“Superfast!” managing the urgent: case study of telecommunications infrastructure project in Algeria

Abstract

Purpose With the aim of furthering the understanding of project speed and how to manage the urgent project, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the management challenges involved in delivering a telecommunications infrastructure project in a period of much shorter duration than a similar project. The authors wanted to understand the reasons behind the urgency and how the project management team succeeds in delivering in such a tight time window. Finally, the authors assessed the consequences (negative and positive, during and after the project delivery), knowing that the project was considered a success at its delivery, but not that it was successful at the post-project evaluation. Design/methodology/approach A case study based on qualitative research interviews with management team including the client, the main contractor and some related stakeholders, combined with case archives and internal documentation from the case project. Findings The urgency of a project or programme may lead to some negative consequences and impacts. The success seen in a short- and mid-term view is not enough to justify making acceleration decisions: thus holistic thinking and a long-term sustainable approach are needed to ensure continuity and profits. Research limitations/implications This research is based on a single case study. There are some limitations regarding how urgent and unexpected the case was managed in comparing to normal case. A second limitation is that there is no clear definition of what are normal practices such that we can say what are a normal case and an urgent case. Practical implications There are some lessons learned from this case study about managing the unexpected and the urgent. Practitioners can obtain insight into positive and negative consequences of fast project delivery from this case. Originality/value This study is unique in its content and context, since it presents the first-hand insight into a case study that seemed to be successful to some extent (short-term impact); however, negative consequences appeared within a few years of its delivery.

Sales capability creation during new product development – early involvement of sales

“…After implementing the market launch plan, it is essential to measure, control and adjust the plan according to customer needs and markets (Cooper, 2011). In any case, there must be a balance between the speed of time-to-market and the capabilities and processes of the company to avoid negative consequences in the longer time frame (Ellwood et al, 2017;Zidane et al, 2018): Literature highlight: NPD process, sales process and organisational structure are required to support efficient and systematic building of the sales-related capabilities.…”

“…Time-to-market is a key requirement for the success of new product development (NPD) projects (Chen et al, 2005;Alfonso et al, 2008;Zidane et al, 2018). However, time-tomarket is deficient as it only measures the lead time of an NPD project, when also other capabilities (manufacturing, packaging, invoicing, etc.)…”

Accelerating time to impact: Deconstructing practices to achieve project value

“…Accelerating projects has been a recurring theme in the innovation and product development projects literature (Brown andEisenhardt 1995, Ellwood et al 2017). By accelerating projects we mean the increase on the speed of the progress of a project in relation to a similar project (see also Barber 2004, Zidane et al 2018. Central themes within accelerating projects literature are drivers for acceleration, acceleration practices and consequences of accelerating projects, as exemplified in Table 1:…”

“… Time-to-market of new products and time-based competition to build competitive advantage (Mahmoud-Jouini et al 2004, Ellwood et al 2017, Zidane et al 2018, where time reduction is often more important than cost reduction (Chen et al 2010).  First mover advantage and fast follower strategy (Brown and Eisenhardt 1995, Mahmoud-Jouini et al 2004, Chen et al 2010).…”

“…Financial success, including profitability, margin, and return on investment (Cankurtaran et al 2013: 468-469).  Negative effects: Overemphasis on acceleration can have hidden costs or detrimental effect on other factors (Ellwood et al 2017: 510), and often involves the balance between positive short-term effects and negative longer-term effects (Zidane et al 2018).…”