Search results

Work in distributed project teams is always a challenge for organizations. Many researchers have studies different aspects of distributed project teams, as witnessed by the impressive number of papers published in the last decade. However, it appears that the dimensions related to organizational support have still not received much attention in empirical studies. This study investigates the dimensions of organizational support in distributed project teams that contribute most to the quality of the decision‐making process and teamwork effectiveness in distributed project teams.

The initial intent of this research was to test a theoretical model on the basis of data from the field, namely real‐life situations. A two‐step approach (qualitative and quantitative method) was used. The research model was tested in a sample of experienced project managers on distributed project teams.

The results suggest that strategic staffing and training and tools provided to team members have a positive impact on the quality of decision making and teamwork effectiveness. Team autonomy is more salient and influential in fostering decision quality in a highly culturally diverse context. Our findings also re‐confirm the link between the quality of decision making and team effectiveness. Thus, teams are perceived as vehicles for identifying and integrating various individual viewpoints and combining knowledge.

This study underscores the importance of selecting practices that enhance the recognition of team members’ contributions in the context of distributed project teams. It is now clear that managers cannot treat these distributed project teams in the same way as conventional teams. Several intervention and support methods are possible. This research contributes to identifying which of them are the most appropriate in this context.

This study contributes to research on distributed project teams and on organizational support theory. It highlights the importance of understanding the processes or dimensions underlying the consequences of perceived organizational support. It bolsters the need to select practices that enhance the recognition of team members’ contributions and treat them favourably in the context of distributed project teams.

The purpose of this paper is to verify how distributed cognition enhances collaborative problem-solving in the context of projects.

Using qualitative research and in-depth interviews, a sample of 32 project managers with experience in traditional and agile methods acting in Brazil and internationally participated in the research process. The analysis process, utilising coding techniques, involved stages: open, axial, coding and selective coding. These stages encompassed the evaluation of categories based on a hierarchy, in order to determine an appropriate level of abstraction that properly explains theoretical findings.

The results indicate that distributed team cognition is significant for collaborative problem-solving. The data from the interviews allowed the proposal of a model of cognition, and the identification of the elements that support it.

Understand how aspects of distributed team cognition can impact the behaviours of the project professional and contribute to problem-solving in the project environment.

The elements observed affects the collaborative problem-solving by presenting a model of distributed cognition, which is composed by directed communication, collective interaction, trust building and collaborative behaviour.

This paper presents a research study conducted for evaluating the effectiveness of a conceptual model of a distributed process management environment in the establishment of a collaborative building design. At the highest level, the conceptual model of the distributed process management environment have the following features: (a) enables description of a plan of a design process, (b) enables enactment of a process according to its plan, and (c) enables control and management of the enactment of a design process. The paper also presents the findings of a verification and validation (V & V) study conducted for evaluating the fit between the needs and expectations of collaborating design groups and the solution provided by the conceptual model of the distributed process management environment.

Resource selection/optimization problems are often characterized by two related problems: numerical function and combinatorial optimization. Although techniques ranging from classical mathematical programming to knowledge‐based expert systems (KBESs) have been applied to solve the function optimization problem, there still exists the need for improved solution techniques in solving the combinatorial optimization. This paper reports an exploratory work that investigates the integration of genetic algorithms (GAs) with organizational databases to solve the combinatorial problem in resource optimization and management. The solution strategy involved using two levels of knowledge (declarative and procedural) to address the problems of numerical function, and combinatorial optimization of resources. The research shows that GAs can be effectively integrated into the evolving decision support systems (DSSs) for resource optimization and management, and that integrating a hybrid GA that incorporates resource economic and productivity factors, would facilitate the development of a more robust DSS. This helps to overcome the major limitations of current optimization techniques such as linear programming and monolithic techniques such as the KBES. The results also highlighted that GA exhibits the chaotic characteristics that are often observed in other complex non‐linear dynamic systems. The empirical results are discussed, and some recommendations given on how to achieve improved results in adapting GAs for decision support in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector.

Virtual project teams are teams whose members use technology to varying degrees in working across locational, temporal, and relational boundaries to accomplish an interdependent task. Work in virtual project teams is a challenge for many organizations. Having studied the issue for several years, the authors propose in this paper to delve deeper into the question from the point of view of organizational support. More specifically, this paper seeks to focus on the organizational support systems and mechanisms provided by firms to their virtual project teams and their impacts on the components of these teams. The objective is to identify the structural factors and processes related to virtual teams that are affected by organizational support systems and mechanisms.

The paper reports exploratory empirical case studies of two Canadian‐based international high‐tech companies. In‐depth interviews were conducted with managers with experience in virtual project team management.

The same organizational support systems and mechanisms were found to exist in both companies. Functional processes were found to be the virtual team components that were most affected by the implementation of support systems and mechanisms. They are followed by communicational processes, which were substantially supported by various support systems and mechanisms in Company A but less supported in Company B. To a lesser extent, the relational processes of both firms were also affected, while structural factors affecting virtual project teams were almost entirely unsupported.

Virtual project teams require various kinds of commitments by corporate management. For example, we find that top management supports virtual project teams by means of human resources (HR), resource allocation, coordination, and communication support systems. These support systems facilitate project coordination and monitoring, information exchange and access, trust building and cohesion between team members. These findings enable practitioners to better understand the effects of organizational support on the components of virtual teams, so that greater attention is paid to the configuration of these components and support systems can be better designed to improve virtual project team performance.

