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- Applying social network analysis to identify project critical success factorsPublication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, AntónioA key challenge in project management is to understand to which extent the dynamic interactions between the different project people—through formal and informal networks of collaboration that temporarily emerge across a project´s lifecycle—throughout all the phases of a project lifecycle, influence a project’s outcome. This challenge has been a growing concern to organizations that deliver projects, due their huge impact in economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Inthiswork,aheuristictwo-partmodel,supportedwiththreescientificfields—project management, risk management, and social network analysis—is proposed, to uncover and measure the extent to which the dynamic interactions of project people—as they work through networks of collaboration—across all the phases of a project lifecycle, influence a project‘s outcome, by first identifying critical success factos regarding five general project collaboration types ((1) communication and insight, (2) internal and cross collaboration, (3) know-how and power sharing, (4) clustering, and (5) team work efficiency) by analyzing delivered projects, and second, using those identified critical success factos to provide guidance in upcoming projects regarding the five project collaboration types.
- Identifying project corporate behavioral risks to support long-term sustainable cooperative partnershipsPublication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, António; Saraiva, CéliaProjects are considered crucial building blocks whereby organizations execute and implement their short-, mid-, and long-term strategic visions. Projects are thought, developed, and implemented to solve problems, drive change, satisfy unique needs, add value, and exploit opportunities, just to name a few objectives. Although existing project management tools and techniques aim to deliver projects with success, according to the latest reviewed literature, projects still keep failing at an impressive pace. Among the extensive list of factors that may threaten project success, several articles from the research literature place particular importance on a still underexplored factor that may strongly lead to unsuccessful project delivery. This factor—usually known as corporate behavioral risks—usually emerges and evolves as organizations work together to deliver projects across a bounded period of time, and is characterized by the mix of formal and informal dynamic interactions between the different stakeholders that constitute the different organizations. Furthermore, several articles from the research literature also point out the lack of proper models to efficiently manage corporate behavioral risks as one of the major factors that may lead to projects failing. To efficiently identify and measure how such corporate behaviors may contribute to a project’s outcomes (success or failure), a heuristic model is proposed in this work, developed based on four fundamental fields ((1) project management, (2) risk management, (3) corporate behavior, and (4) social network analysis), to quantitatively analyze four critical project social networks ((1) communication, (2) problem-solving, (3) advice, and (4) trust), by applying the theory of social network analysis (SNA). The proposed model in this work is supported with a case study to illustrate its implementation and application across a project lifecycle, and how organizations can benefit from its application.
- Management of dynamic production networks from a critical chain perspectivePublication . Tenera, Alexandra; Abreu, AntónioCollaborative networks are typically assumed to bring clear benefits and competitive advantage to the participating members. However, as the networks are typically formed by heterogeneous and autonomous enterprises, the development of methodologies that facilitates the management process is an important element for the wide adoption of this paradigm. Departing from a brief presentation of Critical Chain Project Management Concepts, this paper introduces an approach of these concepts to collaborative networks and discusses its potential application in the context of a dynamic production networks. Finally, experimental results based on data from a network in construction industry are presented.
- A model to manage cooperative project risks to create knowledge and drive sustainable businessPublication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, António; Saraiva, CéliaEfficient cooperation between organizations across all the phases of a project lifecycle is a critical factor to increase the chances of project success and drive sustainable business. However, and according to research, despite the large benefits that efficient organizational cooperation provides to organizations, they are still often reluctant to engage in cooperative partnerships. The reviewed literature argues that the major reason for such a trend is due to the lack of efficient and actionable supportive models to manage organizational cooperative risks. In this work we propose a model to efficiently support the management of organizational cooperative risks in project environments. The model, MCPx (management of cooperative projects), was developed based on four critical scientific pillars, (1) project risk management, (2) cooperative networks, (3) social network analysis, and (4) business intelligence architecture, and will analyze in a quantitative way how project cooperative behaviors evolve across a bounded time period, and to which extent they can turn into a cooperative project risk (essentially potential threats). For this matter, the MCPx model will quantitatively analyze five key project cooperative behavioral dimensions, (1) communication, (2) information sharing, (3) trust, (4) problem solving and (5) decision making, which show how dynamic interactions between project stakeholders evolve across time. The implementation and functioning principles of the MCPx model are illustrated with a case study.
- A critical chain perspective to support management activities in dynamic production networksPublication . Tenera, Alexandra; Abreu, AntónioCollaborative networks are typically assumed to bring clear benefits and competitive advantage to the participating members. However, as the networks are typically formed by heterogeneous and autonomous enterprises, the development of methodologies that facilitates the management process is an important element for the wide adoption of this paradigm. Departing from a brief presentation of the Critical Chain Project Management approach, the paper introduces this approach to collaborative networks and discusses its potential application in the context of a dynamic production networks. Finally, experimental results based on data from a network in construction industry are presented.
