Project Management for Continuous Innovation: Management by Project Mapping

Traditional project management overwhelmingly focuses on techniques and procedures for planning and controlling. This creates a framework to confine project team members to operate within a set of processes and measurements. However, most projects require project team members to be innovative and creative. It is difficult to ask employees to think outside of the box while using a "box" style system to manage projects. In addition, much of the focus of such system is to achieve a success result in every project. Such emphasis discourages risk-taking because employees may not want to initiate projects unless they feel the chance of success is high. Inhibited risk-taking constrains learning opportunities and innovation. This book presents a strategic approach called "Management by Project Mapping" (MBPM), which systematically utilizes project management to transform a company's organizational system, culture and capability, creating a foundation upon which to achieve long-term sustainable innovation. It then presents situational practices and tools to manage different types of projects since no single project management approach is suitable for all projects. Emphasizing effectiveness and velocity with reduced administrative processes and activities in project management, this book introduces a new approach for managing people, information, tasks and schedule in projects.