ABSTRACT
What happens before a project eff ectively begins? What consequences are there for project performance and preparation within organizations undertaking projects? How is project preparation organized? Numerous studies emphasize the stakes of preliminary phases of a project. In the framework of the Twingo project, Midler (1993) presents “the battle of profi tability” (p. 26), “fi rst battle done by the project,” and the way in which such battle was waged. At each stage of the project, dialogue between business divisions and specifi cation of hierarchical criteria caused various battles concerning profi tability. Th e signifi cance of activities prior to detailed design and to new product development is explicitly clear (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1987) in the framework of the NewProd study of approximately 200 Canadian fi rms. According to Cooper and Kleinschmidt, project defi nition and upstream activities make up one of the three main factors of success for new products. Another study carried out by the same authors (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1996) on 161 North American businesses, which were in such varied industries as chemistry, equipment and machine tools, food processing, electronics, and automotive equipment, shows that the development process, and more particularly activities performed upstream of a project itself
(e.g., business activities and decision-making stages and points), are the main factor of success in new-product development projects. With regard to project steering, the analyses of Fray, Giard, and Stokes (ECOSIP, 1993) highlight differentiated control systems before and in the process of a project. In automotive industry projects, the authors distinguish:
• A first phase whose objective is to define product specifications, industrialization pattern, and overall budget, and during which financial decisions essentially focus on constructing alternative scenarios based on technical, industrial, and financial stakes and risks
• A second phase, during which lock-in occurs because meeting schedule and costs are priority
All of these studies and statements lead to questions about activities prior to a project’s implementation and how these activities are managed and governed. A time-related approach, however, leads to many activities concerning research techniques and processes and strategic refl ection. Our discussion concerns more particularly the project front-end phase, its characteristics, and its methods for guidance.