- A new approach for agile teams' allocation in open innovation projectsPublication . Anes, Vitor; Abreu, António; Dias, Ana; Calado, João Manuel FerreiraDue to constant change in the marketplace, it can be difficult for companies to secure the material, human, and technological resources necessary for competitive innovation activities. In this sense, and to overcome these constraints, the open innovation model is a quite successful approach, where the sharing of resources among companies allows the formation of an innovation ecosystem. However, the execution time of these projects can be negatively affected if the performance of each work team is not taken into account. In this work, the application of the agile approach in open innovation projects is proposed as a way to reduce the uncertainty both in the execution time of the projects and in the respective implementation costs. In this sense, a methodology for optimal team assignment for agile teams in open innovation projects according to their performance on each project task is developed to determine the optimal team assignment that leads to the shortest project execution time. This methodology will support decision making in the project management of open innovation projects, especially in the selection of the internal and external work teams that will participate in a given innovation project. The application of the proposed methodology is illustrated with an example describing and analyzing the different steps of its application. The results show that with the proposed methodology it is possible to take into account the performance of each team when calculating the project execution time and that the project execution time varies depending on the assignment of the agile teams to the project tasks. It is also shown that it is possible to determine the optimal assignment with the shortest project execution time.
- Applying social network analysis to support the management of cooperative project's behavioral risksPublication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, AntónioAccording to several literature sources and bodies of practices, effective cooperation between organizations in the deliver of projects is a critical success factor for project successful outcome. Nevertheless, it seems that organizations are still reluctant to engage in cooperative networks more than it would be expected. The major reason for this - according to several literature sources - is due to a lack of efficient models to support organizational cooperative networks. This work introduces a model that contributes to the management of organizational cooperative networks, by adressing behavioral risks that usually emerge as organizations engage in cooperative networks to deliver projects. The proposed model was developed based on four key pillars ((1) project management, (2) risk management, (3) cooperative networks, and (4) social network analysis centrality metrics), and will analyze how four critical organizational cooperative informal networks ((1) trust, (2) problem-solving, (3) advice, and (4) communication), emerge and evolve throughout the different phases of a generic project lifecycle. The development and implementation of the proposed model is supported by a case study.
- An overview of critical chain applied to project managementPublication . Correia, Francisco; Abreu, AntónioThe characterization and assessment of the Critical Chain (CC) approach and the adaptation of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) to Project Management is an important element to help promoting the development of this field. Starting with a brief discussion about the CPM method and PERT method, this paper introduces some discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of the CC concerning to traditional approaches.
- Seis sigma business scorecard no desenvolvimento de projetos de manutenção num contexto colaborativoPublication . Requeijo, José; Abreu, António; Calado, João Manuel Ferreira; Dias, A. S. M. E.De acordo com a perspectiva tradicional a função manutenção é conotada como uma atividade secundária consumidora de recursos humanos e financeiros, razão pela qual, muitas empresas utilizam como estratégia de manutenção há já vários anos, a subcontratação dos serviços de manutenção a empresas especializadas. No entanto, a necessidade em efetuar operações de manutenção em sistemas cada vez mais complexos requer acesso a vários tipos distintos de competências que as pequenas e médias empresas especializadas em serviços de manutenção geralmente não possuem. Este artigo tem como objetivo ilustrar o papel da abordagem Six Sigma Scorecard como instrumento de gestão para a melhoria da qualidade no serviço prestado num contexto colaborativo. O artigo começa por discutir os princípios da filosofia Six Sigma e do Balanced Scorecard. Em seguida, é discutido de que modo se pode fazer a associação das duas metodologias como instrumento de gestão. Por último, é discutido como é que esta abordagem pode ser aplicada na avaliação das atividades de manutenção no contexto de um ecossistema colaborativo. According to the traditional perspective the maintenance function is counted as a secondary activity consuming human and financial resources, which is why many companies, use as maintenance strategy for several years, the subcontracting of maintenance services to specialized companies. However, the need to perform maintenance operations on increasingly complex systems requires access to several distinct types of skills that small and medium-sized firms specialized in maintenance services generally do not have. This paper aims to illustrate the role of the Six Sigma Scorecard approach as a management tool for improving quality in service provided in a collaborative context. The article begins by discussing the principles of the Six Sigma and the Balanced Scorecard backgrounds. It is then discussed how the two methodologies can be combined as a management tool of maintenance activities. Finally, it is discussed how this approach can be applied in the assessment of maintenance activities in the context of a collaborative ecosystem.
- Applying social network analysis to identify project critical success factorsPublication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, AntónioA key challenge in project management is to understand to which extent the dynamic interactions between the different project people—through formal and informal networks of collaboration that temporarily emerge across a project´s lifecycle—throughout all the phases of a project lifecycle, influence a project’s outcome. This challenge has been a growing concern to organizations that deliver projects, due their huge impact in economic, environmental, and social sustainability. In this work, a heuristic two-part model, supported with three scientific fields—project management, risk management, and social network analysis—is proposed, to uncover and measure the extent to which the dynamic interactions of project people—as they work through networks of collaboration—across all the phases of a project lifecycle, influence a project‘s outcome, by first identifying critical success factos regarding five general project collaboration types((1) communication and insight, (2) internal and cross collaboration, (3) know-how and power sharing, (4) clustering, and (5) team work efficiency) by analyzing delivered projects, and second, using those identified critical success factos to provide guidance in upcoming projects regarding the five project collaboration types.