COLLABORATIVE DESIGN OF VALUE IN CREATIVE PROJECTS: AN EXPANSIVE VALUE MANAGEMENT MODEL

Facing the necessity to increase their innovative capabilities, organizations are beginning to launch more and more creative projects aiming to introduce radical changes into organizations by exploring new technologies, users, ecosystems or business models. However, the fact of going beyond existing markets and established technologies implies great difficulties and uncertainties for practitioners to manage the value created by such projects. After reviewing the historical development of the two traditional models of value management in project management literature, we show that VM progressively shifts from an evaluation to a design activity. We argue that this shift permits to better embrace the dimensions of creativity and innovation involved in the projects. Drawing on the recent advances in innovation management and design literature, this research investigates the nature of the outputs (i.e. what is the value to be managed?), the ways to manage the value (i.e. how is the value to be managed?), and the beneficiaries (i.e. for whom is the value to be managed?) of creative projects. Based on a longitudinal case study with Renault, we examine how the value is managed in a creative project under Renault’s research program involving the next generation of electric vehicles. We formulate our framework around three main propositions: (1) the value resides in the exploration of the common unknown: in short, the concepts (e.g. new ideas relating to products) and the evaluation criteria that are out of the dominant design scope and for which the CPs team members are interested in (2) the value is designed by managing the distance between the trajectories of the CP and the dominant design (3) the value is beneficial to the emergence of new ecosystems.

[1]  Thomas Gillier,et al.  Managing Innovation Fields in a Cross‐Industry Exploratory Partnership with C–K Design Theory* , 2010 .

[2]  Akin Kazakçi,et al.  The generation of common purpose in innovation partnerships: a design perspective , 2012 .

[3]  R. Katila,et al.  Something Old, Something New: A Longitudinal Study of Search Behavior and New Product Introduction , 2002 .

[4]  Armand Hatchuel,et al.  Towards Design Theory and expandable rationality : The unfinished program of Herbert Simon. 1 , 2003 .

[5]  Geoffrey Qiping Shen,et al.  A group decision support system for implementing value management methodology in construction briefing , 2011 .

[6]  R. Yin.  Case Study Research: Design and Methods , 1984 .

[7]  William J. Abernathy,et al.  Patterns of Industrial Innovation , 1978 .

[8]  Stuart D. Green,et al.  Theory and practice in value management: a reply to Ellis et al. (2005) , 2007 .

[9]  V. Chiesa,et al.  Exploring management control in radical innovation projects , 2009 .

[10]  Maria Elmquist,et al.  Radical Innovation in a Small Firm: A Hybrid Electric Vehicle Development Project at Volvo Cars , 2010 .

[11]  Armand Hatchuel,et al.  Strategic Management of Innovation and Design , 2010 .

[12]  Armand Hatchuel,et al.  From Actionable Knowledge to Universal Theory in Management Research , 2004 .

[13]  James M. Utterback,et al.  Radical Innovation and Corporate Regeneration , 1994 .

[14]  John Bessant,et al.  Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market, and Organizational Change, 2nd Edition , 2001 .

[15]  Blanche Segrestin,et al.  Towards a New Logic for Front End Management: From Drug Discovery to Drug Design in Pharmaceutical R&D , 2007 .

[16]  Robert A. Simons.  How new top managers use control systems as levers of strategic renewal , 1994 .

[17]  van Luk N. Wassenhove,et al.  Get fat fast - Surviving stage-gate in NPD , 2010 .

[18]  Lawrence D. Miles,et al.  Techniques Of Value Analysis And Engineering , 1961 .

[19]  Erwin Danneels,et al.  Second‐order competences and Schumpeterian rents , 2012 .

[20]  John Kelly,et al.  Application of value management in project briefing , 2005 .

[21]  Herbert A. Simon,et al.  The Sciences of the Artificial , 1970 .

[22]  F. Ted Tschang,et al.  Unbounding the Managerial Mind , 2013 .

[23]  Richard C. Johnson.  VALUE ENGINEERING IN THE BUREAU OF SHIPS , 2009 .

[24]  Gina Colarelli O'Connor,et al.  Innovation: From Process to Function , 2012 .

[25]  Sophie Hooge,et al.  Value indicators and monitoring in innovative PDM: A grounded approach , 2008 .

[26]  Pascal Le Masson,et al.  The Value of a 'Failed' R&D Project: An Emerging Evaluation Framework for Building Innovative Capabilities , 2009 .

