Projektabbruch als praktisches und theoretisches Problem

Die Geschichte der Forschung und Entwicklung (FuE)

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bei Du Pont weist die Verfolgung und den Abbruch von FuE-Projekten als einen Problembereich von außergewöhnlicher Bedeutung aus. Insbesondere wird deutlich, daß substantiell differierende Auffassungen über die Notwendigkeit und den Zeitpunkt von Projektabbruchentscheidungen einer überzeugenden Entscheidungsregel bedürfen:

“Perhaps the biggest [issue about the management of research is] determining when to stop. Alfred du Pont … believed that the cases of Stabillite and the continuous [black powder] process demonstrated that the [Experimental] Station had been unable to make a determination of when to stop … If a project has value, Alfred maintained in black-and-white terms, ‘it should be determined as soon as possible; if not, further expenditures in its so-called development should be discontinued’. A.J. Moxham [responsible for what would be known later as the development department] approached the issue differently … Moxham stressed that ‘the tendency of all experimenters is to continue to work on with an experiment just as long as any improvement seems to them possible. So tempting is this tendency that sooner than give up an experiment at a time when it has already reached the stage of profit they will retain control of it … because of the very love of the study they are making … Hence it becomes a matter of good business judgement as to when to ‘put in the peg’ and call an experiment finished.’ There was an implicit notion in Moxham’s statement that a research manager should not call an experiment finished until it was ripe for commercialization — a rather different view than the one held by Alfred du Pont.”

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