The effect of organization architecture on new product development

Executives at many companies have recognized the importance of improving the time their firms require to deliver new products to market. Often they address the problem by enhancing the product development process to yield faster time to market. While this approach may yield some improvements, executives can achieve significantly better results by examining the underlying architecture of the organization which effects the product development process. We examine the theory and the practice of this idea. After describing the concept of organization architecture, we examine the role of the organization in the time to market aspects of product development. We then apply the fundamental organization tenets to the activities of a product development team. To illustrate the effectiveness of this approach, we describe a new multifunction digital systems product of moderate complexity (over 300 K lines of software) and the organization activities used in its development. The results show a dramatic increase in productivity; the product was delivered to the market in less than half the benchmark time. We conclude with a description of the role of management in organizing a firm for rapid time to market.