Purpose – This paper reports the study of key success factors (KSFs) in the project management of the implementation of strategic manufacturing initiatives (SMIs). Design/methodology/approach – In order to gather the experience and knowledge of many industries, from different geographic...

Purpose – Seeks to focus on operations priority patterns and operations strategy. Configurations by testing them in a specific environment which contributes to demonstrating their applicability and generalizability. Design/methodology/approach – Using data from 130 Spanish companies with...

Purpose – This paper aims to describe three exploratory field studies investigating which characteristics add to later time to market and/or low product functionality of newly developed products. The studies are conducted at the level of developments tasks, or work packages. The first and...

Purpose – Post‐project reviews (PPRs) are widely recommended as an appropriate mechanism to stimulate project‐to‐project learning in new product development (NPD) teams. However, empirical research on their potential is limited and so this study aims to answer two questions: how do NPD...

Purpose – This paper seeks to empirically investigate how a heavyweight product manager (HW) can impact the cross‐functional team and project performance (PP) through actively influencing the ways and the extent of strategic alignment (SA), shared project mission, and clarity of project...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the importance of a fit between project managers' (PMs) personalities and the “personalities” of their projects, for project success; taking a psychological rather than a project management perspective. Design/methodology/approach –...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to set out to identify key team factors associated with the fast implementation of capital projects. Although scholars theorise that project success depends as much on the effective management of project personnel as on technical management, the project...

Purpose – The platform strategy adopted by firms in a multi‐project context reduces lead‐time and development cost, enhances reliability, allows mass customization and increases manufacturing flexibility. While the major challenges of this strategy have been highlighted, the evolution of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to operations management (OM) practice contingency research by describing the complexity of projects. Complexity is recognised as a key independent (contingent) variable that impacts on many subsequent decisions in the practice of managing...