One of the key elements for successful New Product Development (NPD) is the composition and contribution of the breakthrough team supporting the effort.  Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton have nailed this concept in “The Orange Revolution:  How One Great Tem can Transform an Entire Organization.”

Based on interviews of more than 350,000 people by the Best Companies Group of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the authors identify characteristics of the highest performing teams.  Successful teams, in NPD or other activities, require rallying around a common cause.  Cross-functional teams pulled from many disciplines will find development and commercial launch of the new product as a common, unifying purpose for existence of the team.  Not only should the goal of the team be concisely stated, reinforcement of the goal over the life of the team’s work generates momentum as the team defines their overarching “reason for being”.  In NPD, we will often document this purpose in the Product Innovation Charter.

In addition to a common cause, Gostick and Elton’s research found that teams gelled more when they implemented three rules.

·         Rule #1:  Wow!

·         Rule #2:  No Surprises

·         Rule #3:  Cheer

Rule #1, “Wow” means going the extra mile, delivering “above and beyond” to both customers and to colleagues.  In NPD, we call “wow” the differentiating, delighting factor  that customers want and need.

Rule #2, “No Surprises” can be summarized as “There’s no such thing as too much communication.”  Companies exemplified by the “Orange Revolution” principles are organizations that share financial and strategic goals publicly with their employees, for instance.  These firms ask their employees to contribute to new ideas for growth and reward those efforts.  In NPD, we want to constantly focus on the customer communications as well, which we accomplish through concept testing, product use testing, focus groups, and listening through Voice of the Customer market research.

Rule #3, “Cheering” means supporting, encouraging, and recognizing our co-team members.  Of all factors that the authors studied, cheering was the highest differentiator between the most successful teams and the everyday, ordinary teams. 

Cheering is easy!  Just think about your own experiences on an NPD team.  A pat on the back, a sincere thank you, and public recognition of your hard work have made you feel valued as a team member.  You know firsthand that cheering has made you feel like your contributions were worthwhile and valued by the team.  Why not return the favor and practice cheering with other team members?

New Product Development is fraught with risk and uncertainty.  Cross-functional teams face many challenges, but I believe that following the three rules of an “Orange Revolution” team will allow your NPD team to grow cohesively and successfully to achieve profitable market launch.

Learn about the “Orange Revolution” at www.carrots.com.  For more information on NPD training or on project leadership, contact us at info@globalnpsolutions.com or at www.globalnpsolutions.com.

 

© 2010 Global NP Solutions, LLC

Individually, cross-functional team make-up and Portfolio Management (PM) are each considered critical to successful New Product Development (NPD) efforts.  Intel* has combined PM with project evaluations by cross-functional teams to achieve significant technology transfer improvements.

Intel* identified bet practices for innovation transfer from idea exploration to production.

1.       “Portfolio Management techniques are used to select and prioritize innovation options.”

2.       “There must be an appropriate balance between technology push and usage pull for technology solutions.”

3.       “Technology maturity is best managed via rigorous risk management and life cycle processes.”

4.       “Strategic roadmapping techniques are effective in linking market, usage, product, and technology strategy.”

5.       “The presence of a corporate-level technology strategy organization can drive practices one through four.”

Portfolio Management techniques for the Fuzzy Front End rely upon qualitative measures and scoring methods to assess value.  The greatest benefit to the organization is gained from the discussion of project elements, such as:

·         Strategic Value,

·         Competitive Advantage, and

·         Customer Pull.

Quantitative measures, such as financial Return on Investment (ROI) or Net Present Value (NPV) are to be avoided in the early stage idea evaluations.

Whereas Portfolio Management is normally a task performed by senior management to ensure NPD efforts align with the Innovation Strategy, Intel incorporated collective intelligence and a collaborative approach to PM.  This alternative technique utilizes a cross-functional team of many disciplines and multiple functions who agree to up-front common project selection and prioritization criteria.  Via face-to-face discussions, the team debates until a collective project prioritization scheme evolves from the portfolio of new product ideas.

Using the cross-functional team of technologists, strategists, product managers, and product developers, instead of a “behind closed doors management group,” a product portfolio emerged of the highest value technologies and potential innovations.  These were the right technologies to implement into the right products with the right market timing.

A key finding from this study was the reduced frequency of reprioritization of the technology portfolio – Intel* reduced prioritization exercises from monthly to annually.

