9.1. Introduction

Teamwork is not a new idea. However, the process of team-building has become more complex. It requires more specialized management skills as bureaucratic hierarchies decline and horizontally oriented teams and work units change. More than at any other time in history, product development managers must pay attention to effective teamwork.

This has strong implications for organizational process and leadership. Not too long ago, product management was widely considered a "management science." Most managers ensured successful integration of their product development projects by focusing on properly defining the work, timing, and resources, and by following fixed procedures for project tracking and control.

Today, these skills are still necessary. However, they have become threshold competencies and are not sufficient to guarantee product success. Today's business world needs project teams who are fast, are flexible, and can work dynamically and creatively toward objectives in a changing environment (Bhatnager, 1999; Jasswalla and Sashittal, 1999; Thamhain, 2001).

To work this way requires effective networking and cooperation among people from different organizations, support groups, subcontractors, vendors, government agencies, and customer communities. It also needs the skill to deal with risks caused by technological, economic, political, social, and regulatory changes.

Often the project manager becomes a social architect who understands how organizational and ...

Get The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.