Mario Bourgault

ERP implementation through critical success factors' management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify practical activities that are essential for managing enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation projects and that answer to the expectations of the widely recognized critical success factors (CSFs).Design/methodology/approach – This work is based on an extensive literature review on CSF, which has been followed by a Delphi survey with a panel of ERP experts. For each CSF, it obtained a range, validated by experts, of practical actions to perform, supported by the resolution of the problems usually encountered in these areas.Findings – The work carried out has a practical scope: the principles of the proposed method directly affect all actors in ERP projects and gives them practical results that they can apply immediately. When applied in the framework of the methodology the paper suggests, these actions will result in better oversight over the requirements of each area of expertise. In this way, overall grasp of the project is facilitated, reducing...

Linking manufacturing improvement programs to the competitive priorities of Canadian SMEs

Abstract The capacity of small manufacturing firms to maintain reliable and continuously improving manufacturing processes appears to be a key condition for ensuring long-term sustainability. Governments have been very active in helping them tackle this challenge, in particular by supporting the adoption of world-class manufacturing practices. Despite the many benefits of this support, its application is not always based on exhaustive knowledge of the target firms. Programs aimed at the wholesale promotion of technology, without reference to the competitiveness orientations of the firms concerned, can produce unsatisfactory results. The study described here examines this issue based on a survey of 229 small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) having received assistance under such a program. Four separate positioning profiles emerge from the study, namely potential practices, emergent practices, priority practices and realized practices. The study also provides a way to associate manufacturing improvement programs and practices with the competitive positioning sought by SMEs. The results of the research should be extremely useful to business assistance programs and to corporate decision-makers.

Risk management applied to projects, programs, and portfolios

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a review of recent risk management literature applied to projects, programs and project portfolios performed inside an organization with the aim of finding areas of opportunity to continue research and the development of current guides and methodologies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a review of recent literature published by international organizations and journals specializing in the field of project, programs, and portfolios.Findings – The review shows that project risk management is a well developed domain in comparison to the program risk management and portfolio risk management fields, for which specifically written methodologies are difficult to find. The review also demonstrates the need to include better tools to perform a continuous control and monitoring process. Integrating a vulnerability approach is also necessary in order to consider the project, program or portfolio characteristics which mediate between consequences and the ex...

Decision making within distributed project teams: An exploration of formalization and autonomy as determinants of success

Competitive advantages and access to competencies are among the most frequent motivations for developing various forms of collaborative relationships. While some firms claim to collaborate at a strategic level, as in joint ventures, others pursue collaboration at a micro level, as in projects. Collaborations at the project level involve a network of dispersed team members actively involved in common activities. This creates new challenges for effective decision making in distributed project teams, as processes are often ill adapted for facilitating collaborative work. Many researchers have studied aspects of these organizational problems. However, questions regarding team autonomy and decision-making processes remain largely underinvestigated. After reviewing the literature on key concepts related to organizational decision making, we conducted an empirical study using a quantitative approach that involved an online survey sent to project management professionals. The analysis of the data clearly indicates that success in managing distributed project teams is linked to team autonomy in conducting project activities and to formal decision-making processes. These findings also highlight the fact that a formal decision-making process is even more important for distributed teams that are highly dispersed.

Dimensions of Uncertainty and Their Moderating Effect on New Product Development Project Performance

In this study, we measure the dimensions of uncertainty, starting from the definitions constructed for and generally used in innovation projects. We then evaluate their direct and indirect effects on the performance of product and service development projects. Four dimensions of uncertainty are delimited with satisfactory validity and reliability, suggesting a differential moderating effect of the four types of uncertainty (technical and project uncertainty, market uncertainty, fuzziness and complexity) depending on the performance dimension (effectiveness and efficiency) and co-moderator (project methods and human resource adequacy). Of the four dimensions explored, technical and project, and market uncertainty are true moderators and have the largest interactive effect, fuzziness has a strong direct effect on both performance dimensions whereas complexity weakly directly influences effectiveness. The latter two also influence the relations between performance and the factors related to human resources and project management methods.

Building pragmatist theories of PM practice: Theorizing the act of project management

This article examines project management through the lens of practice. Drawing on the literature, we develop a typological model that brings together four distinct theoretical types of project management practice. Adopting a deliberately critical perspective, we show that the first three types propose a weak conception of the logical relationship between the theory and practice of project management. In contrast, the fourth type, anchored in a pragmatist conception of the theory-practice link, provides the potential to build strong theories of project management practice. A specific objective is to elucidate the distinct features of the fourth type of theory.

Multichannel Delivery of Public Services: A New and Complex Management Challenge

A strategic challenge facing all governments today is how to deliver services effectively and efficiently. At one time, they thought that they could meet this challenge by exploiting technology and going the E-government route with the promise of single-window, integrated, intelligent service delivery. Very quickly, however, they had to accept the fact that they would have to overcome a multitude of obstacles and that individual and corporate clients often preferred to receive service in traditional ways.   As a result, the delivery of public services is becoming increasingly multichannel: over the counter, by mail and telephone, over the Internet, via text and television, etc. There is therefore a need to identify some kind of model for managing this highly complex new phenomenon effectively and efficiently. By conducting research in the field with the help of case studies and international benchmarking, it was possible to identify the main variables in the degree of effectiveness and efficiency of multichannel public service delivery and develop the outline of a model representing the underlying factors.

Effects of organizational support on components of virtual project teams

Purpose – 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.Design/methodology/approach – 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 managemen...

How organizations support distributed project teams

Purpose – 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.Design/methodology/approach – 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.Findings – The results suggest that strategic staffing and training and tools provided to te...

Understanding the driving forces behind the internationalisation process of fast-moving SMEs: implications for export assistance programmes

The number of exporters among small firms continues to grow in most countries, particularly those SMEs that have developed unique capabilities and a high level of innovation. Overall, this trend supports the view, which is gradually becoming widely accepted, that internationalisation is a key ingredient of the knowledge based economy. This paper presents five case studies as a means to investigate the internationalisation process for fastmoving SMEs and to discover the driving forces behind their rapid expansion in foreign markets. The sets of factors that emerge as determinants of export performance are classified into three categories: the characteristics, beliefs and attitudes of the founder/entrepreneur; the degree of innovativeness of the firm; and the influence of external change agents. The implications for increasing the efficiency of government support programs are discussed.