Corporate survival is dependent today on successful and timely NPD.  To survive is to introduce a value product to a wanting market with competitive advantage.  Intel* has identified PM by cross-functional teams as a competitive advantage.  What can your firm learn about Portfolio Management and Teams?

For more information on Portfolio Management best practices, contact us at info@globalnpsolutions.com or visit us at www.globalnpsolutions.com.

 

*Russ Martinelli and C.R. Galluzzo, “Using the ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ Concept to Improve Innovation Transfer through the Valley of Death…” PDMA Visions Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2, July 2010, pg. 28-31.

© 2010 Global NP Solutions, LLC

Individually, cross-functional team make-up and Portfolio Management (PM) are each considered critical to successful New Product Development (NPD) efforts.  Intel* has combined PM with project evaluations by cross-functional teams to achieve significant technology transfer improvements.

Intel* identified best practices for innovation transfer from idea exploration to production.

1.       “Portfolio Management techniques are used to select and prioritize innovation options.”

2.       “There must be an appropriate balance between technology push and usage pull for technology solutions.”

3.       “Technology maturity is best managed via rigorous risk management and life cycle processes.”

4.       “Strategic roadmapping techniques are effective in linking market, usage, product, and technology strategy.”

5.       “The presence of a corporate-level technology strategy organization can drive practices one through four.”

Portfolio Management techniques for the Fuzzy Front End rely upon qualitative measures and scoring methods to assess value.  The greatest benefit to the organization is gained from the discussion of project elements, such as:

·         Strategic Value,

·         Competitive Advantage, and

·         Customer Pull.

Quantitative measures, such as financial Return on Investment (ROI) or Net Present Value (NPV) are to be avoided in the early stage idea evaluations.

Whereas Portfolio Management is normally a task performed by senior management to ensure NPD efforts align with the Innovation Strategy, Intel incorporated collective intelligence and a collaborative approach to PM.  This alternative technique utilizes a cross-functional team of many disciplines and multiple functions who agree to up-front common project selection and prioritization criteria.  Via face-to-face discussions, the team debates until a collective project prioritization scheme evolves from the portfolio of new product ideas.

Using the cross-functional team of technologists, strategists, product managers, and product developers, instead of a “behind closed doors management group,” a product portfolio emerged of the highest value technologies and potential innovations.  These were the right technologies to implement into the right products with the right market timing.

A key finding from this study was the reduced frequency of reprioritization of the technology portfolio – Intel* reduced prioritization exercises from monthly to annually.

Corporate survival is dependent today on successful and timely NPD.  To survive is to introduce a value product to a wanting market with competitive advantage.  Intel* has identified PM by cross-functional teams as a competitive advantage.  What can your firm learn about Portfolio Management and Teams?

For more information on , contact us at info@globalnpsolutions.com or visit us at www.globalnpsolutions.com.

 

*Russ Martinelli and C.R. Galluzzo, “Using the ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ Concept to Improve Innovation Transfer through the Valley of Death…” PDMA Visions Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2, July 2010, pg. 28-31.

© 2010 Global NP Solutions, LLC

Consider the following statements.

·         We have to design it this way.

·         The customer demands that function.

·         Our factory would need new equipment.

·         Commercial launch dates are fixed in stone.

Who do you suppose made each statement:  an engineer or a marketer?  And what do you suppose is the outcome of such throw-down claims?

Marketing vs. Engineering is a battle going back in time to the invention of the wheel.  Marketing thought, “What a great idea.  It has features and benefits that cave man really wants.”  And conversely, Engineering thought, “The roundness tolerance can be tightened and we can try putting two in parallel on a long stick.”  But of course to sell as an innovative product, the wheel had to have both technical characteristics and deliver value to our cave man customer.

Unfortunately, nothing is really different today.  Engineering and Marketing fail to work together in cross-functional teams that would naturally, by the way, drive new product success.

A recent Wall Street Journal report* showed that only 34% of mid-level managers felt that the relationship between Marketing and Engineering was “collegial”.  Let’s look at a few ways to improve the Engineering and Marketing relationships.

1.       Ensure that teams recognize the value of other roles:  Marketing complements Engineering and Engineering complements Marketing.  Just because our new product is technically possible (and maybe even incorporates clever technological advances) doesn’t mean that it is actually wanted by consumers.  And likewise, just because a product is desired by customers (e.g. a flying car) does not mean that it is technically feasible.

