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Building on Giddens' (1979) structuration theory, this article analyzes the interactive effect of the formal and informal structures and the agents' centrality in each on the outcomes of six technologically innovative projects in a R&D laboratory of a Fortune 500 company. To this end, it employs qualitative and social network analyses. The findings not only identify four critical project success factors but also specify how they operate. Success of technical projects is enhanced through a unique project design; one that converts positions of centrality in two task-related advice networks, technical and organizational, constructed to reflect the content of knowledge and information exchange critical to an R&D environment, into positions of centrality on the projects' formal structure.