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The Culture of NPD Processes

We all know that culture influences business outcomes more than any other variable.  Great strategies must be translated into effective business plans and implemented at the operational level.  Yet, if there is a breakdown in communication as a result of cultural conflict, a great business strategy can fail mightily.

Having an open, accepting cultures paramount for success in innovation.  The ability to “fail” allows new product development (NPD) teams to take risks.  Without risks, there is no opportunity for innovative growth.  And, of course, growth drives learning.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably thinking, “Yes, culture impacts innovation success, but what do I do about it?”  The answer is that every organization must adapt their NPD process to their culture.  When there is a logical match between organizational culture and the NPD process, strategic goals for innovation are readily achieved.

Different Organizational Cultures

Culture is an unwritten set of rules that dictate how a group of individuals interact.  At a societal level, Asian cultures are known for group consensus while American and European cultures are better known for independent actions.  There is no right or wrong culture; however, people’s behaviors will reflect the dominant culture.

The Prairie Dog Culture

Prairie dogs share a lot of their living space with other prairie dogs.  They mostly live underground within a complex network of tunnels.  Yet, a sentinel is posted who alerts the group to a threat at which point, the entire community responds as one – diving into the tunnels for safety.

The Lion Pride Culture

Lions, on the other hand, are fairly solitary animals in the wild.  Lion prides have a hierarchy that leads to the paternal head.  As in the movie, The Lion King, the head lion might make poor decisions, but the rest of the pride follows.  Similarly with a good decision, the pride follows along obediently.

Everything In-Between Culture

Of course, between the extremes of a prairie dog clan and a hierarchical lion pride are the vast majority of organizational cultures.  Some companies lean more heavily to one side than the other.  Yet, every organization has a distinctive culture that encourages (or discourages) innovation.

Culture and the NPD Process

One of the biggest challenges of Agile implementation for tangible product development, and in large corporations, is cultural change.  The Agile philosophy pushes decisions to the lowest levels in an organization.  However, many senior executives are threatened by their perceived lack of involvement in these day-to-day decisions.  They wonder how they can take responsibility for profit and loss, if they don’t control each and every decision.

Of course, this lack of trust results in a hierarchical decision framework.  From an innovation standpoint, these organizations find it impossible to adopt Agile processes.  Instead, fear of failure results in a review- and approval-heavy staged-and-gated processes.  It’s not unusual to see “half-gates” in these organizations, as senior leaders micromanage the decision points.

In my experience, hybrid NPD processes like WAGILE and Lean NPD, are excellent transitions for hierarchical organizations investigating improvements in speed-to-market.  WAGILE (read more here) is a great NPD process when the product managers have close communication and interaction with end-users and customers.  Lean NPD is a better approach for organizations that innovate in B2B or wholesale markets, relying on market research external to the core development team.

Culture is the Crown of Innovation

Culture not only drives strategy, but culture dictates the innovation process.  Risk-averse organizations are challenged to transition to Agile, regardless of their desire to do so.  Instead, adopting a hybrid waterfall-Agile NPD process allows the organization to design and deliver new products quicker, cheaper, and better while building on internal strengths.

Want to learn more?  Join the PMI CBC chapter on 17 May for a brief discussion of Project Management in New Product Development.  Register here for this free event.  Also join our monthly Product Development Lunch and Learn webinar on 13 June at 12 pm Central Time to learn more about Project Management for NPD Processes.  Register here. 

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Market Research Tools

Market research is an industry term referring to studies of customers, marketplaces, trends, and even economics.  For new product practitioners and product managers, market research is a crucial step in the process of designing and developing products and services.  On a macro-basis, we might think of general fads and trends as “market research” in the formal sense.  At a company- or product-level, we consider customer insights to guide product development.

Watch the super-quick video summary and then read on.

Primary Forms of Market Research

Traditionally, market research is divided into two categories:  qualitative and quantitative.  In Qualitative Market Research, we seek opinions and beliefs that draw customer needs from an emotional perspective.  In Quantitative Market Research, we gather objective data for statistical analysis, guiding pricing and sales strategies.

Qualitative Market Research

Customer insights, for brands and specific product design work, tend to be more qualitative in nature.  Many companies convene lead user panels to regularly interact with and gauge product use with consumers.  These panels involve groups of customers that are actively involved in using a product and they are driven to improve the product because it serves to benefit them.

For example, gathering a lead user panel to evaluate new product features is a common purpose of market research.  Suppose you manufacture gardening tools.  Your lead user panel consists of Master Gardeners in a semi-tropical zone, like southern Alabama and Florida.  You might present different combinations of gardening tools to bundle into a spring planting kit – a handheld spade and trowel along with a sturdy pair of gloves.  You will investigate reactions to the bundle from the consumer panel.

