Critical Success Factors In Integrated Product Development (IPD) Projects In Changhong Group

A company’s ability responding to marketing needs through rapidly introducingnew products has been considered as an important competitiveness of corporation. As afamous television provider in China, Changhong Group had implemented a new productdevelopment process named integrated product development (IPD) since2006toimprove the success rate of new product development (NPD). Changhong reduced thenew product time-to-market and enhanced the market competitive advantage throughthe implementation of IPD. But some issues emerged along with the new process ofpopularization. The main problem was that several project managers could notrecognize and effectively manage the critical factors impacting project performance. Asa result, the outcomes of these projects could not meet the expected goals.This study will explore the critical success factors for IPD projects in televisionindustry in China to help project managers improve the success rate of NPD. Based onthe case of Changhong Group, a conceptual framework consisting of independentvariables and dependent variables is developed.22factors divided into five groups aredefined as independent variables, and project success criteria including project quality,time,cost and customer satisfaction are viewed as dependent variables. Questionnaireand interview will be combined in this study. Respondents are composed of functionalmanagers, project managers and team members involved in IPD projects in ChanghongGroup.The results of Regression analysis show that only18of the22candidate factorshave significant relationship to the project performance, these facts can be viewed as thecritical successful factor of IPD project. The competencies of project manager arecoordinate, perception of his role and responsibility and change control. The importantfactors of team members are technical background, communication skills, solvingproblem and cross-function cooperation. Organization factors comprise top managersupport, functional manager support, incentive system and concurrent development.External environment is composed of economical environment and competitors. Projectcharacteristics include project target, project size, project resource, project value, density of project and urgency of project.Among these critical successful factors, three factors including the teamwork ofteam members, solving problem of team members and urgency of project relatesignificantly to three index of project performance, which are very important for projectsuccess. Project resource and Communication among the team members havesignificantly relationship to all of the indices of project performance, which are the mostimportant factors for project success.