Innovation project management: a New Zealand approach

Innovation creates sustainable competitive advantage and is commonly introduced through projects that generate new products, processes, systems and services. Project welfare has therefore become of increased interest to management. This trend exposes three major problems. Firstly, the timing of project management decision-making does not fit the monthly, quarterly and annual demands of accountants, management and owners for tactical and strategic decision-making. Secondly, significant innovation projects may involve new knowledge and/or new markets providing uncertainty of a beneficial outcome. Thirdly, better project flexibility is required to reduce time-to-market, accommodate changing market signals and allow projects to be managed across functional and organizational barriers. This paper presents and develops interim findings from an investigation of six successful New Zealand companies in the electronics, food and forestry sectors who routinely deal with these problems. The intent is to identify key management needs not satisfied by existing regimes as practiced