Product Development Organizations

This work explores prediction of technical communication patterns within product development organizations. Our methodology involves first predicting the patterns of communication and then measuring the actual communications to see if the anticipated linkages are realized. We applied this methodology to a commercial product development project in the electronics industry. In this case study we found that: 1) 81% of all coordination-type communication linkages were predicted in advance; 2) occurrences of frequent communications were more accurately predicted than infrequent communications; and 3) two-way communication exchange was most often observed, even where one-way information transfer was predicted. For the management of product development projects, these results imply that certain aspects of organizational design can be planned by anticipating the technical communication linkages required for project execution. Finally, a critical analysis of our methodology suggests improvements for future work. INTRODUCTION This paper describes a methodology for predicting and measuring technical communication within a product development organization. We applied this methodology to a single product development project in the electronics industry. The results offer insight into the predictability of communications within project-based organizations and provide some basis for the planning and design of organizations. This work is motivated by the critical importance of product development in today's businesses and the need to better understand communication issues in product development organizations. Successful companies, as observed by Wheelwright and Clark [1992], must anticipate and fulfill customer needs and deliver products to market faster than their competitors. In a fast-paced, global economy, only companies that do this effectively can survive. Our approach to the improvement of product development activities is based on studying the information transfers occurring between members of product development teams. Prior research on product development organizations by Barczak and Wilemon [1991] and Griffin and Hauser [1992] has analyzed patterns of communication and their relationship to the success of projects. The objective of our study is to assess to what extent patterns of communication are predictable in advance in order to enhance planning capabilities for future projects. Background Current trends in business have made product development more challenging by requiring geographically dispersed groups to work together. Pine [1993] shows that over the past decade, markets have become more fragmented, reacting to sophisticated and demanding consumers who expect easy access to low-cost products that provide solutions to specific requirements. Companies have responded with multinational product development which often requires designing products in one locality, manufacturing in another, and selling in yet another. It is often no longer desirable to design and manufacture products at the same site, or even on the same continent, since leveraging company assets across the globe is important for companies serving diverse markets [Ghoshal and Bartlett 1990]. The requirement to act globally with new and large product development projects often requires that cross-functional teams divide into several subgroups distributed over a large geographical region. Product development projects face tremendous challenges in coordinating cross-functional teams because of several barriers to communication within such teams. Barriers can arise from organizational structures, incentive systems, geographical location, cultural differences, leadership styles and project management practices.