Product development teams become better at learning cycles of “acquire – assimilate – apply” with experience.
acquire the information they need,
assimilate it and combine it with their existing knowledge; and,
apply the knowledge they have generated to developing the new product
Consequently, time to market will decrease for similar new products as a team becomes more experienced.
Another consequence is that changing team members during a project will increase time to market for that project.
DO NOT:
Change team members during a project
Changing team members during a project will increase time to market for that project. For example, changing the team leader will increase time to market by at least a month and changing a team member will increase time to market by 2 weeks to a month. So, if at all possible, do not change the team members during a project.
However, movement between teams can be good for some team members, so this should be possible after a project has ended.
Have team members working on too many projects.
Key team members should be working on one or two projects at a time.
Key team members should be working on the project for at least 50%, and preferably 75%, of their time.
Some team members should be working on only this project.
