Uncertainty is central to engineering design and new product development (NPD). While there has been substantial focus on dealing with uncertainty in technical systems and design information, how engineering designers react to and manage uncertainty is also critical to performance. However, an important gap remains in understanding what activities NPD teams engage in based on the specific uncertainty types they face. This gap is investigated via a conceptual framework detailing four uncertainty types (technical, organisational, resource and market) and three project activities (information, knowledge sharing and representation). Evidence is presented from two engineering design cases with 45 interviews, observations, and secondary data. Based on this, specific links are described between uncertainty type and project activity as follows: technical uncertainty drove representation activity, organisational uncertainty drove knowledge sharing activity, resource uncertainty drove knowledge sharing activity, and market uncertainty drove information activity. These findings are developed into a number of propositional relationships between the four uncertainty types and specific project activities, which form the basis for a number of implications for engineering design research and practice.

中文翻译：

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探索新产品开发中不确定性与项目活动之间的联系

不确定性是工程设计和新产品开发 (NPD) 的核心。虽然已经大量关注处理技术系统和设计信息中的不确定性，但工程设计人员如何应对和管理不确定性对性能也至关重要。然而，在理解 NPD 团队根据他们面临的特定不确定性类型参与哪些活动方面仍然存在重大差距。这一差距是通过一个详细说明四种不确定性类型（技术、组织、资源和市场）和三种项目活动（信息、知识共享和表示）的概念框架来研究的。证据来自两个工程设计案例，包括 45 次访谈、观察和二手数据。在此基础上，将不确定性类型与项目活动之间的具体联系描述如下：技术不确定性驱动表征活动，组织不确定性驱动知识共享活动，资源不确定性驱动知识共享活动，市场不确定性驱动信息活动。这些发现被发展成四种不确定性类型和特定项目活动之间的许多命题关系，这些关系构成了工程设计研究和实践的许多影响的基础。