Evaluating the Quality of Planning in New Product Development Projects

Abstract

The research and development industry shifts significant resources, from physical products to software. This is triggered by the need to stay competitive in a tough market. However, the poor performance of new product development in the field of software development may restrict this trend. Following a research stream that focuses on NPD planning, we introduce the quality of planning evaluation model (QPEM) and a knowledge base for improving the quality of planning evaluation. QPEM suggests planning quality should be evaluated using two distinct and complementary approaches of top-down and bottom-up for enhancing the accuracy of planning: a) an established measure that assesses 16 planning products and b) a novel measure that assesses 55 factors that affect project performance. This second measure uses cognitive maps, which is a methodology based on expert knowledge that graphically describes the behaviour of a system, and represents the project manager’s know-how and characteristics, technological expertise, top management support, enterprise environmental factors, and the quality of methods and tools in a form that corresponds closely with humans’ perceptions. The alignment between these two approaches is demonstrated through multiple case studies. Show more