Correlates of success on customer-initiated R&D projects

Thirty-nine customer-initiated R&D projects were studied from the standpoint of those involved-salesmen, product engineers, R&D management, and R&D technical personnel. The technical and time success of the projects were correlated with six project dimensions as perceived by the R&D person working on the project, with participation and knowledge of product variables derived from management theory and with different communication patterns under differing conditions of project complexity. The results showed R&D perceptions of project priority and urgency to be correlated with time success and R&D perceptions of potential profitability to be correlated with technical success. The participation and knowledge of product variables showed no relation to project success.