Consistent goals in new technology development:: Effects of differences among team members

This paper summarizes the findings of five case studies that investigate how the members of a project team understand the goals of a project. The leading theme is the acceleration of a process for developing a new technology and the focus is on practical management work of it. It is obvious, and well-published, that the consistent goals of a project are the key factors to success in the development of a new technology. We wished to investigate in practice the conceptions of goals among the team members of a new technology development project. We focused on the differences between the official goals of a project and a team member's comprehension of them. However, the unexpected result of this study was how differently the team members of a project defined the goals. In all the cases we reviewed, considerable differences in understanding the goals of a project were observed. Motivation is one of the key factors in new technology development work. High motivation increases a technology developer's willingness to specify the goals, job satisfaction and long-term commitment to a project and its goals. The findings indicate that a project member's ability to link and communicate his or her personal goals in line with the project's goals have meaningful influence on the success in commercializing of new technology. This paper introduces the results of five case analyses and introduces created goal management procedures.