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new product development

Four Elements of Creativity

Product innovation is a fabulous field in which to work.  Innovation mixes several interesting ingredients – markets, technologies, creativity – to generate products that are valued by customers.  In turn, companies generate profits when they deliver products and services to consumers that delight and inspire them.

Researching markets and technologies is deliberate and structured within product innovation.  Product managers use inquiry tools and statistical analysis to understand categories of customers as well as to pinpoint areas of opportunity.  R&D practitioners analyze experiments and data to design novel technical solutions.  Market research and technology development both follow specific processes with known performance metrics.

Yet, creativity if often shrouded in mystery.  Many people assume they are not creative because they don’t view themselves as “artists”.  Others claim that only wild-eyed scientific geniuses are creative, coming up with ideas like a lightning strike.  In truth, creativity for product innovation is also a structured process with four key elements.

Cross-Functional Teams

There are two elements to creativity from a people perspective – individual and team creativity.  As individuals we all have different experiences and bring that diversity when generating ideas for new products.  Individuals with various work skills and backgrounds “see” the problem differently.  For example, a marketing specialist might define the problem in terms of product awareness while a technology specialist might see the problem as a set of puzzles and a technical code that will unlock the solution. 

Higher levels of creativity occur, however, when we collaborate as a team.  The marketer cannot successfully deliver innovation on his own by simply raising product awareness.  The technologists cannot deliver a new product by simply designing a great piece of hardware.  Instead, when we combine the viewpoints of a cross functional team, we can generate truly radical innovations.  Sharing the different perspectives of a problem – from the customer’s viewpoint as well as from each team members standpoint – enhances creativity and the end solution. 

Boundaries

While it seems counter-intuitive, creativity increases when we place reasonable constraints around the problem.  You might dream about your weekend plans if you had infinite money and no restrictions on your time.  Perhaps a trip to an exotic beach or taking in a Broadway show would be on the agenda?  Yet our dreams of limitless wealth are not actionable. 

Teams are most successful in identifying creative product solutions when there are some boundaries around the problem space.  Having infinite funds or unlimited time opens every possibility and too many choices can be overwhelming.  Instead, your weekend plans must be creative if you can only spend $100 and have two fixed time commitments.  Maybe you take the kids to the zoo just after their Little League game.  It’s a fun and unusual family activity while solving the problem within the given constraints. 

Curiosity

It goes without saying that curiosity must be a key element of creativity.  The status quo cannot serve to grow a business or to generate innovative products over the long-term.  Creative curiosity is a desire – a passion – to figure out how things work.  In new product development, the marketing representative is curious about the problems consumers face and the technical representative is curious about how to build a widget to solve that problem.  Creative curiosity is always looking for ways to improve a system and searching for the “real” problem. 

Are you curious?  How do you approach a new opportunity?  Creative curiosity involves jumping in to quickly learn the who, what, why, and how of a problem. 

Learning

The final element of creativity is learning – learning from failure and learning from each other.  Not every idea works out as we planned.  Sometimes our ideas are too radical for an existing market.  Oftentimes, we cannot find the cost-effective technology to scale for commercial application.  These are “failures” by one definition, yet there are also opportunities for learning.  Each piece of knowledge stacks up to help us solve the next problem, even if one particular approach didn’t work out perfectly. 

Another aspect of creative learning regards quality.  A lot of us are perfectionists because of our passion and love for our customers and career.  Yet, sometimes, good enough is good enough.  When a famous artist changes his style from realism to abstract, he might learn new techniques and learn to be satisfied with the quality of each new painting, even though it isn’t perfect.  A mystery author can add new twists and turns to the story line, depth of characters to her text, but the book must be written in order to be read and appreciated.  Learning to define “done” is an important feature for creativity within the bounds of product innovation. 

Four Elements of Creativity

A lot of people I know claim they are not creative.  This is troubling since I know a lot of people working in new product development.  Everyone can be creative.  I suggest you start with these four key elements of creativity. 

  1. Use a cross-functional team to build empathy across many different perspectives. 
  2. Place loose boundaries around the problem space to enhance creativity. 
  3. Encourage curiosity by offering new options and seeking to deeply understand the problem. 
  4. Practice continuous learning and accept failure by recognizing that good enough is good enough.

Creativity starts with leadership.  Please join our best practices Master Class on Leadership for Project Managers starting 18 August.  Register here. 

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Is Your Accent Real?

Recently, my husband and I attended a production of “Pride and Prejudice” at the local community theatre.  First, I didn’t even know Jane Austen’s famous book had ever been made into a play.  Second, because of the short time available for a stage production, I missed some of my favorite passages with Mr. Darcy.  Finally, I live in Texas, so we had to laugh at some of the feigned English accents. 

In fact, my husband’s mother is British.  After about 15 minutes, he whispered to me “Where is this taking place?  Louisiana?”  (Remember we’re both engineers and not experts in literature!  Pride and Prejudice is definitely a “chick flick” anyway.)  The props did have fleur de lis painted on them and the play actors’ accents were far-removed from his mother’s accent.  One guy definitely sounded more Irish than English!

Accents and Innovation

So, you’re probably wondering, “What do fake English accents have to do with innovation?”  Maybe more than you think. 

When we are designing and developing new products, the expectations of our customers are most important to satisfy.  We can design features and functions that add value for them.  Or we can fake it.  A “fake” feature is one we tell customers is great, but the product does not support our claims in quality or cost. 

