توسعه و استفاده از مدل فرایند برای مدیریت پروژه "تحقیق و توسعه" در یک شرکت با تکنولوژی بالا:مطالعه ی میدانی

In R&D organizations of high tech firms, multiple R&D projects are executed concurrently and timeliness of project completion – i.e., developing the right products at the right times – is a matter of serious concern. Given that the priority of R&D projects and the interdependencies between the projects in a high tech firm change dynamically, high tech R&D project management is a complex and challenging endeavor. To improve the understanding and management of high tech R&D projects, this paper reports the findings of a field study where we, first, develop and empirically estimate a model that relates project priority over time with the generative mechanisms of market pull and technical challenge associated with R&D projects. Next, we develop and demonstrate the application of a process model within which the time-varying project priority model is embedded. The process model makes it possible to allocate fixed resources among competing projects with time-varying interdependencies, thereby improving the timeliness of project completion. This research was conducted in collaboration with a major U.S. high tech firm. The corporate R&D center of the firm served as the research setting for the field study. We present an application of the process model to delineate the evolution of the R&D organization with the merger of its (technology driven) parent firm with another (market driven) high tech manufacturing firm. The application of the process model generates theoretical insights that are used to develop testable propositions. Implications of the study findings and directions for future research are discussed.

High tech firms compete in a dynamically changing market place where, to survive and thrive, firms need to introduce a continuous stream of successful new products. A conventional way of addressing this need would be to reduce the development time of products (Adler et al., 1995). But simply reducing product development time as an efficiency exercise alone – rather than basing it on strategic considerations – would lead to the development of products without customers (Stalk and Webber, 1993 and Gerwin and Barrowman, 2002). Therefore, without belittling the importance of reducing product development time, the focus of this study is on timeliness – i.e., developing the right products at the right times.

The goal of this study was to conceptualize the notion of project timeliness – i.e., developing the right products at the right times – in an R&D organization where multiple projects are being executed concurrently, and develop a process model of project flow to manage project timeliness. We demonstrated the relevance of the process model to evaluate the impact of the change in project priority decisions and resource allocation strategies through its application at the R&D organization of a high tech firm that served as our research site. During the course of our field study, the parent (technology driven) firm of the R&D organization merged with another (market driven) high tech manufacturing firm. Specifically, we demonstrated the application of the process model to understand the impact of the change in project priority decisions and resource allocation strategies during the post-merger evolution phases of the R&D organization. This understanding was fundamental to enhancing the timeliness of project completion in the new R&D organization that resulted from the merger of the two firms.