How to Build and Manage Innovative Project Teams - Philips Research - Case Study Example

INNOVATIVE PROJECT TEAMS By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Table of Contents INNOVATIVE PROJECT TEAMS 1 Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 How to Build and Manage Innovative Project Teams 5 Case Study 8 Recommendations 10 Conclusion 11 In conclusion it has been argued that to build and manage innovative project teams, companies must heavily invest in and build on heritage relationship practices, create a talent culture, model collaborative-related behavior, and support a sense of community. Capitalize on input by attracting people from different backgrounds can help in building innovative project teams, so companies must search for ideas from workers, customers, and even competitors. The key setback that organizations experience while building project teams is recognizing innovative members who can serve in these teams. When building a HR plan, managers should create a framework that enables members of the team to be flexible in the way they use organizational resources and still remain focused on the needed outcome. 11 References 12 Executive Summary Innovation is without a doubt the backbone of all successful companies, given that it helps the business grow and prosper. Traditionally, innovation has swayed into and out of fashion, whereby it is trendy in good times and censured during slumps. However, as globalization continues to eliminate the market barriers and geographic boundaries that at one time impeded businesses from realising their potential and their ability to innovate; project teams for innovation have continued to gain popularity. Actually, innovative project teams have turned out to be main drivers of performance, growth as well as valuation. In this case, the report has provided a critical analysis of the relevant literature concerning how to build and manage innovative project teams. The study also has presented a case study about Philips Research in terms of the challenges and opportunities that the project team(s) have faced in their endeavour to introduce and implement new ideas. As argued in the report, provided that companies carry on in seeking innovative means to deliver business growth, then innovative project teams are the answer. Moreover, companies spending time openly, considerately building, managing as well as inspiring their teams will possibly succeed more as compared to those pursuing the ‘business as usual’ approach. In this view a set of recommendations of how Philips Research can ensure that their projects are able to deliver successful innovation have been presented. Innovative Project Teams Introduction Lots of businesses as mentioned by Sandmeier (2008, p.211) are not innovative for the reason that they lack the environment, culture, as well as project teams that offer a basis for innovation to take place. Basically, innovative organisations, normally experience challenges in sustaining their innovation level over a certain length of time. Still, there are a number of strategies that are cost effective and simple, which businesses can espouse to aid in building an innovative project team and culture within the organisation. According to (Leonard, 2011, p.486), hiring experienced and skilled persons can help the organisation to build on innovative culture. Time and again, HR managers employ persons with similar experience as well as qualifications, but so as to build a project team of workers that is innovative, managers must hire individuals with varied experiences as well as skills. It is imperative to recruit people with varied backgrounds, different in ages as well as those who have worked in different industries. The report seeks to examine the way project teams, at Philips Research, should be led, organised and managed to deliver innovative solutions. How to Build and Manage Innovative Project Teams The initial step in building an innovative project team is recruiting or choosing the right persons through comprehending the actual work to be performed by the project and afterwards optimizing the workers around such key activities (Singh & Waddell, 2004, p.8). Normally, creative phase is included in the work performed by innovative project so as to spawn novel business ideas. Other phases included are; analytical phase meant for comprehending the potential of business as well as a development phase for redefining ideas that are most favorable and afterwards testing them in the market (Fudge & Roca, 2013). All innovative project teams needs team members who are well-connected, who can get answers fast. According to Fudge and Roca (2013), in project teams created for innovation purposes, it is hard to disconnect the innovator from his/her network. Considering that, access to a well-built network offers acumen into a wider scope of knowledge, and also offers support for the projects. So, any innovative project team that fails to capitalize on its networks can be unsuccessful. As stated by Gratton and Erickson (2007), a good business idea commonly seals the existing gap within the market, and the idea solves a number of needs that are unmet because of lack of available solution. Innovation takes place when real customers are ready to pay for it, and not