6533b833fe1ef96bd129b628

RESEARCH PRODUCT

The culture of product development in student organisations

subject

description

Product development in a multidisciplinary student organisation brings many challenges; varyingexperience, adaptation and involvement of members. This article will discuss how a multidisciplinarystudent project maintains a learning culture for product development and project management.The identified factors for a learning culture; 1) define product specifications, 2) involvealumnis, 3) facilitate an open minded culture for failure and learning and 4) collect experience andadapt an agile framework suitable for the project. These are factors that should be an implementedpart to increase the chances of maintaining a learning culture.Align Racing UiA, the case of this study, is a student organisation with over 60 engaged studentsin multi-disciplinary challenges. The common team goal is to produce one race car a year and competein Formula Student. The rules for the technical side of the project are substantial, resulting inconcrete boundaries to realize the project. However, every piece of the car is designed, producedand assembled by the members. Looking at the first year of Align Racing UiA, the initial projectmanagement was not optimal for a student project of this scale. Consequently, it was realized thata strong emphasis on project management, agile development method and communication wouldbe key to a more efficient product development and project management.