"Implicit Coordination in NPD Project Teams: Exploring its Dimensions, Antecedents and Consequences"

Abstract

Cross-functional teams cope with the complexity and uncertainty of new product development (NPD) projects by coordinating the activities of their members. Recent research on team cognition suggests that effective teams are able to implicitly coordinate without overt communication or formal planning (traditional coordination mechanisms that are often associated with project delays and cost overruns). In this conceptual paper, we review the extant literature on NPD, team cognition, and proactive behavior to conceptualize implicit coordination (IC) in NPD projects. First, we propose a two-dimensional IC construct suggesting that IC is the result of both a complex cognitive process (anticipation, which refers to expectations about team members’ needs and constraints and the demands of the current task) and a behavioral process (dynamic adjustment, referring to the actions that team members choose based on their anticipations). Second, we identify factors that facilitate or impede the ability of team members to transform their anticipations into actions. We explain how these two processes contribute to improving NPD project performance. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications and limitations of this approach; suggesting IC as a complementary method for coordinating tasks and activities rather than the sole coordination mechanism for the NPD project teams.