A joint offering by the College of Engineering and the School of Business
Project Management Skills for New Product Development
New products and processes and the constant refinement and upgrade of existing product lines are the lifeblood of almost all technology-oriented organizations. Time to market is critical in a competitive global marketplace. Highly skilled resources are often scarce and need to be effectively managed and spread over a number of projects at any given time. Research and development activity durations and scheduling are often unpredictable and must be dealt with stochastically. Conventional scheduling methods do not ordinarily work well in these highly variable environments. Risks faced by new product development projects are thus more numerous and often more complex than “typical” projects, and they must be predicted and managed accordingly as they occur. Potential project and product scope “creep” must also be closely managed.
“Project Management Skills for New Product Development” focuses on these unique realities as well as the project management knowledge areas beyond the core skills of our introductory course held earlier in the week. These areas, which have unique applications within this discipline area, include:
- Human resource management
- Communications and documentation management
- Procurement management
- Project process integration
We will also review procedures and tools in several areas of critical importance in new product development projects, including:
- Multiple project management methods
- Quality and regulatory compliance
- Final project closure procedures
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