Goal setting for improvement in product development performance of organizations

Companies have been constantly trying for ways and means to improve R&D performance as it is one of the most important competitive advantage tools of an organization. Literature review on R&D performance improvement suggests that, lot of focus is on measuring R&D performance and on specific problem solving approaches like six sigma and lean. Frameworks like capability maturity model integration (CMMI) and product development self-assessment tool (PDSAT) provide holistic performance assessment, but fall short on providing clear guidance for performance improvement interventions. Goal setting theory, a proven theory that is widely applied in individual performance improvement has got limited attention in R&D performance improvement approaches and frameworks. Practitioners in the industry point to the need for goal setting in R&D and identify that as a gap in current performance improvement methodologies. This thesis attempts to fill this gap by proposing DEAL framework, a practical approach for defining future goals in R&D performance improvement efforts.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Kashyap, Pankaj Kumar

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Eric Rebentisch.

• Engineering Systems Division.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/83792

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/83792