A Highly Flexible Project Maturity Management Method for the Early Phase of Product Development
Year: 2009
Editor: Norell Bergendahl, M.; Grimheden, M.; Leifer, L.; Skogstad, P.; Lindemann, U.
Author: Jahn, Tobias; Binz, Hansgeorg
Series: ICED
Section: Design Processes
Page(s): 119-132
Abstract
The development process of innovative systems, especially in the very early phase, is characterized by high uncertainty and has high influence on the succeeding development tasks. But still it lacks of harmonized methods and criteria for project evaluation and maturity controlling. In particular, the very dynamic development process of innovative systems needs an efficient integration of project maturity controlling, objective controlling, knowledge transfer and decision processes. The maturity controlling for innovation projects needs to be highly flexible, lean, and with adaptable controlling intensity for a broad scope of project ideas. This paper discloses an iterative project maturity management process for innovative early phase projects on the basis of a refined stage-gate process that fulfills the early phase requirements. The maturity controlling method has been put into practice in 2007 to optimize the multi-project management of the pre-development phase of the German car manufacturer BMW.
Keywords: Innovation management, project maturity management, automotive industry, early phase