Product innovation in a business organization requires team work. Product innovation is a project, which requires different team members to play different roles. The organization of the team and communication among team members during innovation is crucial to the success of the team. Effective organization requires that team members with the most suitable skills to work on the innovation project be selected.
The teams should also be multi-disciplinary in nature incorporating members from operation department, technical marketing and sales. Members from these various disciplines are required to cooperate when working as a team in order to eliminate communication barrier that may be brought by conflict of interest.
The innovation team is supposed to work on the project from its initiation to the end and remain accountable. The project should also have a leader who will be responsible for the implementation of the ideas behind the project, and project teams should accountable for the outcome of the project.
However, for the project to succeed, the project team should have an effective communication system. An effective communication system can be realized through a centralized information sharing system. This helps multiple teams work simultaneously on the same idea even if they are at different locations.
To ensure that the product teams are communicating well, a business organization should make sure that the information received by product teams are relevant to the current project they are working on and in harmony with the decisions of the organization. Effective communication among product teams also requires that the information passed to the product team to be accurate especially with regard to the potential cost of the project.
Product development teams should, therefore, not be supplied with information outside their area of interest because this has the potential distorting the decision process. Effective communication among product teams also requires that these teams should be provided with exhaustive information, especially during the initial stages of product development.
Good communication in product development teams also requires that the business organization to ensure communication and collaboration between the firm and its customers. This is because new products in a company are normally developed on behalf of the customers. Prototyping is another method that can be used to ensure the product teams communicate well.
Prototyping refers to the process of representing the product being developed. Prototypes enable communication between product designers in an organization and consumers. This ensures that the product design team accurately captures the needs of customers in their design to avoid rejection of the product after it is complete.
Another important characteristic of shared information system is that this system needs to be cost effective in order to enable easy communication among product development teams. The communication system used by product development team should also be efficient when it comes to gathering information.
Shared information systems enable product development teams to make accurate decisions by providing analysis tools and information models. A good information sharing system also reduces risks by enable efficient risks assessment based on the information gathered.
Teamwork in product development that is integrated with effective communication has the potential of encouraging constant innovation in a company through product development. Basically, a shared information system should be in a position to supply relevant information, minimize risks, and ensure the objective of the product development teams is met.