just the existence of good idea. Astonishingly, innovative project teams often disregard the essence of bringing in the skills needed to make certain there is good idea and real customers ready to pay for the innovation. While Sydow et al. (2004, p.1483) strongly considers that a diverse project team can attain the top results, certainly building a project team of persons with distinct roles, rational preferences as well as viewpoints may result in some interpersonal friction. Such variances may result in uneasiness and even conflict; therefore, paying cautious attention to the working processes of the team is an important team’s responsibility. Over the past decade, innovative project teams have considerably grown considering that novel technologies are helping companies to broaden involvement on an innovative project to a higher number of persons; thus, enabling the companies to tap into a broad pool of expertise and knowledge. With regard to diversity, the thought-provoking tasks that face organisations these days nearly at all times need the input as well as know-how of persons with unrelated backgrounds and views so as to build cross-fertilization, which can spark understanding as well as innovation. However, diversity as well generates difficulties since team members as mentioned by Gratton and Erickson (2007) works together more naturally and easily if they see themselves as being similar. The dissimilarities that constrain teamwork comprise not just ethnic group but as well educational level, age, and even occupation. More diversity as well connotes that members of the innovative project team are working with individuals whom they recognize casually, these include contemporaries drawn from outside the company or from different departments within the company. Fudge and Roca (2013) established that when a team is made of strangers with more experience and different backgrounds, then the members of the project team will less likely share knowledge or show other collaborative-related behaviours. In this case, it is imperative for managers to make certain that coaching and mentoring become entrenched in their individual daily behaviour and all through the organisation. Whereas a collective spirit can grow extemporaneously, Mullins (2007) established that managers do play a crucial part in nurturing collective spirit in innovative project teams, by supporting group activities and events or formulating practices and policies that motivate team members. So, in teams with high degree of collaborative-related behaviour, the leaders of the team are required to behave differently, and this can be achieved by their flexibility (Mullins, 2007). As evidenced by the conceptual model, a number of factors/variables can enable or impede innovation in a project team (see Figure one). Fig 1: Conceptual Model showing different factors/variables that would enable or impede innovation in a project team Case Study Philips Research is an international organization, which assists Philips (mother Company) in introducing innovations that are meaningful, and which improve lives of the people. Philips Research offer technology alternatives for innovations, especially in the health sector where it targets both emerging and developed markets. Situated at the innovation process front-end, the company practice almost everything from ideation and spotting trends to developing concept proof. Project Portfolio Management (PPM) was introduced by Philips Research, mainly for managing innovation and reflecting motivation diversity (Filippov et al., 2011, p.824). Philips Research has carefully aligned all its projects with the mother company’s business Sectors, such that the innovative projects undertaken by the company are used in main business lines for production purposes. As asserted by Filippov et al. (2011, p.824), PPM is a deep-rooted standard whose value is acknowledgeable worldwide, and so at Philips Research top managers are in charge of the main business functions, which are intimately engaged with. In this case, the innovative projects are funded by the company’s Board of Management with the intent of analysing novel business opportunities or areas of technology so as to get lasting opportunity generation. Such innovative projects as per Filippov et al. (2011) are often steered by created teams and are less directly sourced from the corporate and business strategy. At Philips Research, all innovative research projects are organised in four programmes, with three of these programmes being business sectors extension of the Philips (Mother Company). The last programme, Open Labs, is stimulated by Open Innovation concept. In the Open Labs programme, innovative projects, started and financed by outside parties are implemented, as long as they do not affect Philips’ commercial interests and through its project team it build upon current competencies. All programmes have a project team and are managed by a Programme Board, which constitutes of Account Managers and Programme Manager. Philips Research decision to introduce PPM as well as improve its project governance was associated with the changes in Philips as well as the heightening commercialisation of and competition in applied research. Considering that all research in 1980s was systematized in