6.6 Organising the PD Process

The PD Process, the decision-making, the outcomes, the budget and the project constraints are set and now someone has to start creating the product!

There are two dimensions in carrying out the product development activities:

     PD Process capability;

     functional/technical knowledge and skills (expertise).

Companies have various degrees of functional excellence and technical know- how; but independent of these is the skill in organising, carrying out, maintaining and improving the complex business process of product development. McGrath et al. suggested in 1992 that companies could be graded on their product development capability according to these two dimensions. Companies tend to focus in one direction - technological superiority or business process capability, but the world-class companies are trying to increase their capabilities in both dimensions.