Every company that thrives on introduction
of new product as a major part of their business engine
has many new product projects underway at any given time.
In some cases they will number in the hundreds. Even the
least advanced companies do some kind of post mortem activity
to identify what went well and what presented difficulty.
Almost infinite knowledge is gathered along the project
path, if only imbedded in the mind of the person who mad
a particular intellectual discovery.
Every new product project makes a process
discovery that may well enhance speed to market, quality,
profitability or project cost. The focus of this research
is to determine the most effective way(s) to deploy this
information to benefit the company. Carla O'Dell in her
1998 If Only We Knew What We Know, published by
Free Press said, "Knowledge in repose is only potential.
Knowledge in action brings organizations alive."
This research will focus on finding the ways to best realize
the entitled gain for that knowledge.
Other work has addressed how to best capture
lessons learned by the project team without increasing
their overhead burden,how to store and archive the data
and such related measures. The challenges of this research
are to address:
