This project is a PhD research project.

Project Overview

The research project is about strategic project management and project strategy for product innovation. You have been invited to participate in the research because of your involvement in product innovation projects in roles such as: project manager, program manager or product portfolio manager. Participation is voluntary and confidential.

We want to increase the understanding of how strategic project management and project strategy contribute to successful product innovation efforts. Strategic Project Management is defined as the process involved in the formulation and implementation of Project Strategy. Project Strategy is defined as the output of the strategic project management process. Thus, the strategic project management process generates insight that can be used by project managers to design the project strategy. The project strategy can then be used and modified to successfully navigate the often uncertain and unpredictable product innovation project journey.

Many product innovation projects do not adequately develop an effective project strategy. This leads to poor choices of project leadership styles, and misalignment between project characteristics, organisational systems and firm and industry contexts, resulting in poor project business results. The project management community and professional project management organisations are recognising that project managers need to advance their skills beyond the traditional technical competencies to lead successful projects. Based on surveys, skills in leadership, strategic management and business management are now regarded as important to project managers. In this light, it is striking that business and strategic level thinking is rarely examined in detail in the project management literature.  This research project aims to address this challenge.

Your input will provide critical information on identifying the role of strategic project management and project strategy for product innovation. The project will contribute to the practice of product innovation management by providing an integrated framework, models and approaches that will help project managers navigate product innovation projects efficiently and effectively through the often uncertain and unpredictable journey from idea to commercialisation. The project has been approved by the CQUniversity’s Human Research Ethics Committee, clearance number H16/05-124.

Participation Procedure

Participation involves completion of an online consent form and online questionnaire estimated to take no longer than 45 minutes to complete and a subsequent follow-up interview. The follow-up interview can be conducted online. It can be arranged at a time convenient to you and will take no more than 60 minutes. The interview will be audio recorded.

Confidentiality / Anonymity

Data will be securely stored for five (5) years after the publication date of the last publication based upon the data in accordance with the CQUniversity Australia policy. To preserve anonymity and maintain confidentiality of participants, fictitious names will be used in all publications.

Feedback / Publication of Results 

A statement of results can be emailed to participants who request this and who provide an email address on the consent form. The researcher will use the information gained from the research toward the publication of a PhD thesis, as well as associated articles, reports, conference papers an journal articles.

Risk

Whilst there are no perceived risks associated with the interview, if at any point you feel some discomfort at discussing your project management experiences, you are not obligated to answer every question and you may withdraw from the study at any time without prejudice.

Consent / Right to Withdraw

Online participation consent will be required before commencement of the online questionnaire and interview. You are not obliged to answer every question and you may withdraw from the study at any time, with data not being used, prior to answering the last question in the questionnaire/interview. You can of course withdraw without prejudice or penalty.

Questions/ Further Information

The CQUniversity researchers you can contact for queries or to request a copy of the research findings are:

Mr. Tage Andersson on phone +61 7 4930 9334 or email t.andersson@cqu.edu.au,

PhD Candidate and Lecturer of Management at CQUniversity, School of Business and Law, Rockhampton Campus, Australia.

Dr. Ross Chapman on phone +61 2 9324 5773 or email r.chapman@cqu.edu.au,

PhD Supervisor and Professor of Management at CQUniversity, School of Business and Law, Sydney Campus, Australia.

Concerns / Complaints

Please contact CQUniversity’s Office of Research on +61 7 4923 2603; E-mail: ethics@cqu.edu.au; Mailing address: Building 32, CQUniversity, Rockhampton QLD 4702) should there be any concerns about the nature and/or conduct of this research project.