …stimulate rethinking and fast goals -means-analysis, conscious reflection. • …can be contrasted to conventional control mechanisms such as roles. • …express what must be done, not what could be done, upper limits versus lower limits. Lindkvist, Söderlund and T ell, 1998, Organization Studies 29
Pattern: • Deadlines are critical to any project. If you forget about deadlines – you are dead, the project is dead. It loses much of its energy and momentum. Temporary Organizations 30
Temporariness • Temporary collaboration to trigger creative processes and experimentation • Knowledge cycling (moving in, moving out, moving on) (Borg and Söderlund, 2015; Dragisic-Pantic and Söderlund, 2018) • Building swift trust (Meyerson et al., 1996) to ensure project collaboration among specialized individuals. • People need to be good at ”project collaboration.” Pantic-Dragisic & Söderlund, 2019, Knowledge cycling in technical consulting, Management Learning ; Borg and Söderlund, 2015, Liminality competence, Management Learning . Structure and Design Permanent Temporary Permanent Affiliation and team Temporary Söderlund, 2000, T emporary organizing. 31
What does that mean? 32
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Pattern: • Projects are different. Projects are not routine, not repetitive, they are ‘extra - ordinary’. No project is identical. This is a problem, but it is also a force that needs to be maintained. Make projects permanent and much of that force is lost. Learning from the Periphery 34
Now 35
Back in Time 36
Pattern: • Projects open up for ‘open innovation’ and external learning. Learn from the periphery and you will succeed. 37
Temporary Organizing and Lasting Impact ? 38
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