Knowledge Management and New Product Development: Learning from a Software Development Firm

The core of the new product development [NPD] process centers on knowledge creation, utilization and the management of knowledge. This manuscript uses a software firm case to establish a framework to aid managers in deciding on an effective work design configuration for managing a NPD project. A framework is presented which identified five dimensions that affect performance in an NPD work environment including: the business environment; the social subsystem; the technological subsystem; the management system; and, the knowledge management system that provides the context within which NPD efforts are designed and developed. Our case study provided an initial support to the argument that within the context of knowledge-based firm, NPD can be designed as a set of dimensions, each of which fulfills a necessary requirement for achieving NPD sustainability. The requirements for achieving sustainability include formal and informal arenas for exchange of ideas; continuity of support and improvement efforts maintained over a long period of time; team composition reflected in the totality of the business functional areas of expertise; goals, scope and purpose defined and refined on an ongoing basis, and; effective processes for implementing continuous improvements.