Performance-Centered Design of Knowledge-Intensive Processes

Abstract

We develop and illustrate a performance-centered design (PCD) methodology for structuring knowledge-intensive, ill-defined processes. PCD provides a holistic view of a performance environment by considering the complex interdependencies between the organizational context, business processes, and individual performers. The context for our theoretical exposition is the fuzzy front-end of the new product development (NPD) process. Despite the fact that front-end concept definition and selection is central to a firm's innovation capability, these activities are ill-structured and typically the most poorly managed in the entire innovation process. Through a case study, we illustrate the proposed PCD methodology as applied to the fuzzy front-end and additionally illustrate how electronic performance support technology can be utilized to support the fuzzy front-end process. Although specifically applied within the context of one firm, we contend that the PCD methodology is applicable to other knowledge-intensive and relatively unstructured processes.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 49 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.