Quantitative Market Research

While qualitative market research points the product development effort in the right direction, product designers and engineers need specifications to build the product.  Quantitative market research supplements the “why” of qualitative market research with a set of measures and constraints that define “what” and “how”.  Examples of quantitative market research include surveys, market share, and failure rates.  Often, qualitative market research uses statistics to analyze customer and market data in a detailed and objective way.

Other Market Research Tools

Market research is a very broad field with numerous tools available to the product development professional.  As in all research, no single assessment provides enough data and information to draw actionable conclusions.  Instead, a combination of market research and design thinking tools will help a product development team identify opportunities for ideas and concepts that will benefit their customers.

Learn More

Join me on 14 March for a free webinar on market research tools.  Register here.  For more information on Customer Insights, check out Chapter 2 of The Innovation ANSWER Book, 2nd edition.

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Hybrid Product Development Today

Today, many of us are working in very different environments than two years ago.  A lot of people are permanently working from home (“remote”).  Others are going to the office a couple of days per week.  Still others are doing the same job, at the same place, as they have always done (truck drivers, hospitality workers, factory and assembly plant personnel).

Learning to work in a new way can be stressful, but we are also living in a time when technology helps to bridge gaps.  With video conferencing, we have face-to-face conversations with our coworkers and can easily share documents or files.  While some of us might be in a shared space looking at the hard copy, others participate equally from remote locations looking at the same electronic document.

What Does Hybrid Mean?

Hybrid, therefore, means a blend of geographical working environments, facilitated by technology.  But what does hybrid mean culturally or for our work processes?

Unfortunately, as “Zoom fatigue” is a real symptom of work burnout, we know that our hybrid work cultures must adapt.  It is a very different atmosphere to welcome a new employee to your campus and to show him around the office building than it is to dive into work tasks as the new employee logs onto her first meeting.  Trust, especially emotional trust, is critical to tackling higher risk tasks and projects.  And, trust is hard to build in a hybrid culture.

Consider converting five minutes of each meeting to team-building.  Use the time to create social relationships with your hybrid teams.  Talk about sports, hobbies, or travel.  You want to generate a culture that shares openly and will lead to trust.  Sharing personal life interests alongside our professional engagements supports relationships among team members.

Our processes change in a hybrid work environment, too.  We no longer have quick hallway conversations.  Instead, we hold scheduled meetings and discussions (lots of them!).  Hand-offs and transfers of tasks between functions and departments are more complicated, especially if the receiver does not have the appropriate project background (why, how, when).  Shared files and chats can help to facilitate processes.  Even better, document your workflows, roles and responsibilities, and follow the agreed-upon processes.

Creativity in a Hybrid World

While relationships, culture, and processes are manageable in remote and dispersed work environments, creativity becomes even more challenging.  Again, tools are available for us to use technology, to share ideas, to capture concepts and activities, and to interact with fellow team members and customers.  I recommend using a facilitator to help your team focus on the work instead of the ever-changing technology.  A group like MAFN (Mid-Atlantic Facilitators Network) can help you find a skilled technical facilitator.  In that way, you can capture creative ideas, without interrupting ideation.

Finally, our approaches to creativity in a hybrid world must take advantage of all we have learned to generate ideas within teams over the years – regardless of technology.  Join me starting on 11 February for a special-request, three-part Creativity Master Class.  Register here.

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What is Innovation?

Click on the image to watch a short summary video, then read on!

Innovation is one of the most over-used buzzwords of today.  I wrote about this previously in 2013!  (Read Introduction to Disruptive Innovation here.)  Yet, innovation – as a word – continues to be bandied about as a solution to all problems but also as a mysterious, perhaps magical, process.  In this post, I hope to break down the word “innovation” to a set of practical and actionable steps that help businesses accomplish growth without all the hype.

New Way of Doing Something

Innovation encompasses a new way of successfully doing something.  Note the specific use of the word “success”.  If we try a new way to do something and it fails, we are learning but we have not innovated.  Failing is part of the innovation process, yet it is not the end goal of innovation.

Process innovation often involves new ways of doing something.  In manufacturing, we might be able to skip a step by combining forming and assembly or by using pre-printed packaging.  These actions are usually considered “cost-saving”, but when we involve a new way of executing the action, it is clearly defined as a process innovation.

We also see product innovations and perhaps these are the more common goal of corporate innovation programs.  New product development (NPD) is a subset of innovation in which we design and develop new product innovations.  Again, the new product is helping consumers and end-users “do something in a new way,” but is focused on tangible features and product attributes. 

In recent times, product innovations have begun to incorporate the changes and additions in software code.  Almost all tangible products also include software in some capacity.  Coding introduces changes in how a product (hardware or software) functions, and thus, can be innovative.  However, we must be very careful to not confuse bug fixes as “innovative”.  End-users don’t want mistakes in the product in the first place, so a bug fix is not adding value.

Social and Political Innovations

Some innovations cause us to do something in a new way because society expects it or because government regulations restrict the old way of doing something.  As an example, the US Government restricted the sale of incandescent light bulbs a few years ago.  Consumers were certainly not clamoring for a new way to light their homes, especially since incandescent light bulbs are cheaper than alternatives.  Yet a change in government policy forced to change in behavior; this defines a “political innovation”.  Such innovations may not add value to either the consumer or producer but are necessary for the business to sustain itself.

Adoption of New Technology

Many process and product innovations result from the adoption of new technology.  Advances in technology allow producers to manufacture goods in more cost-effective ways and to add features to products.  Technology allows processes to become more efficient, so that manufacturers can make products with fewer quality defects and at increased rates.  Technology has served to stimulate innovation significantly.

For instance, computer-controlled manufacturing processes allow assembly lines to move at a quicker pace.  Technology, such as lasers and cameras, can evaluate quality of products during manufacturing without the cost of destructive testing.  Increased resource utilization by managing the supply chain and distribution with technical innovations also result in cost-savings shared between consumers and manufacturers.

Application of New Knowledge

Finally, innovation involves the application of knowledge to new situations as well as the growth of knowledge.  When we apply a solution from one domain to another, by transferring knowledge, the result is innovation.

One of my favorite examples of innovation from new knowledge is Velcro.  Legend has it that the inventor studied lizards and other critters that creep and crawl in vertical surfaces.  Transferring knowledge of how their little feet are able to “stick” to these surfaces allowed him to conceive a new way to attach two items together.  What knowledge are you holding that contained a product or process?

Defining Innovation

Innovation is a new way of doing something by application of technology or knowledge to improve a process or product in such a way that it adds value for both the end-user and the producer.  Innovation is a new way of doing something but that “something” doesn’t have to be radical or unique.  Transferring our knowledge and experience between and among industries often leads to a new way of doing something.

Do you want to learn an effective process for design of innovation?  Join me, starting on 1 December, for the by-request Creativity Master Class.  Register here.

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Creative Perspectives

Many of us don’t believe we are creative.  After early elementary school, we have learned there are rules, and we spend a lot of time complying with those rules.  Not only are there rules about spelling and arithmetic, but there are societal “rules” about the clothes we wear and things we say.  All these rules serve to stamp out creativity. 

Yet, we need creative solutions to the many challenging problems we face in business today.  Creativity is not just painting a new scene or writing a novel; creativity is finding unique alternatives and expressions to address real-world discomforts.  For product innovation professionals, we must find creative solutions to customer and end-user problems that deliver value to them and profit to our firms. 

Creative Solutions

In new product development (NPD), the first place to start to identify a creative solution is to understand the problem.  Very often, we assume that we know what challenges and difficulties our customers face.  And, very often, we are wrong.  

Understanding customer problems means we need to spend time with them and to follow their actions.  Design Thinking offers several tools and a methodology to build empathy with customers and end users.  The methodology is reflected in the simple, two-step process shown in the figure.  (Read about Design Thinking in Chapter 2 of The Innovation ANSWER Book, 2nd edition.)  Empathy means we understand their thoughts and feelings as much as we understand the technical points of their problems. 

An Example

To find creative and empathetic product solutions, we have to fully identify with the customer and end-user.  Most people working in NPD are in the prime of their life, maybe 30 to 50 years old.  Suppose you are designing and developing products for the elderly.  How can you build empathy for their problems?

Using Design Thinking tools, product innovation professionals observe the customer.  You can spend time with your grandma or an elderly neighbor and watch as they prepared dinner.  Are jars difficult to open for someone with arthritis?  Does she have trouble reading small print on the recipe?  Can she safely lift a heavy pan from the oven?

Once you have some clues to the real problem from observation, you can begin to develop creative solutions.  You can test your prototypes under simulated conditions to quickly evaluate concepts to move forward while eliminating the less – then – promising ideas. 

For the elderly person, you can wear gloves or tape your fingers to mimic arthritis.  Put on a scratched-up pair of sunglasses and try to read the recipe yourself.  Simulate the relative “heaviness” of a pan with a 40-lb. bag of sand.  Your own frustrations will translate to better product solutions for this customer! 

Learning Creativity

It seems somewhat odd that actually need to “learn creativity”.  Society force fits uniformity and often discourages creative interpretation.  Yet, as product innovation professionals, we need to approach problems from new perspectives and with open viewpoints.  Especially if the customers’ needs are far from our experiences and background, we need to apply Design Thinking tools to build empathy.  We really need to understand the thoughts and feelings of the end-user. 

Do you want to learn to be more creative?  Join our creativity master class starting on 1 December.  Register Here.

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About Me

I am inspired by writing, speaking, and coaching.  I tackle life with an infusion of rigor, zeal, and faith.   It brings me joy to help you build innovation leaders.  Teresa Jurgens-Kowal is an experienced innovation professional with a passion for lifelong learning with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Computer and Information Decision Making.  My credentials include PE (State of Louisiana), NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM, and I am a DiSC® certified facilitator.  Contact me at [email protected] or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

This was first published on the blog at www.Simple-PDH.com. Follow me on Twitter @globalnpd.    

Can Nerds Serve the Customer?

I’m a self-admitting nerd.  My educational background is in engineering and I enjoy learning how things fit together.  I love to watch movies, but I never know the names of actors or actresses.  I fail miserably at the literature questions in Trivial Pursuit™. 

Yet, I love math, logic, and reasoning.  In recent years my fondness to “figure out how things work” has become a study of people, leaders, and teams.  Successful innovation teams have a different culture than others. 

A friend and colleague mentioned that her son was studying mechanical engineering.  She encouraged him to take a Design Thinking class so he could learn about human-centered design.  I agree wholeheartedly with her!  Engineers have an isolated educational experience driven by high-level calculus an intense theory of physics.  Of course, accountants, sociologists, and architects also have educational experiences driven by depth of knowledge, rather than breadth.

So, can nerds learn to serve the customer?

The Customer

First, we have to take a step back.  Any free economy functions to produce goods and services that generate profit for the seller.  Buyers pay a price for goods and services that give them utility and functionality at their own perceived value.  The buyer (or customer) seeks a benefit in purchasing a product that is greater than the price they pay.  Moreover, the price that the buyer pays must include a margin of profit for the producer.  If not, the producer will cease to offer those goods or services. 

A seller learns what to sell by studying customers and markets.  Customers are the key element in designing and developing new products.  My friend was very astute to encourage her son to broaden his studies beyond engineering.  New Product Development Professionals (NPDP) blend the unique skills of technology understanding, market perception, and product knowledge to successfully innovate profitable goods and services. 

Engineers, like other innovation leaders, have an intense curiosity about how things work.  Yes, we are nerds because we enjoy tinkering and troubleshooting.  So, trying to solve a customer’s problem by designing a new widget is exactly a perfect fit!

Design Thinking

Again, my friend gave her son a huge gift toward his employability by encouraging him to supplement engineering classes with Design Thinking.  Design Thinking is both a process and a set of tools.  From the process perspective, Design Thinking teaches us to collaborate with fellow nerds, customers, and any function that will help solve the problem.  From the tools point of view, Design Thinking gives us templates and techniques to elicit even the most obscure unarticulated customer needs. 

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At the core of Design Thinking is empathy – an understanding of the feelings, thoughts, and attitudes of another person.  In the case of product development, the product development engineers build empathy for the customers by interviewing, shadowing, and observing their interactions with the product.  When we understand the struggle that a customer has to open a package or assemble the parts, we improve the features and functions of that product. 

For example, IKEA includes a small (cheap) hex wrench with its ready-to-assemble furniture (such as a bookshelf).  The packaging is small (a benefit to customers and transportation) but only nerds have a full tool chest available to assemble a bookshelf.  So, for most folks, the cheap hex wrench is a huge time-saver.  Parts are clearly labeled and the visual instruction sheet from IKEA gives simple directions to assemble the parts using the tools (hex wrench) provided.  Both the seller and buyer benefit – higher profit margins and enhanced perception of the product’s value. 

Image from Creative Commons

Engineers and Design Thinking

Yes, nerds can serve the customer!  Engineers are great at trouble-shooting and finding creative solutions to problems.  Augmenting our technical training with customer empathy creates a superhero innovation leader. 

If you don’t know the basic tools and process of design thinking, that’s okay.  Register here for an interactive, online workshop, led by a full-fledged nerd. 

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Regaining Creativity

It’s sometimes difficult to remember while we are filling out forms, responding to bureaucracy, and going about our daily routine, but we are all creative and innovative beings.  Each of us has good ideas, sometimes great ideas.  And each of us can generate unique and novel ways to address customer needs and to troubleshoot problems. 

Why is Creativity Lost?

Kids have lots of creativity.  They color outside the lines and make cats purple.  They imagine themselves as swash-buckling pirates and as famous movie stars.  My friend, Karen, and I used to act out our favorite books in our backyards with no props at all.  The walnut tree served as the deserted island and our dolls were the orphaned children.  We understood the story and, well, we just had fun! 

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Then, our parents and teachers taught us that we needed to stay inside the lines, cats are never purple, and it was more important to do chores then pretend to be surviving on coconuts and palm leaves in a snow-covered backyard in Idaho. 

Learning is very, very important and without understanding how mathematics and science work, we cannot become engineers, scientists, or project managers.  We must learn the right way to solve an algebra problem and we need to know the correct answers.  As chemical engineers, the safety of our co-workers and communities relies on us calculating the right answers and using the right formulas. 

Yet, another piece of finding the right answer uses our creative problem-solving skills.  And many of us have relegated creativity to the back burner.  We don’t have time to “play” and we don’t want to look dumb by not coming up with “the right” answer. 

Build Creativity through Experimentation

Edison is famous for saying he didn’t discover how to make a light bulb.  He had, instead, found 10,000 ways to not make a light bulb.  As innovation and engineering professionals, we strive for creativity through experimentation.  We learn, just as Edison did, by failing.  Each failure tells us what won’t work, but each failure also frames a hypothesis for the next experiment. 

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We often go about experimentation by changing one variable at a time.  This can take a long time to find a novel answer to a problem, yet it provides accurate and detailed data and information about the problem.  We should also experiment with “outside the box” solutions.  These are problem solutions that come from other industries or analogies from radically different systems. 

Legend has it that the inventor of Velcro watched a lizard climb the side of the building and wondered about its sticky feet.  Another industry legend illustrates that rotating vessels with brushes used for oil spill clean-ups came from the observation that sea otters’ fur was highly absorptive.  Applying a biological analogy to a static process can unleash creative hypotheses.  And we can test these ideas in a controlled way to learn from failure. 

Creativity Exercises

it’s hard to be creative by ourselves.  We need to share ideas – sometimes crazy ideas – with others to generate better ideas.  Often, just looking at a problem from a different perspective can stimulate creativity.  A simple exercise to help you focus on new concepts is to drive to work by a different route.  You will observe different landmarks and patterns.  Strike up a conversation with a stranger in the queue at the supermarket.  Who knows?  You might leave with a new recipe. 

At work, seek out the opinions and impressions with those you don’t normally share assignments.  Learn what challenges face the structural and electrical engineers, IT and HR professionals, and supply chain specialists.  Talk to technicians about their workflows.  All of these unusual conversations will give you creative fodder for solving the next problem when it arises.  Download a handout on creativity here.

Creativity is Lifelong Learning

Anyone who has followed my blog for any time knows that I’m a huge believer in lifelong learning.  Of course, as an experienced and safety conscious process engineer, I know that there are “right” answers.  We cannot defy the laws of gravity or of thermodynamics.  We know that a material balance is fixed by the laws of nature. 

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However, when we experiment and lose our fear of judgment, we can test hypotheses to find better and more creative ways to solve problems.  We can share a stream between systems that need heating and cooling in a plant to save water and energy.  We can push chemical reactions to increase efficiency and reduce material usage with the clever application of temperature, pressure, or catalyst.  Whatever your field of expertise, look for new ways to do things, especially by trying an approach that comes from a biological system or another industry. 

What can you do, today, to create a novel hypothesis and test it to learn?

Learn More

Check out my presentation on creativity and design thinking with the Houston ATD chapter here.   Register for our online workshop 29 and 30 March 2021 here.   Contact me at [email protected] if you want to implement effective tools for innovation team communications.

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Wagile Tools

For several weeks, we have been posting about the Wagile innovation process. 

Wagile is a hybrid new product development (NPD) process that brings together the best of waterfall (“w‑”)project management systems with Agile systems used for software development (“‑agile”).  The outcome is an innovation process that has a deep focus on customer needs while managing risk (investment) through a disciplined approach. 

Product Innovation Tools

Most innovation processes include checklists of what has to be done and when.  In a traditional staged-and-gated process, the business case must be completed in order to pass a certain gate.  Market testing must be completed before going to market with a new product, etc.  (Read more about product innovation tools here.)

Likewise, Scrum specifies a checklist of features (known as the “product backlog”) to complete during a sprint.  Sprints are short periods of time in which the project team works on the list of tasks provided by the business.  Tasks that are not finished in the prescribed two- to four-week period are added to the “sprint backlog” and rollover to the next sprint – akin to a never ending “To Do” list. 

What’s missing in both the traditional waterfall and Agile processes is the “How To.”  Of course, every project is unique and different.  The fun and beauty of working in innovation is the variety and diversity of tasks, activities, and projects.  Yet, each time we encounter a new situation, we can (and should) follow a given process to understand the situation (such as risk analysis) and to design solutions.  In Wagile, we deploy a set of innovation tools to tackle the “how to” of each stage of work. 

Wagile Stages and Gates

Wagile Stages and Wagile Gates are designed to involve the customer.  After all, no innovation is valuable unless it meets a need in the marketplace and is saleable.  Wagile tools use Design Thinking methods to gather customer insights and couple those inputs with measurable decision and performance standards.  As a reminder the Wagile Stages and Gates are indicated here. 

