Premium
Organizing for Product Development Projects
Author(s) -
Larson Erik W.,
Gobeli David H.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
journal of product innovation management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.646
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1540-5885
pISSN - 0737-6782
DOI - 10.1111/1540-5885.530180
Subject(s) - schedule , project management , new product development , project management triangle , process management , product (mathematics) , operations management , computer science , project portfolio management , business , project planning , project team , engineering management , opm3 , matrix (chemical analysis) , operations research , knowledge management , systems engineering , marketing , engineering , mathematics , geometry , materials science , composite material , operating system
How should companies organize to support the development of new products? Erik Larson and David Gobeli assessed the relative effectiveness of five different project management structures by comparing the performance of 540 development projects in terms of cost, schedule and technical performance. The findings contradict Peters and Waterman's popular conclusion that project teams are superior to matrix structures for developing new products and services. Both the balanced matrix and project matrix compared favorably with project teams in terms of cost, schedule and technical performance. Furthermore, the project matrix received a stronger recommendation from managers than the project team. Little support was found for either the functional or functional matrix approach to project management.