Project management: can a solution that works elsewhere simply be replicated?
A process validated in one subsidiary can easily become the template for the next project. The management question is specific: what should be checked before treating its deployment at another site as straightforward replication?
What the literature establishes
Wesley M. Cohen and Daniel A. Levinthal (1990, Administrative Science Quarterly) propose the concept of absorptive capacity: recognising the value of external knowledge, assimilating it and using it depend notably on the knowledge already available within the organisation. Having access to a solution therefore does not mean having the means to exploit it. For a deployment project, this points to examining the recipient’s capabilities, not just the quality of the template provided.
Transfer has obstacles of its own
Gabriel Szulanski (1996, Strategic Management Journal) investigates barriers to transferring best practices within companies. His analysis highlights, among other factors, the recipient’s absorptive capacity, difficulty understanding what produces the results, and the relationship between source and recipient. A procedure can therefore be accessible without its operating conditions being understood well enough to reproduce it.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that every site must reinvent its own solution. These studies justify neither that rule nor its opposite: imposing identical replication everywhere. Instead, they encourage a distinction between the elements essential to making a practice work and arrangements specific to its original site. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot decide
These articles are not controlled trials comparing different approaches to project deployment. They establish neither an optimal degree of standardisation nor an amount of training that guarantees successful transfer. In practice, counting documents delivered or sessions held measures deployment activity, not the recipient’s ability to make the solution work.
A practical check in Vevey
In Vevey, an environment shaped by the global food industry, group headquarters and SMEs on the Riviera, an exercise in SHR’s “Project Management” programme could examine the transfer of a supplier qualification process between two entities. Before deployment, the receiving team handles representative files using the proposed procedure, recording any assistance required from the source team and any adaptations linked to local constraints. The measure is the proportion of files processed in accordance with predefined criteria without intervention from the source, supplemented by a list of unresolved dependencies. This check does not prove that the project will succeed, but it helps establish whether the promised replication still requires design work. To go further: explore the Project Management training in Vevey in the canton of Vaud, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Project Management in Vevey
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