Systematization of Recurrent New Product Development Management Problems

Abstract: One of the ways to improve the New Product Development (NPD) process is to eliminate the problems that arise over years of practice. This article describes the systematization of recurrent NPD management problems. The main NPD problems were found to be recurrent; hence, the systematization resulting from this study allows for the identification of NPD areas requiring special attention from both practitioners and researchers. This identification enables researchers to define new areas of academic research, and practitioners to focus on specific improvement projects. Eight case studies were conducted, in which 124 NPD personnel were interviewed, involving the diagnosis of the NPD process and the identification and selection of NPD improvement projects. The diagnostic method applied was the Current Reality Tree (CRT), which is a cognitive method for identifying undesirable effects (problems) in a process. Text mining techniques were then applied to identify similarities among these CRTs. Lastly, NPD categories were created to classify the NPD problems. An analysis of the rate of problems per category underlined the importance of diagnosing the NPD process. It was concluded that process and project management are just as critical as product strategy definition and human resource management. Additionally, we concluded that companies would gain greater benefits by focusing on the aforementioned areas before investing in information and communication technology. Potential pitfalls of NPD may be avoided if companies adopt proactive management actions to mitigate their NPD recurrent problems based on the results presented here.