Abstract
It is important for the success of product development projects to have the well defined product development system such as an organization/team, processes, tools, and information/knowledge, in addition to having the project management skills and capable project managers. IBM uses the product development system called IPD(Integrated Product Development) for all product development projects including hardware and software. IPD can be viewed as a management system for a product development. IPD views a project as a contract between executive managers and a product development team on the investment by executive managers and the commitment for the completion of the product development and for the profit by the product development team. The base concept for a project can be depicted with the relationship between investors and a primary contractor in a construction project as an analogy. This paper shows that core concepts in IPD can be explained based on the base concept for a project such as contract, investment, and commitment, with the help of project management knowledge.
