Beyond Advanced Project Management: Renewing Engineering Practices and Organisations

Abstract

The new approaches to project management currently being deployed in companies radically alter the practices of the participants and the balance of power between them. The literature on this topic has concentrated on analysis of the role of the project manager, internal project management, or even overall management of a project portfolio. What are the consequences of this systematisation of concurrent engineering for the departments involved? How can project-based approaches be developed without undermining professional skills which are also key resources in the race to design innovative products? These issues are of fundamental importance in the transition currently under way. We discuss them in the present chapter through the case of a major French chemical corporation, where we study the reorganisation of engineering departments.

We propose a tnree level framework of analysis for such changes. First, we show how concurrent engineering approaches alter the setting in which experts take part. Then, we study how it affects the fundamentals of professional practice. Finally, these radical changes also affect the ways in which engineering activities and those conducting them are assessed.