OVERVIEW

Developing a website can be a complicated undertaking, requiring the efforts of multitalented individuals and those with specialized skills. How these people work together is an important consideration in the development process. Workflow in new product development tends to follow one of two paths:

1. Functional area approach

2. Team approach

While not mutually exclusive, one path or the other tends to dominate in most new product development processes.

Industrial manufacturing has historically favored the functional area approach, with the assembly line as the archetypal manifestation. In the functional area approach, the work product moves through functional areas or departments (in a supposedly automatic fashion), where specialists can apply their skills in the most time-efficient manner possible. For example, on the traditional auto assembly line, the workpiece (a car in the making) moves along from station to station, with specialists at each station applying their skills. The car stops in front of the windshield installer, then moves off to get its headlights installed, while the next car arrives to have a windshield installed.

The team approach is generally better suited to Web and software development. With this approach, a multidisciplinary team is responsible for taking a product from the beginning to the end of the development cycle. When building a car with the team approach, the car does not move down an assembly line. Instead, it stays in one place, and a stable team of multiskilled people works together to build the car. One person installs the windshield, then goes on...