Commercializing New Technology—I

OVERVIEW:The key to more effective technology development is improving its underlying management process. While similar in some ways to the management process for product development, technology development has some significant differences. Technology development can be viewed as a technology pathway bounded by two important concepts: sensed technology at the start and the technology feasibility point at the end. An integrated process, called TRAC, for managing technology development along this pathway, consists of four elements: a technology review process, a technology development team, a Senior Review Committee, and a structured methodology. While similar to processes for managing product development in some ways, TRAC has critical differences that accommodate the unique characteristics of technology development.