Product Development Innovation Teams: Organizing for Success in New Product Development

This book provides an introduction to product development and innovation teams. First, we identify different types of innovation projects that are characterized by different levels of risk and potential reward. The market, technology, and product category are important to understanding the risk of the product development effort. Teams are the most common way to achieve high performance work, yet the team needs to be organized to best deliver the goals and objectives of the work. Innovation teams are typically cross-functional to represent all of the functions necessary to develop the new product. As the complexity of the new product development effort increases, the structure of the innovation team moves from an embedded functional group to a self-sufficient venture team. Project leaders are key to the success of a new product development team. Leadership characteristics and team building tools are discussed to increase the chances of success.