2.  All departments have to be involved in New Product Development (NPD).  A balanced approach is most successful for cross-functional NPD teams.  When Marketing has the upper hand, R&D and Engineering may be limited to product improvement types of projects in order to meet unrealistic launch dates.  The technical team may have good, breakthrough ideas but no time to pursue them.  However, when Engineering is dominant, customer wants and needs may be ignored and the new products may finally emerge as perfect “me-too” copies of the competitors latest offerings.

3.      Keep the focus on the Customer.  Engineering and Marketing personnel are both involved in NPD efforts to make the company profitable.  The only way a company stays profitable is to design and sell goods and services to customers who are both willing and able to buy them.

Engineers benefit greatly from customer visits and field service time.  If your firm is selling roofing shingles, send the design engineer to a construction site to observe the installation of a new roof.  Similarly, marketers benefit greatly from interacting with the R&D team.  Let the marketing department analyze and handle early prototype products in the lab.  They’ll learn the language and strengths of the company while participating in a quality control test, for example.

Firms that demonstrate the best capability at conquering the Marketing/Engineering divide will be the most successful at NPD.  Not an easy task, but don’t you think it’s worth it?

 

*Philip Kotler, Robert C. Wolcott, and Suj Chandrasekhar, “Playing Well with Others,” WSJ 22 June 2009.

© 2010 Global NP Solutions, LLC

What is Creativity?  Can Creativity be taught?  I’m sure many managers have asked these questions when faced with an especially challenging project stuck in a rut.  In New Product Development (NPD), we often look for creative ways to elicit customer needs and for creative ways to translate these customer needs into product features and benefits.

According to a recent text “Tools for Innovation” (edited by Markman and Wood) and a recent news article “The Creativity Crisis” (by Bronson and Merryman in Newsweek, July 10, 2010), the answer to the latter question is overwhelmingly, “Yes, creativity can be both taught and learned.”  The processes of divergent thinking (generating lots of ideas) and convergent thinking (narrowing down lots of ideas to reasonable solutions) are natural to creative people, and the switches between finding ideas and evaluating solutions are especially rapid in the most creative people.  In fact, Robert Weisberg (in “Tools for Innovation”) indicates that the best solutions for new product design problems come from experts within the field, employing “in-the-box” thinking rather than today’s popularized “out-of-the-box” methodologies.

Further, as Bronson and Merryman report, the correlation to lifetime creators (entrepreneurs, doctors, diplomats, software developers) was found to be three times stronger based on a measure of childhood creativity vs. a standard measure of IQ.

When I told my husband (a practicing professional electrical engineer) about this study, he simply laughed and noted his own perceived lack of creativity.  Now, he may not be creative in choosing which color to paint the living room, but he is extremely creative when it comes time to solve a technical problem, when most of us simply zone out.  The Newsweek study points out that both engineering majors and music majors scored with high averages on creativity tasks, concluding that the traditional view of art as a medium to creativity is not the sole route.  Electrical engineers generate ideas to troubleshoot failed power generators and screen ideas through an internal filter of what will work based on their previous engineering and construction experiences.  Music majors filter ideas for a new harmony based on known metering and keys, while drawing on their experience with chords known to be pleasant to an audience.

Problem solving begins by (1) fact-finding in the known domain, followed by (2) problem-solving in nearby domains, and (3) idea generation (divergent thinking) to apply the near-domain solutions to the problem at hand.  Finally, the ideas are culled, for reasonableness and cost to build (call in the engineers!) in order to develop a (4) plan of action that is (5) implemented.

It’s easy to draw the parallels of creative problem-solving with the Fuzzy Front End and the NPD Process.

·         Stage 1:  Opportunity Identification = Fact-Finding

·         Stage 2:  Concept Generation = Problem-Solving in Nearby Domain

·         Stage 3:  Concept Evaluation = Idea Generation applying Near Domain Solutions

·         Stage 4:  Development = Plan of Action

·         Stage 5:  Launch = Implement

Finally, not only can creativity be taught by walking through the NPD Process, another study found that middle school kids who scored high in creative self-efficiency (Newsweek article) were more confident in their future success.  Wouldn’t you like your NPD Teams to act more confidently in the success of their creative projects?  Take a look at our recent white paper, “3 Easy Steps to Brainstorming,” to learn more about these processes.  We also have an upcoming review of “Tools for Innovation” in the Journal of Product Innovation Management (2011).

Are you teaching your leaders to be more creative? 

 

© 2010 Global NP Solutions, LLC