Strategically important projects involve high stakes, uncertainty, and stakeholder complexity, with contingencies and risks typically surfacing repeatedly as the project evolves. This is challenging not only for the project team (PT) but also in particular for the steering committee (SC), the top management oversight structure typically used to align a project with the organization's strategic goals. This article explores how senior executives on SCs can exercise leadership and effective oversight of strategic projects, although they have only limited time and often incomplete expertise. The SC can keep a project aligned, even with limited time, through focused understanding of the key logic and drivers of the project. The SC needs to manage the surprises and crises that inevitably arise in a difficult project through proactive analysis that goes to the bottom of the problem and by working with the PT to generate solutions.

A business model that can link a new technology to an emerging market need is the key to industry transformation. When Apple coupled the iPod with iTunes, it revolutionized the audio devices market. But most attempts to introduce a new model fail. The authors did an in-depth analysis of 40 companies that had launched new business models in a variety of industries, and here they present the key takeaways from their research. They looked for recurring features in the models and found six: personalization, a closed-loop process, asset sharing, usage-based pricing, a collaborative ecosystem, and an agile and adaptive organization. No model displayed all of them, but having a higher number of features usually correlated with a greater chance of success at transformation. (The taxi service Uber can claim five of the six.) Companies that are thinking about changing their business model or entering an industry with a new model can rate themselves on the six features to assess the likelihood that they'll be transformative.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Organizations often try to accelerate product introduction cycles by prioritizing project delivery. However, many projects have two characteristics that make optimal delivery times elusive: The projects tend to involve uncertainty (for example, they develop a new product function whose feasibility has not yet been established); and the workers have information about the status of their tasks that many don't share. Behavioral issues are as important in project timeliness as diligent planning. This article examines the difficulties of project planning and execution and describes a management innovation at Roto Frank, a German company that produces hardware for industrial and residential windows and doors. Roto, headquartered in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany, has augmented its project control system with a formal help process that encourages workers to seek and provide mutual assistance. The authors found that Roto's help process achieved a measurable improvement in project cycle time without changing formal incentives or other management systems. Its success is based largely on two factors: establishing psychological safety and encouraging cooperative behavior among workers by emphasizing their interdependence. The authors argue that this help process has the potential to accelerate projects in many environments. In developing a project planning and monitoring system that encouraged project workers to reveal private information about their tasks, Roto did not rely on financial incentives. Indeed, the authors note that incentives don't need to be monetary or career focused; they can be social and geared toward building positive relationships. Without fears of being blamed for problems, workers were more inclined to call for help rather than procrastinating or passing latent issues on to the next project worker.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, banking can be both fair and profitable--in fact, fairness can be a source of competitive advantage. The evidence for this claim comes from a segment of the financial services industry seldom associated with fairness: consumer credit. The reputation of this business--which encompasses credit cards, personal loans, payday advances, and so on--is so questionable that any claims of "fairness" are viewed by customers with extreme skepticism. But TeamBank, a subsidiary of the German Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken banking group, has successfully developed a brand that transforms the fuzzy concept of fairness into a visible and credible set of product characteristics and operating processes. Overhauling its central offering, easyCredit, involved significant organizational change and the strength of mind to reject profitable products and features inconsistent with the company's core value: "We are an honorable merchant." Product developments included offering a 30-day customer retraction period, making repayment insurance optional rather than mandatory, eliminating the penalty on partial repayments, and even offering a "protection package" that would consider changes in a customer's circumstances, such as illness or loss of a job. TeamBank addressed concerns about the new strategy by providing extensive training to employees and partners and adopted an unusual catalytic device for values-driven innovation--a scale model town symbolizing the brand.

The current discipline of project management is based on the model of the project life cycle or phased stage-gate approach to executing projects. This implies a clear definition of mission and system are given at the outset (to reduce uncertainty), and subsequent execution in phases with decision gates. It contrasts with the approach applied in the seminal projects that are credited with establishing the foundation of the discipline in the 1940s and 1950s. Those projects started out with missions that were beyond the currently possible; any solutions had to emerge over time. They succeeded by a combination of parallel trials (from which the best would then be selected) and trial-and-error iteration (allowing for the modification of solutions pursued over a period of time). Although the success of these approaches was well documented and explained by scientific study in the 1950s, today they seem to fly in the face of accepted professional standards, making managers uncomfortable when they are encountered. The project management discipline has been relegated to an "order taker niche"-the engineering execution of moderately novel projects with a clear mission. As a result, it has been prevented from taking center stage in the crucial strategic change initiatives facing many organizations today. The discipline of project management should be broadened in order to create greater value for organizations whose portfolios include novel and uncertain projects.