[27]  Michel Thiry,et al.  Sensemaking in value management practice , 2001 .

[28]  Christoph H. Loch,et al.  Lost Roots: How Project Management Came to Emphasize Control over Flexibility and Novelty , 2010 .

[29]  Richard DeMartino,et al.  Organizing for Radical Innovation: An Exploratory Study of the Structural Aspects of RI Management Systems in Large Established Firms, Journal of Product , 2006 .

[30]  Ernesto Gutiérrez.  WHEN SENSEMAKING MEETS RESOURCE ALLOCATION: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF AMBIGUOUS IDEAS IN PROJECT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT , 2011 .

[31]  Rémi Maniak,et al.  Mapping the « Full Value » of Innovative Features in Projectified Firms , 2010 .

[32]  J. Rodney Turner,et al.  The management of innovation in project-based firms , 2000 .

[33]  Gd Wood,et al.  Value management practices of leading UK cost consultants , 2005 .

[34]  Tobias Fredberg,et al.  Real options for innovation management , 2007, Int. J. Technol. Manag..

[35]  J. March.  Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning , 1991, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[36]  Armand Hatchuel,et al.  C-K design theory: an advanced formulation , 2008 .

[37]  Rita Gunther McGrath.  Exploratory Learning, Innovative Capacity, and Managerial Oversight , 2001 .

[38]  Michel Thiry,et al.  Combining value and project management into an effective programme management model , 2002 .

[39]  K. Eisenhardt.  Building theories from case study research , 1989, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[40]  Eric Brun,et al.  Managing Ambiguity in New Product Development Projects , 2009 .

[41]  Lawrence D. Miles.  How To Cut Costs With Value Analysis , 1949 .

[42]  Christophe Midler,et al.  Project-based learning patterns for dominant design renewal: The case of Electric Vehicle , 2010 .

[43]  Stuart D. Green.  Beyond value engineering: smart value management for building projects , 1994 .

[44]  Sylvain Lenfle,et al.  Exploration, project evaluation and design theory: a rereading of the Manhattan case. , 2012 .

[45]  Tom R. Burns,et al.  The Management of Innovation. , 1963 .

[46]  P. Paulus,et al.  Idea Generation in Groups : A Basis for Creativity in Organizations , 1994 .

[47]  Marco Guerci,et al.  Intervention Research as Management Research in Practice: Learning from a Case in the Fashion Design Industry , 2014 .

[48]  David Obstfeld,et al.  Creative Projects: A Less Routine Approach Toward Getting New Things Done , 2012, Organ. Sci..

[49]  Susan Albers Mohrman,et al.  Handbook of Collaborative Management Research , 2008 .

[50]  Larry W. Zimmerman,et al.  Value Engineering : A Practical Approach For Owners, Designers And Contractors , 1988 .

[51]  James M. Utterback,et al.  A dynamic model of process and product innovation , 1975 .

[52]  Elaine M. Bailey,et al.  Diagnosing Unforeseeable Uncertainty in a New Venture , 2007 .

[53]  G. O'Connor,et al.  Implementing radical innovation in mature firms: The role of hubs , 2001 .

[54]  Mei-yung Leung,et al.  Developing a soft value management model , 2002 .

[55]  Kent D. Miller.  Risk and rationality in entrepreneurial processes , 2007 .

[56]  Kees Dorst,et al.  Design Problems and Design Paradoxes , 2006, Design Issues.

[57]  A. Nerkar,et al.  Beyond local search: boundary‐spanning, exploration, and impact in the optical disk industry , 2001 .

[58]  Sylvain Lenfle,et al.  Exploration and Project Management , 2008 .

[59]  Steve Hoeffler,et al.  Imagination Difficulty and New Product Evaluation , 2012 .

[60]  Alphonse J. Dell'Isola.  Value engineering in the construction industry , 1973 .

[61]  Gina Colarelli O'Connor,et al.  Evaluating Radical Innovation Portfolios , 2007 .

[62]  Andrew B. Hargadon,et al.  Brainstorming groups in context: Effectiveness in a product design firm , 1996 .

[63]  Akın O. Kazakçı,et al.  On the imaginative constructivist nature of design: a theoretical approach , 2013, Research in Engineering Design.

[64]  Armand Hatchuel,et al.  The Development of Science-Based Products: Managing by Design Spaces , 2005 .

[65]  J. Kelly,et al.  Managing Value as a Management Style for Projects , 2007 .