Diagnosis of Project Management Practices in Product Development: A Case Study in a Dental Product Manufacturer

Abstract

Project management has become recognized by companies as a meaningful issue to the success of product development process, furthermore it provides an opportunity for competitive advantage in companies. The performance of this process can be analyzed based on the outcomes of the developed product. The outcomes depend on techniques or management tools that are used during project development. Considering this background, this final paper aims to identify management pratices in product development that took place in a dental product manufacturer. In order to do so, a structured questionnaire was developed and distributed to five key participants of this product development. The results show that the company does not follow methodologies, techniques and tools to support project management, as well as that, the company makes use only of the knowledge of the managers and the meeting of alignment of the projects in development. This means of managing cannot be considered as a standard, therefore it creates problems during the product development, such as low quality product, no meeting the deadlines and recurring change on the scope.