Use Social Computing To Build Differentiated Product Development Processes

In recent years, leading product development organizations have proven the value of greater cross-functional collaboration to harness contributions from across the business and bring great products to market. With the rise in Social Computing among consumers and enterprises alike, development teams are further seeking to transform how they collaborate both internally and externally in key processes like ideation, requirements management, detailed development, and aftermarket support. Even as ideas about "being social" present product development with compelling new capabilities, several obstinate practicalities — such as IP security risks, volumes of unstructured data, and a fuzzy business case — work to curb this innovation. To lower the deployment hurdles, a new technology landscape is emerging that includes both traditional product life-cycle management (PLM) applications as well as many new players that help solve pertinent, last-mile process challenges. To succeed in the future, business process professionals must expand their thinking beyond traditional product development solutions and start experimenting with new social technologies.