Organizational support is considered to have a strong impact on project success. Few publications have examined organizational support for virtual project teams, and even fewer have focused on its effects on such teams. This paper should contribute to fostering a better understanding of the effects of organizational support on the components of virtual project teams.

THE aviation and aerospace industry has always been characterised by highly complex, even high risk undertakings. The outcome of these undertakings, or projects, is dependent on the availability of money, manpower, materials and time. Predicting the way in which these various factors interact requires powerful management tools and, for many years, the aircraft engineering and aerospace industry has used computerised planning and control systems. The most profusely used software tool is Artemis which accounts for 40% of the project management software systems in use throughout the world. Artemis was developed and marketed by Metier Management Systems, a former Lockheed company. The company is now a division of Lucas Industries plc and trades as Lucas Management Systems. Lucas is the first to point out, however, that effective project management does not end with acquisition of an appropriate software tool. Equally important is creating the right organisational structure in which project managers and all those participating in a project can perform most effectively. This is why Lucas has employed Dennis Archibald, not to sell project management systems but to educate all management levels in the discipline and methods of project management. In this article Dennis Archibald, who first encountered project management techniques as an RAF officer in the early 1970's, explains the importance of understanding project management methodologies, irrespective of the software tools which may be either in use or under consideration.

Global virtual teams (GVTs) – composed of members in two or more countries who work together primarily using information and communication technologies – are increasingly prevalent in organizations today. There has been a burgeoning of research on this relatively new organizational unit, spanning various academic disciplines. In this chapter, we review and discuss the major developments in this area of research. Based on our review, we identify areas in need of future research, suggest research directions that have the potential to enhance theory development, and provide practical guidelines on managing and working in GVTs.

As the technology evolves, the ways in which supply chain is coordinated improve. During a careful study on the intelligent wireless web (IWW) and its services for future applications, its great potentials for the implementation of a mobile real‐time system for supply chain coordination were realized. This paper seeks to introduce a development process for the IWW. In addition, it aims to explain the concept of mobile real‐time supply chain coordination, and propose and describe a practical model for this subject matter based on the most recent technologies including the IWW and agents.

Objectives were achieved through a thorough study on the IWW, agent technology, and the ways of applying them for mobile real‐time coordination in supply processes. As a method to conduct the research, first, the paper made out what the IWW services are and how one may develop them. Since mobile real‐time coordination is an absolutely innovative concept, the study prepared a comprehensive understanding of it and then, a practical framework was sketched and explained to implement the suggested system. The approach to this topic was a realistic one and an attempt was made to include all the prerequisites and details for the intended system.

In the course of the work, it was found that the IWW and other corresponding technologies have the greatest potentials ever available for the realization of a mobile real‐time supply chain coordination system and most of the chapters illustrate the claim.

Mobile real‐time coordination and its use in supply chains is something new. The development process for IWW proposed here is totally practicable and no other implementation scenario for the application of the IWW in mobile real‐time coordination has been suggested yet.

The authors propose that small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) need simpler, more people‐focused forms of project management than traditionally used by larger organizations. The authors have undertaken this research to identify to what extent SMEs use project management and what are the key components used.

Based on the results of the two previous stages of their research the authors formulate the three propositions about the use of project management in SMEs, which they test through a web‐based questionnaire.

More than 40 per cent of the turnover of small and micro‐sized companies is undertaken as projects, and in the first two years of their lives more than 60 per cent. People in these companies multi‐task, so these projects are managed by people for whom project management is not their first discipline. At a key stage of their development, SMEs undertake many projects managed by amateurs. A simplified version of project management should have requirements definition at its core, and practices for managing the work, duration and resources used. People focused methods which seek team member commitment are preferred.

The results should aid in the development of project management approaches for use by the non‐specialist project managers in SMEs. The authors have shown that different versions of project management may be required for micro‐sized and small companies (a micro‐lite version), and for medium‐sized companies (a lite version).

Project management theoreticians need to recognise that different versions of project management are required in different circumstances.

This paper aims to summarize the scope, methodology, and main findings of a doctoral thesis about cross‐company project management in the automotive industry. The concept of the collaborative project scorecard (CPS) is described and the results of its application to a project are summarized and discussed.

The project adopted an action research approach which included a series of interviews, surveys, workshops, and a case study where the developed project management concept was tested and evaluated in a real project setting.

The concept of the CPS supports the alignment of project goals with business strategies, improves transparency in networked project organizations with respect to roles, responsibilities, goal achievement, stakeholder identification, and performance assessment. Project goals is not only based on and measured by hard facts but also on soft facts such as trust and employee satisfaction. The balanced choice of common strategic project goals improves the achievement of long‐term strategies in a project partnership.

Difficulties in defining appropriate indicators are identified, and resistance to change can need to be overcome so that every project member has a clear understanding of the concept's benefits. Legal issues (contract) may need to be discussed when the concept is used by a cross‐corporate project team. The method helps the delivery of performance to become more clearly measurable.

The project gives insight into a new cross‐company project management concept that was tested and evaluated in the automotive industry. Furthermore, an information technology (IT) solution is developed and implemented, and advantages and disadvantages of the concept and its IT solution are analysed and recommendation on its application given. The project demonstrates how the Balanced Scorecard can successfully be applied to networked project environments.