  • 1:  Opportunity Identification (Idea Gate)
  • 2:  Business Case (Functional Gate)
  • 3:  Technology Development (Technology Gate)
  • 4:  Scale-Up (Constructability Gate)
  • 5:  Production (Launch Gate)

Design Thinking Tools

To learn more about Design Thinking tools, read our previous post Tools for Product Innovation based on the work of Carlos Rodriguez (Delaware State University).  Design Thinking is a customer-focused methodology to creatively and collaboratively solve customer problems.  We involve the customer in defining problems and in creating solutions.  We work collaboratively with cross-functional teams, both internally and externally.  We ask questions and we listen. 

Early in the Wagile product innovation process, we use observation and interviewing to gather customer insights.  The Design Thinking tools of customer empathy map and customer journey map are deployed in Stage 1 (Opportunity Identification) to discover and define the customer problem.  Download information on these tools here.  An important outcome of the tools and activities in this stage is to determine if the gain for the customer is greater than the pain of acquiring and learning a new product. 

An Example

I try to maintain a high level of fitness.  I swim, bike, and lift weights.  Recently, my husband got me a new Fitbit that allows me to track all exercises instead of just counting steps.  It’s very convenient as I only have to select the correct icon, push start, and then press finish for each activity.  And if I forget, the device automatically senses that I am cycling instead of running and tracks the calories burned. 

However, I do not wear my new Fitbit when I go swimming.  The pain is greater than the gain.  Since swimming is still under the arbitrary restrictions of corona-panic, the pool is only open for 45 minutes at a time.  My existing swim tracker records the number of laps, strokes per lap, efficiency, and calories burned.  I would incur a transaction cost (lost time in the water) to calibrate my swim watch with the Fitbit.  Right now, I view that cost as higher than the benefit (one device for all activities).  Your customers will also weigh costs and benefits as they consider purchasing a new or updated upgraded product. 

Design Tools in Wagile

Each stage in Wagile is defined to include specific tools to evaluate cost/benefit of an innovation.  Design Thinking tools take the perspective of the customer.  Later stages in Wagile use financial assessment tools (coupled with customer satisfaction measures) to determine cost/benefit from the company’s perspective.  Remember organizations are in business to make money and deliver value to shareholders.  Join me on 11 November for a Wagile tutorial and learn to apply Design Thinking tools in your innovation process!  Register here. 

Learn More

  • Check out where I’m speaking next (click here) and book me for your next event.
  • Get your copy of The Innovation ANSWER Book available at Amazon (now available on Kindle).
  • Vote on the cover of my next book, The Innovation QUESTION Book here.
  • Reference the new PDMA Body of Knowledge, available at Amazon.
  • Get your NPDP Certification!  Join our October online class (Thursdays) following the brand new, 2nd edition PDMA Body of Knowledge.  REGISTER HERE!

About Me

I am inspired by writing, teaching, and speaking at great professional events.  I tackle life with an infusion of rigor, zeal, and faith.   It brings me joy to help you build innovation leaders.  Teresa Jurgens-Kowal is an experienced innovation professional with a passion for lifelong learning with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Computer and Information Decision Making.  My credentials include PE (State of Louisiana), NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM, and I am a DiSC® certified facilitator.  Contact me at [email protected] or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

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A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

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What is Emotional Design?

Watch the ultra-short video and then read on for full details.

I am a DiSC-certified facilitator.  There are four primary work styles:  “D” for dominance, “i” for influence, “S” for steadiness, and “C” for conscientiousness.  My own work style is CD, meaning I prefer to focus on data to make a decision and I will generally take action quickly once I have the data analysis in hand. 

People with “i” and “S” work styles tend to focus more on the needs of other people and will make decisions based on emotion even with little or no data.  And while people with strong “C” and “D” work styles might puzzle over such behaviors, as product innovation professionals, we all know that customers make decisions based on emotion (to some degree or another). 

That’s why the theory and practice of Emotional Design is important. 

Emotional Design

Emotional design is part of specifying product requirements within the product design process.  You can learn more about the overall product design process in another post (click here).  Designers use the emotions that customers associate with product usage to identify and prioritize product features.  When customers express positive emotions about a product, they tend to demonstrate more trust and loyalty to a specific product or brand.  This often results in increased revenue. 

Three Types of Emotional Design Information

Emotional design is based on the level of emotion and how individuals process information.  We call thee levels:  visceral, behavioral, and reflective.  Let’s take a quick look at what these mean to product innovation. 

Visceral Emotional Design

According to Dictionary.com, visceral means “characterized by … instinct rather than intellect”.  This is our “animal brain” taking charge.  We process certain emotions using a low level of basic motor skills and senses.  So, visceral design is associated with physical senses, like the aesthetics or color of a product. 

