The quality and timelines of new product development (NPD) is a critical strategic factor for the success of American organizations. Improvements in response time in the innovation process can be a source of significant competitive advantage. Three key concepts that relate to NPD improvement are: 1) best practices, or what is done (e.g., cross-functional teams, customer involvement, rapid prototyping); 2) maturity, or how well the system does what it does (a concept developed in the software engineering industry); and 3) diffusion, how widely and often does the organization perform the best practice. In combination, widely diffused best practices in a mature NPD will lead to greater organizational effectiveness and more successful products. An organization with limited capital and personnel resources which can be devoted to improvement efforts, must determine how to balance these three components. Are best practices most important? If so, which ones are most critical? Or is it more important to have a mature process, regardless of the practices? Should a few practices be diffused widely? Is it possible to diffuse best practices in an immature process? Does the nature of the environment (e.g., uncertainty or volatility in one's competitive market) alter the best strategy for success? These are some of the questions that drive the project's research objectives. The research team will refine and test a theory relating best practice, design maturity, and diffusion to various product/organizational success factors. Surveys will be developed which consequently can be used by organizations to conduct their own quality/NPD self-assessment. Deeper, exploratory studies within a few companies will be conducted to determine how the sequence of components unfold. Theory will be built using process-based models which describe how these components lead to systemic change.
