The Business of Projects: Managing Innovation in Complex Products and Systems

This volume breaks new ground by showing how leading businesses create and implement projects to drive strategy and innovation. Projects are used to coordinate activities with customers and suppliers and ensure that organizations become more dynamic and adaptable. The book extends the resource-based view of the firm to focus on the business lessons learned from the design and production of high-value complex products and systems (CoPS), which have always been project-based. As well as new frameworks and management tools, it provides case studies of high-technology industries--such as telecommunications, flight simulation and medical devices.

Cutting-edge reading for academics, students and professionals interested in project management. Business activities today are often project-based and it is vital to know how to manage complex products and systems (CoPS). Firms managing projects can coordinate with customers and suppliers, while their own organization becomes less bureaucratic, more fluid and adaptable. Uniquely the book shows how projects enable strategy, innovation, capability building and organisational renewal in leading businesses. Resource-based theory is extended to look at high-value capital goods projects with examples from telecommunications, medical, and engineering contexts.