Consider, for example, a red sports car.  It appeals to our basic senses and emotions because the styling is generally pleasing and implies speed (something that humans have craved throughout all time).  Red as a color, in most societies, is associated with power.  Therefore, on a visceral level, a red sports car represents a strong emotional design. 

Behavioral Emotional Design

At a mid-level of emotional design are customers’ responses to an innovation according to memory and learning.  Thus, the behavioral level of emotional design emphasizes the functionality and usability of a product. 

Let’s use the red sports car as an example again.  Many sports cars use a manual transmission to increase performance and to give the driver more control.  However, very few Americans know how to drive a manual transmission.  In order to be satisfied with the design, they would need to learn a new behavior.  Yet, a car enthusiast already knows the skill of driving a stick shift and finds the design even more appealing. 

Reflective Emotional Design

Finally, the highest level of emotional design is related to self-identity.  The reflective level deals with feelings and emotions that determine understanding, reasoning, and interpretation.  A wealthy bachelor feels that the red sports car reflects his personality.  It is an extension of his “self” by showing power, strength, and speed.  On the other hand, a mom with five kids would view the sports car as frivolous and not serving her important tasks of driving to school and soccer practice. 

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Why is Emotional Design Important?

As indicated, customers rarely buy a product based on data sheets and specifications alone.  Emotion – whether explicit or subconscious – plays a role in all of our purchases.  I’m not a fan of the color brown, personally, and I prefer bright colors for clothes and home decorations.  My visceral emotions drive me away from earth tones.  These are deep internal perceptions that have no explanation but are in parts of my subconscious brain (or soul).

Yet, I love learning new things.  For my hobbies, I will test and buy products that I think will make my life easier or tasks quicker to finish.  I am seeking functionalities for to improve behaviors.  I want to use products and services that are easy. 

What complicates product innovation at the behavioral and reflective levels is differentiating between a desire to learn and the status quo.  Oftentimes, new products that add simplicity or convenience for a customer require a level of learning or new behaviors that require too much change.  Customers will only accept a new level of features when the learning curve is a low hurdle. 

Lastly, products that make us feel good are those that can command a price premium.  (More information on pricing strategies is found here.)  Experiences and luxury items appeal to our personal sense of self and identity.  Reflective emotional design builds emotions and personality into product development.  While basic aesthetics and form can be tested for broad market acceptance, reflective design often focuses on narrower target customer segments who share similar values.  You may want to consider a segmentation strategy when your product innovation depends on reflective emotional design. 

Learn More

  • Check out where I’m speaking next (click here). You can book me for speaking by contacting me directly or through Innovation Women.
  • Get your copy of The Innovation ANSWER Book.  Available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle version.
  • Reference the new PDMA Body of Knowledge, available at Amazon.
  • Do you know your strategy?  Is it time to narrow your focus or expand to serve more customers?  Join me for the two-part Reset Your Strategy workshop on 18 and 20 August.  Register here – special discounts for the unemployed.

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A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Study.       Learn.       Earn.       Simple.

About Me

I am inspired by writing, teaching, and coaching.  I tackle life with an infusion of rigor, zeal, and faith.   It brings me joy to help you build innovation leaders.  Teresa Jurgens-Kowal is an experienced innovation professional with a passion for lifelong learning with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Computer and Information Decision Making.  My credentials include PE (State of Louisiana), NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM, and I am a DiSC® certified facilitator.  Contact me at [email protected] or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

Product Design Process

New products do not magically appear overnight.  Despite our collective image of a lone scientist working over a smoldering beaker of neon-colored fluid, most innovations are born of a rigorous process.  In fact, studies show that firms with flexible product design processes generate repeatable new product success more than their competitors who approach innovation in an ad-hoc manner. 

Watch the short overview video and then read the full blog for details.

Often called the new product development (NPD) process or product innovation process, a product design process takes the innovation team on a journey.  We must first identify what strategic needs our customers have, what problems trouble them, and how we can help them solve those problems efficiently.  The product design process delivers both steps to advance innovation as well as a set of tools to understand and quantify customer needs. 

Steps in The Product Design Process

Most product development processes focus on the deliverables.  In Stage X, you must have a fully fleshed-out business case.  At Phase Y, you need to have built a functional prototype.  What’s different about the product design process is that it focuses on actions that lead new product innovation from rigorous ideas to commercial products. 

Step 1 – Ideation

Ideation is a creative process to generate, develop, and communicate new ideas.  It involves searching for customer problems and defining the problem space.  The two categories of tools deployed in ideation are divergent thinking and convergent thinking. 

