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Patterns of Task Change Due to Ambiguity in New Product Development

The New Product Development (NPD) process begins with a set of more or less ambiguous concepts that define required product characteristics and features. As the product is completed, the meaning of the concepts becomes precisely specified and a concrete product identity gradually takes shape. New product ideas are cleaned up and crystallized through a network of functional specialists from different organizational units, each with different knowledge. Within the company we investigated, communication between functional experts and the integration of their dispersed knowledge is the process by which a project’s complexity is handled (Becker, 2001; Becker and Zirpoli, 2003). Communication and the project’s task structure are greatly impacted by the appearance of undiscovered work which is often due to ambiguity in the product’s initial specification. Unfortunately the nature of ambiguity is such that it cannot be anticipated, but with enough knowledge about its effects managers can build flexibility into their processes to cope.