Management of the individual project has the same overall parts of the programme management, but it is very much 'hands-on' management with day-to-day super- vision of the development as regards the activities, the techniques and the quality of the results. This is the basis for the quality of the outcomes and the project management's responsibility is to organise the team and its work to ensure this quality. It is a skilled task, as the project manager has to balance the quality of the outcomes against the costs and time. Also personnel management is very import- ant, as the creative designers have to be integrated to work harmoniously with the more pragmatic functional groups. The leader is usually a formal project manager, but sometimes a project champion with a less formal position leads the team.

To summarise, there are some key questions to be answered by management especially when organising the product development programme, but also at the beginning of major projects, as shown in Table 1.6.

Think Break 1. 'Product development is a top management responsibility.' Discuss this     statement and delineate top management's areas of responsibility and     how it can coordinate this responsibility with other people in the company. 2. In your company, identify the management roles in product development     and the various people in these roles - their positions in the company,     their expertise and knowledge. 3. Draw a diagram to show how these people interact in the overall product     development programme and in the individual product development     projects, to ensure project coordination and staff coordination. 4. What methods do top management, product development programme     managers and product development project managers use to ensure the     quality of the out-comes from product development and the efficiency of the     product development?

Table 1.6 Key questions in product development management

Business strategy: does it focus on product strategy and innovation strategy? Product strategy: is it a predicted, continuous development of the product mix? Does it show the product improvements and the major product innovations, which will be the basis for the product development programme? Product development programme: is it based on the business strategy and on predicted social and technological changes? Does it specify outcomes needed, time and costs? Are there clear objectives? Product development organisation: is there a multifunctional, integrated organisation uniting teams and functional groups? Are there identified organisations for incremental product improvements and for major innovations? Top management control: has top management agreed to the programme and the individual projects? Has top management set the decisions it will make throughout the project and indicated the information it needs for these decisions? Has top management identified the resources needed for the programme? Knowledge: is there the level of product, processing and marketing technologies for the planned product development? Is there product design knowledge and creative abilities to create unique products? Consumer/product relationship: does the company recognise this relationship as a major factor in product development success? Are the consumers integrated into the product development process? Systematic product development process: has the company recognised the important stages in its planned product development and designed a suitable basic PD Process, and identified variations for different products? Product design and process development: are there clear definitions of the product concept and the product design specifications? Is there integration of the product design and process development?