Divergent thinking tools seek to expand the question and derive alternate concepts.  Sometimes we misinterpret a customer’s problem through our own biases (please see the blog on Optimism Bias).  Other times, we jump to solutions without considering the whole scope of the problem.  This can make products overly complex while they do not satisfy customers most basic needs.  Consider the long list of micro-print included with prescription drugs.  The warnings might be justified, but an 80-year old patient with macular degeneration cannot possibly determine appropriate dosage. 

In convergent thinking, we take the creative ideas and solutions generated by cross-functional teams and collate them.  The purpose of this step in the design process is to find common themes or concepts that will address large market segments so that we can move forward in the product design process.  It is impossible – and fraught with risk and expense – to pursue all ideas. 

Step 2 – Concept Design

Concept design introduces clarity and alignment for the product.  It provides a way to explain what the product will do, how it will function, and how it will solve the customer’s problem.  Often the concept design is a simple narrative description or sketch.  This yields high-level feedback from customers to validate that the problem definition is correct.  When organizations skip this step, they end up designing and selling products that only almost solve a customer’s problem.  Unfortunately, this leaves a big gap for competition to fill with a better product that satisfies customer needs with better quality. 

Step 3 – Embodiment

As a product moves from concept design into more detailed design, a product innovation team accounts for technical and economic feasibility.  Customers will exchange hard earned money for products that offer convenience, simplification, or luxury experiences.  The embodiment of the product must balance the features and attributes of the design against cost of manufacturing and, ultimately, the selling price. 

Conjoint analysis is a common tool used at this stage of the product design process.  This tool allows customers to rank and prioritize a select set of features against prices.  The outcome of a conjoint analysis provides the product innovation team with a list of the most important features that must be included in a final product.  Results of the study are important since it links desired features and quality levels with willingness to pay. 

Step 4 – Draft Product Specifications

At this point in the design process, the “what” and “why” of the product are well defined.  The next step is to determine “how”.  The initial product specifications lay out physical dimensions and manufacturability.  A key tool in this phase is D4X, or Design for X, where X may represent assembly, maintenance, or usability. 

The expected outcome of the draft product design specification stage is to quantify and clarify the product design.  Communication of the purpose of the product, quality levels of individual features, and the cost/benefit of the product are also important outcomes.  Since the next stage is determining final product development and manufacturing methods, the draft product design specifications should be complete and reflect all key characteristics that the product must deliver. 

Step 5 – Detailed Design

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A primary tool in the detailed design process is QFD (Quality Function Deployment).  This methodology converts the draft design specifications into specific manufacturing and engineering criteria.  In other words, QFD translates the customer needs into measurable requirements.  QFD is a sophisticated tool with matching, prioritization, and scaling of customer needs, competitive responses, and design attributes, combined with cost to create engineering metrics for new product manufacturing.  QFD originated in the automotive industry and uses a graphic called the House of Quality.  (Read more in the blog post Innovation Tools:  What is QFD?)

Step 6 – Final Production

Sometimes called “Fabrication and Assembly”, the last step in the design process for new product development is manufacturing and producing the product.  This includes prototype testing, market testing, and systems integration.  Prototype testing ensures that the product works as it was designed to work and meets customer needs.  Companies should test a variety of prototypes from those with just a few relevant features (e.g. the minimally viable product, MVP) to a high-fidelity working prototype.  It is less expensive to modify the manufacturing and distribution process is before finalizing specifications and production moves to large scale.  

The Product Design Process

The product design process does not replace a traditional or emergent project management process (like Stage-Gate® or Scrum).  Instead, product design lies parallel to the project management decisions.  Product design forces enhanced communication and interaction with customers resulting in better overall product designs and reception in the marketplace.  While we have only briefly touched on some of the important product design tools here, you can read about them in depth in the comprehensive text, Product Design and Innovation by Carlos Rodriguez.  He includes a lot of very thorough examples to lead you through the entire product design process. 

How Do You Use Product Design?

Every industry, company, and product is different.  You may know your market well, so that a new product simply needs limited design and testing.  Or you may be developing brand new technology and need to conduct extensive testing with potential and existing customers to ensure strategic alignment.  In this case, you will want to explore more of the product design phases and tools with more depth. 

The most important part of any product innovation processes to ensure strategic business alignment.  Developing product strategy precedes the product design process.  Start with our Reset Your Strategy workshop in August 2020.  Pre-register here.  Contact me at [email protected] for more information. 

© Simple-PDH.com

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Study.       Learn.       Earn.       Simple.

About Me

I am inspired by writing, teaching, and coaching.  I tackle life with an infusion of rigor, zeal, and faith.   It brings me joy to help you build innovation leaders.  Teresa Jurgens-Kowal is an experienced innovation professional with a passion for lifelong learning with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Computer and Information Decision Making.  My credentials include PE (State of Louisiana), NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM, and I am a DiSC® certified facilitator.  Contact me at [email protected] or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.