Project Team Attributes for Risk Management in the Product Design Process

The attributes of the project team play a fundamental role in the product development process (PDP), since they, have a significant influence on the conducting of activities, making of decisions and liaison with customers. The importance of the project team is also recognized in the management of the potential risks that can appear during the PDP, because risk management (RM) depends strongly on the company culture and the commitment of the project team involved. However, in general, the culture of a company is not pro-active in the sense of anticipating potential problems that may appear and generally the project team resists analyzing these potential problems for fear of exposing and consequently committing themselves. In this regard, this paper presents a brief introduction on product development and its importance and management. Subjects related to risk management, the product design process and the project team are then discussed. Following this, attributes that influence the acting of the project team in relation to RM, which are considered essential for the successful introduction of the RM processes, are defined. And finally, an analysis of risk management is presented based on the profile of the project team.