Gundrum

Mattson's project delta brings new insights about product development methodologies. It proves that there is no constant way to approach product development and methods can vary and vary greatly and differently in different spheres.

In my estimation it was very unusual and wise way to combine software development methodology and food development methodology. One may think that these two aren't related but actually they have similarities as they demonstrate ways how to manage a group project.

One of the advantages of project delta was that it doesn't concentrate on one methodology of product development. Gundrum approached the problem from different viewpoints and understood which methodology is better by trying three types which included open source, extreme programming and hierarchical methods simultaneously.

Carefully examining each team approach to the problem I found some disadvantages that delta project had.

First disadvantage is that culinary product development is a complicated sphere and individuals create innovations more often than teams. This means that if Gundrum had individual teams parallel to others would be more efficient. If we look to software project management or software development there are many renowned projects that were created by individuals rather than teams. So a single change that I would make to improve the exercise is to invite additional single individuals and challenge them.

Secondly Gundrum challenged teams with one requirement which was to achieve "Best tasting healthy cookie". In my viewpoint more statistical data could be gathered by adding additional requirements such as how many people bought the cookie or which group of people was interested in the product.

Third change I would make to improve the exercise would be hiring experts not only from renowned companies but also hiring individuals from different cultures as more diversity brings more opportunity and combinations.