departments. Then, researchers delight in more freedom, and had the ability to explore novel things, which their managers believed was promising and interesting (Filippov et al., 2011, p.825). In its quest for innovative products, Philips Research has continued to experience lots of challenges, particularly in improving its PPM. Bearing in mind that there is continuous advancement in modern technology and so there is need to add more features in the PPM, a number of project management aspects have to be improved, in addition to the fact that more lines with stakeholders have to be managed due to Open Innovation. Besides that, different forms of funding necessitate a need for improved financial control and planning. Precisely, tension is there between the external contract research as well as internal annual PPM cycle, in that, when a project proposal appears eye-catching, it is housed in the portfolio without notice. This as a result makes the members of the project team to feel useless and with no authority over the projects. Besides, end users are barely involved in decisions concerning innovative project within the company. Recommendations To make innovative projects successful, Philips Research must compel its project teams to significantly invest their effort and time in building trusting relations; considering that when members of the project team know and trust each other, they may turn out to be nodes, which eventually transform into networks. Certainly, this may help if the organisation’s leadership has espoused new measures to build cross boundaries’ networks. For instance, if the organisation needs to combine a group of technological experts as well as of market so as to handle a new consumer need, then the created project team should be composed of persons from every area concerned with the project. This makes certain that key relationships continue to build up with time, even when organisational resources are redirected so as to meet market needs. Project managers at Philips Research should promote heritage relationships: in view of the fact that when members of the project know each other, they are inclined to form solid subgroups. When that ensues, the likelihood of conflict amongst the subgroups decreases. Philips Research needs to strengthen its organisational capacity for teamwork, which can be achieved by combining long-standing investments and smart short-term decisions concerning the ways of building a project team, redefining roles, and articulating tasks and challenges. Besides that, Philips Research needs to design processes so as to equal the kind of innovation necessary and also build structures in order to coordinate and access top talent globally. Besides that, the company must negotiate with the project teams with regard to the conflicting goals, power, and risk appetite, and always remain open all through the innovation project process. Undoubtedly, transparency is amongst one of the most import feature that project managers must consider, considering that project teams are shifting towards demanding and expecting transparency in all project processes. So, it is imperative to offer transparency so as to obtain the best persons to take part. Conclusion In conclusion it has been argued that to build and manage innovative project teams, companies must heavily invest in and build on heritage relationship practices, create a talent culture, model collaborative-related behavior, and support a sense of community. Capitalize on input by attracting people from different backgrounds can help in building innovative project teams, so companies must search for ideas from workers, customers, and even competitors. The key setback that organizations experience while building project teams is recognizing innovative members who can serve in these teams. When building a HR plan, managers should create a framework that enables members of the team to be flexible in the way they use organizational resources and still remain focused on the needed outcome. References Filippov, S., Mooi, H., Aalders, F. & Weg, R.v.d., 2011. Managing Innovation Project Portfolio: The Case of Philips Research. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Innovation & Management. Delft, Netherlands, 2011. Fudge, C. & Roca, J., 2013. Tips for Successful Innovation Teams. [Online] Available at: http://www.innovationmanagement.se/2012/04/12/10-tips-for-successful-innovation-teams/ [Accessed 4 February 2015]. Gratton, L. & Erickson, T.J., 2007. Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams. [Online] Available at: https://hbr.org/2007/11/eight-ways-to-build-collaborative-teams/ [Accessed 4 February 2015]. Leonard, D.A., 2011. Managing Knowledge Assets, Creativity and Innovation. Singapore: World Scientific. Mullins, L.J., 2007. Management and Organisational Behaviour. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Sandmeier, P., 2008. Customer Integration in Industrial Innovation Projects. New York: Springer Science & Business Media. Singh, M. & Waddell, D., 2004. E-business Innovation and Change Management. Delhi: Idea Group Inc (IGI). Sydow, J., Lindkvist, L. & DeFillippi, R., 2004. Project-Based Organizations, Embeddedness and Repositories of Knowledge: Editorial. Organization Studies, vol. 25, no. 9, pp.1475–89. Read More