This paper examines the effect on product development of project scope: the extent to which a new product is based on unique parts developed in-house. Using data from a larger study of product development in the world auto industry, the paper presents evidence on the impact of scope on lead time...

This paper argues that the architecture of a codebase is a critical factor that lies at the heart of the open source development process. We define two observable properties of an architecture: (1) modularity and (2) option value. Developers can often make informed judgments about modularity and...

While product development efforts are often viewed a unique configurations of idiosyncratic tasks, in reality different projects within an organization often exhibit substantial similarity in the flow of their constituent activities. Moreover, while most of the planning tools available to...

Total productivity learning curve results are reported for several departments of an electronic equipment manufacturer with plants in the U.S., Europe and Asia. These results were used to focus qualitative field investigations into the behavioral and cognitive determinants of considerable...