Capturing, Formalising, And Analysing Cooperation Processes : A Case Study

An organization's success is highly dependent on its ability to cooperate, both within the organization and with other organizations. This is especially true for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Yet cooperation – internal or external – does not always succeed, and the reasons for failures or shortcomings are not always obvious. In this paper, an industrial case study involving Co-MAP, a methodology for capturing, formalising, and analysing cooperation processes, is presented. Co-MAP was applied to the new product development process of a medium-sized company, and provided substantial help in locating process shortcomings and problems that had so far been hidden, although their effects had been felt.