Social software for uncertainty reduction in R&D programme planning for custom-built products

R&D programme planning is one of the most important phases in R&D management as it highly influences the success of all later phases in R&D management. Especially for custom-built products, this is a major challenge due to the decentralised organisation and changing requirements for each single product. Social software has herein the potential to improve collaboration and information transfer in decentralised environments. This paper will present in a first part the requirements towards R&D programme planning for custom-built products at the example of the European construction sector and in a second part a concept for the use of selected social software applications for uncertainty reduction in R&D programme planning for custom-built products.