In June 2007, Nikolaus Bauer, the head of BMW's 2,500-employee power train plant in Dingolfing, Lower Bavaria, asked two of his production line managers, "How are we going to maintain our productivity as the workforce gets older and older?" BMW is not the only company with this concern. Corporate leaders, politicians, and labor economists in most developed nations are worried about the consequences of demographic change in their labor markets, which increasingly consist of older workers. Instead of turning to traditional approaches-firing older workers, forcing them into early retirement, or moving them to less physically demanding jobs-managers at the BMW plant let the workers themselves find a solution. The company staffed a production line with people who were, on average, 47 years old-reflecting the plant's projected demographic makeup in 2017. The workers on this pilot line, supported by senior management and technical experts, then developed and implemented 70 productivity-enhancing changes, such as managing health care and making small changes to the workplace environment. The total cost of the changes was just around 40,000 euros, but the result was a productivity increase of 7% in one year. BMW is now testing this worker-led approach in other types of plants in the United States, Germany, and Austria in order to develop standards for incorporation across the company's manufacturing organization. As global companies come to grips with the strategic challenges in the years ahead, they may find that the brainpower of their workforce is the most important differentiating factor.

Through the example of the high-profile Eurotunnel project, the case shows how important contracts and agreements are in project management. Seen through a retrospective lens, it allows students to analyse the relative contributions of market uncertainty, technical uncertainty, and behaviour alignment through contracts, to the performance problems of the effort to construct the first-ever undersea rail link between France and the UK.

The case describes the development of a radically new product within a large automobile company. It illustrates the difficulties encountered by the development team, both technically and concerning the organizational conflicts arising due to competition for resources, differing views of strategic priorities, internal resistance and insufficient relationship management with internal and external partners.

The case describes a large and complex IT integration project, after the acquisition of one metals mining company by another. As part of the integration, 40,000 PCs, applications, and the network had to be consolidated into one system. The project lasted two years and involved 1,000 people across the organization.

The case describes a large and complex IT integration project, after the acquisition of one metals mining company by another. As part of the integration, 40,000 PCs, applications, and the network had to be consolidated into one system. The project lasted two years and involved 1,000 people across the organization.

A debate in a city council committee is described in which a 'rational' discussion of issues was overwhelmed not by political allegiances but by emotional issues of group identity and fairness. The case illustrates how such 'proxy debates' can arise, where the emotional issue is different from the theme that is officially discussed.

In a revolutionary technology plant, iron ore is converted into pure iron by hydrogen reduction. The case describes the process flow, including flow diagrams, mass balances, yields, and equipment uptimes. The case then describes the fixed and variable cost structure of labor, material and equipment, resulting in an analysis of the plant economics.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. The word of the hour is "uncertainty"; it permeates all of modern life and business. Uncertainty so strongly affects companies' project management, for example, that three project management experts decided to study companies that successfully embrace it. The authors acknowledge the challenges of increased complexity, the shrinking of development cycles, and the inadequacy of traditional risk management in shifting markets. But they observe that, counterintuitively, projects conducted in such environments often have high returns. The secret is a willingness to redefine everything in midcourse on the basis of the predominant type of uncertainty. Arnoud De Meyer, Christoph H. Loch, and Michael T. Pich, professors of technology management at INSEAD Singapore, observed 16 major projects in a variety of industries. Using interviews and research on project documentation, they identify four major uncertainty categories. In variation, the project plan is detailed and stable, but project schedules and budgets drift from their projected values. Foreseen uncertainty is characterized by identifiable and understandable influences that the team cannot be sure will occur. Unforeseen uncertainty and chaos are the hardest categories to address because they require a balance between planning and learning. Projects featuring unforeseen uncertainty or chaos are common when the technology is in upheaval or when research, not development, is the main goal. At such times, a project may have successful results that are completely unexpected. Companies must learn to ascertain what kind of uncertainty is likely to dominate a project. For those that do, the authors reveal the best mix of tools and techniques to select when managing each type.

The two companies started in 1995 to develop a new breakthrough technology for converting iron ore into pure iron. The project was extremely challenging because of complexity (a three-way joint venture involving three countries) and uncertainty (new technology posing unforeseeable complications). The case describes the difficulties to make the technology work.

The two companies started in 1995 to develop a new breakthrough technology for converting iron ore into pure iron. The project was extremely challenging because of complexity (a three-way joint venture involving three countries) and uncertainty (new technology posing unforeseeable complications). The case describes the difficulties to make the technology work.

Delta Electronics, an automotive supplier, moves from delivering components to integrated systems of hardware and software. The company is facing the entry of Sun's Java and Microsoft's Windows CE into automotive electronics. Delta must decide which of the two possible standards to follow, and understand how the entry of these software platforms changes its own competitive position.

IACo. is an aerospace company developing UAVs (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles). The case describes the project of developing a bid for a large contract under severe time pressure. The case discusses project planning for rapid time-to-market.