Characteristics of self-managing teams in rapid product development projects

Product development organisations are facing an increasing amount of rapid, small-scale development projects to fulfil market and customer needs. Self-managing teams have been proposed as effective means in creating new radical innovation, but their use has not been widely studied in smaller and faster product development projects, which are increasing in numbers. A multiple-case study was conducted to analyse seven business-to-business companies' product development models and the use of self-management in their rapid product development teams. The findings indicate that the companies use very similar characteristics of self-management to support rapid product development projects, but all characteristics of self-management do not support rapid product development teams. Notable success factors for rapid product development were dedicating competent developers for rapid projects, co-locating the development team, effective face-to-face communication and implementing a defined, but flexible workflow for rapid product development.