Managing Innovation : from ad hoc to Routine in French Telecom

Up to a few yeaTs ago, project management was mainly concerned with running ad hoc structures: innovations appeared only rarely and could easily be handled by firms. Themodern trend (multiplication and unsteadiness of the markets, increasing competitionbetween firms, speeding up of technical change) implies the regular launching ofinnovative products. Here, the problems to be de ait with are not only technical(performance and reliability) and economic (marketing strategy) ones, but also havemanagerial implications: internai coordination procedures have to be introduced, development cost contrai, personnel management and so on. ln this context, theintroduction of project management structures tends toward a dislocation of the decisions and strategies. The movement away from occasion al innovations towards aregular l'Iow of new product developments requires innovation routines which imposelimited bureaucratie structures. This paper refers to the findings of a field study performed in the telecommunication industry and concerns the deployment of newelectronic mailing systems