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  • Applying social network analysis to identify project critical success factors
    Publication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, António
    A 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.
  • Organizational and methodological influence of risk management in projects
    Publication . Gomes, Diogo Francisco; Dias, Ana Sofia Martins da Eira; Navas, Helena; Abreu, António
    Project risk management is essential to manager`s decision making and business success, because it allows the manager to identify, analyse and decide on the most appropriate way to respond to different adversities that may arise during the development of new products, services, processes, projects, continuous improvement, etc. This requires a mind-set that risks have a major influence on the bottom line and use analytical methods or risk management software. It is essential to integrate the entire organizational structure into risk mitigation intervention. The purpose of this paper is to address some of the important topics to consider for well implemented and successful risk management. An approach is taken at both organizational and methodological levels.
  • Identifying project corporate behavioral risks to support long-term sustainable cooperative partnerships
    Publication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, António; Saraiva, Célia
    Projects 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.
  • A model to manage cooperative project risks to create knowledge and drive sustainable business
    Publication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, António; Saraiva, Célia
    Efficient 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 framework based on fuzzy logic to manage risk in an open innovation context
    Publication . Santos, Ricardo; Abreu, António; Calado, João Manuel Ferreira; Soares, José Miguel; Martins, José Duarte Moleiro
    Virtual enterprises (VE), is well-known to make use of open innovation to achieve competitiveness, through innovation on product development. However, its limited resources, combined with the innovation resulted from the diversity of partners involved, rises some challenges to its management, specifically regarded with risk management. To fulfill these requirements, risk management's models, have been conceived to assist managers, on preventing threats with such risks, although without adequately incorporate the influence of each process domain on product development, as well as the subjectivity regarding human perception. In order to consider these issues, this work presents an approach, supported by fuzzy logic, to assess the risk's level on product development in an open innovation context. The model robustness, will be assessed through a case study, where it will be also discussed the benefits and challenges found.
  • Exploratory study on risk management in open innovation
    Publication . Rosas, João; Urze, Paula; Tenera, Alexandra; Abreu, António; Luis M. Camarinha-Matos
    Open innovation is a strategy with increasing adoption by value-seeking companies using or sharing technology with the outside world. But this strategy is also accompanied by risk. However, risk management seems to have been overlooked by researchers on open innovation networks. This exploratory work clarifies to what extent the issue of risk has been considered in open innovation research. Presented results are based on interviews and analysis of existing literature on open innovation.
  • Applying social network analysis to support the management of cooperative project's behavioral risks
    Publication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, António
    According 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.
  • Applying social network analysis to identify project critical success factors
    Publication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, António
    A 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.
  • Managing open innovation project risks based on a social network analysis perspective
    Publication . Nunes, Marco; Abreu, António
    In today’s business environment, it is often argued, that if organizations want to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, they must be able to innovate, so that they can meet complex market demands as they deliver products, solutions, or services. However, organizations alone do not always have the necessary resources (brilliant minds, technologies, know-how, and so on) to match those market demands. To overcome this constraint, organizations usually engage in collaborative network models—such as the open innovation model—with other business partners, public institutions, universities, and development centers. Nonetheless, it is frequently argued that the lack of models that support such collaborative models is still perceived as a major constraint for organizations to more frequently engage in it. In this work, a heuristic model is proposed, to provide support in managing open innovation projects, by, first, identifying project collaborative critical success factors (CSFs) analyzing four interactive collaborative dimensions (4-ICD) that usually occur in such projects—(1) key project organization communication and insight degree, (2) organizational control degree, (3) project information dependency degree, (3) and (4) feedback readiness degree— and, second, using those identified CSFs to estimate the outcome likelihood (success, or failure) of ongoing open innovation projects.
  • A framework for risk assessment in collaborative networks to promote sustainable systems in innovation ecosystems
    Publication . Santos, Ricardo; Abreu, António; Dias, Ana; Calado, João Manuel Ferreira; Anes, Vitor; Soares, José
    Nowadays—and due to an increasingly competitive world—organizations need to collaborate in an open innovation context to be e_cient and e_ective by achieving high levels of innovation with their products and services. However, the existing resources—as well as the innovation achieved from the diversity of partners involved—brings challenges to the management; in particularly with risk management. To fulfill such needs, risk management frameworks have been created to support managers, on preventing threats with systems development, although without properly account the influence of each system component, on the entire system, as well as the subjectivity within human perception. To account for these issues, a framework supported by fuzzy logic is presented in this work, to evaluate the risk level on system development in open innovation environment. The approach robustness is assessed by using a case study, where the challenges and benefits found are discussed.