6.4 Establishing key decision points and the decision makers

Many people make decisions in product development at all levels - from the top management and the Board of Directors, who decide on the overall project and its resources, to the process worker, who decides on the detail of production for the new product, and the salesperson, who decides the factors that they think will encourage the customer to buy the product. All the decisions follow on from decisions made by other people, and are linked with other decisions.

This interrelationship between decisions is not always recognised in the company and therefore important decision making is not identified. The top management receives a report that is based on the knowledge and decisions of middle management or perhaps of a product approval committee, and then makes its decision on this report combined with other knowledge it may have. The decision made by top management determines the project for the project leader, whose decisions determine how the project is to be organised.

Decisions and the knowledge used to make them are the foundation stones for product development; poor decisions based on inaccurate knowledge lead to product failures, and good decision making based on sound knowledge leads to product success.