3.3 R&D Organization

The third decision dimension is concerned with the organization of the R&D staff involved in the development of shared components. Again, we have three alternative models that we discuss.

3.3.1 Mixed responsibility for product teams

The first model, not requiring any changes to the formal R&D organization, is where product teams assume responsibility for developing one or more shared components in addition to evolving the product or products in their portfolio. There are two alternative approaches. A product team may evolve a shared component with functionality needed for one of their products, releasing a new version of the shared component that can, at later stage, be extended with other functionality by another product team. Alternatively, a product team may have permanent responsibility for a shared component and extend it with new functionality in response to requests from other product teams.

Advantages. Simplicity is one of the key advantages; no organizational changes, which often require support from management, are required. In addition, there is no risk of shared components being extended with functionality that has no immediate market benefit.

Disadvantages. An important disadvantage is that, in this model, shared components often suffer from a high degree of design erosion. Product teams often have a tendency to add too product specific functionality to a shared component. In the case of permanent component responsibility, a product team has to balance requests from other product teams against its own release schedule demands.

3.3.2 Virtual component team

Especially in the case of replacing existing, product-specific components with one shared component, the organization use a virtual component team. The members of this team originate from the involved product groups and remain formally part of the product groups. However, as part of the virtual component team, the members develop the shared version of the component.

Advantages. The members of the virtual team have, due to their experience in the product teams, a good understanding of the product requirements on the component. Also, this approach requires no changes to the formal R&D organization.

Disadvantages. The members of the team often feel split in loyalty between the product and component team that they belong to.