Another example of a “fake” feature is one that a company develops and promotes but customers don’t want.  Presenting customers with a more expensive product with features they don’t want is as ridiculous as an actor trying to speak proper English over a Southern drawl. 

Identify Important Features

While my mother-in-law’s British accent is familiar and true, I was perfectly happy to accept the “fake” English accents at the play.  My goal – as a customer – was to spend an afternoon away from the normal hustle and bustle, to be entertained, and to enjoy a familiar story in a new format.  You have to know your audience to know what features to offer them.  In this case the fake English accent allowed the production of Pride and Prejudice to go on.  The producer understood customer needs.

New products start by offering a core benefit.  (Read more here about the whole product.)  All competitors must offer the core benefit – a necessary feature or function – for the product to sell in the marketplace.  For example, a ballpoint pen must have ink in it and be able to transfer the ink to paper. 

The actual product includes those features that are new and add extra value or convenience for a customer.  A retractable ballpoint pen keeps the ink inside the holder, so it doesn’t stain your pocket or purse.  Such added features are initially differentiating but quickly become necessary for the core product when competitors also adopt this new functionality

Finally, augmented features are what makes the difference between an ordinary product and an extraordinary one.  Today, a lot of ballpoint pens have a rubber tip for tapping on your phone or tablet.  This is a special feature, useful for people with cold or dirty fingers.  A customer is willing to pay a higher price to access special features. 

What is Your Accent?

Knowing your customer means knowing which features are important.  This information will guide product innovation so that you don’t waste time on unnecessary or unwanted features and functionality.  If your audience accepts the fake English accent in exchange for two hours of entertainment, you are successful, but you must know what your target audience (your customer) wants and will accept in the product. 

Join me for the online WAGILE Product Development class on 15 and 16 July.  In this short course, we focus on valuing the customer and apply WAGILE principles to speed the product development process.  We learn which features customers want so we don’t have to fake it.  Register here – space is limited.

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4 Critical Skills Every Innovation Leader Must Master

Watch the 20-second summary and then read on!

Innovation managers are outliers in a world of functional managers.  An engineering manager hires and grooms talent to design safe and reliable manufacturing processes.  A business manager balances administrative tasks to maintain operational efficiency, and a sales manager ensures customer visits are scheduled as continued touchpoints.  Each of these roles includes measurable performance indicators:  safety incidences, organizational productivity, and sales revenues. 

In contrast, innovation and product development managers have no certain goals and their output is fuzzy.  Innovation leaders integrate skills of the functional managers:  talent management, safety, reliability, manufacturing productivity, customer interactions, and sales revenues.  Yet, innovation leaders face higher levels of technical and market uncertainties. 

So, which skills are absolutely critical to success in innovation?

What is Innovation?

First, let’s take a step back and define innovation.  If I were to ask 25 people what innovation means, I would get 35 different definitions!  For our purposes, let’s assume innovation means the creation of a new product, service, or program that brings value to the producer and to the consumer.  Thus, we include sales revenues as value to the company and utility, functionality, and convenience as values to a customer. 

The Four Critical Skills

Knowing that innovation is fraught with risk, innovation leaders must master four critical skills to succeed.  These are:

  • Business knowledge,
  • Talent acquisition,
  • Process capability, and
  • Strategic decision-making. 

Business Knowledge

Successful innovation leaders process information from a variety of internal and external sources.  They must understand the business from a technical perspective and understand customers from a market perspective.  Traditional business goals, like financial analysis and productivity studies, are a factor in mastering the business.  Innovation managers must use this information to prepare a profitable business case for any new product or service. 

Business knowledge extends to trends, fads, and emerging technologies.  Innovation relies as much on learning and change as it does in building efficiency into a current model.  Successful innovation leaders study adjacent markets and industries and apply world-class best practices to compete over the long-run. 

Talent Acquisition

Because new product development (NPD) is inherently risky, innovation project team members use different tools to work together.  A successful innovation manager builds a team that balances creativity, operational expertise, and customer interactions.  Persuasion, negotiation, and conflict management are capabilities of an innovation manager who recognizes diversity of functional experience to commercialize a profitable new product. 

Process Capability

It goes without saying that any manager must be organized and efficient with his or her time.  Innovation managers use NPD processes and product portfolio management (PPM) to drive product development.  Choosing and adapting an appropriate process is a hallmark of a successful innovation manager. 

NPD processes range from conventional phased-and-gated waterfall systems to agile methodologies with hybrid systems like WAGILE becoming more popular today.  (Read more about WAGILE here.)  Understanding the organizational culture, executive risk tolerance, and the business model allows an innovation manager to select an effective NPD process.  Of course, the execution of a product development project within the NPD process is linked to effective collaboration of team members – a direct link to talent acquisition as a key skill for the innovation leader to master. 

Strategic Decision-Making

Finally, innovation leaders act strategically as well as tactically.  We have discussed the tactical and operational skills of acting on business knowledge and deploying an appropriate NPD process already.  But, knowing “how” is very different than knowing “why”.

Successful innovation managers use decisions as opportunities to increase product knowledge and to improve customer service.  Strategic decisions include which markets are attractive, what technologies are appropriate, and what products ought to be developed.  This focus on specific growth objectives and competitive analysis differentiates a successful innovation leader from other functional managers.  Check out our new virtual Master Class on Leadership, starting 18 August here.  This course is specifically geared to the challenges of innovation, product, and project managers.

Four Critical Skills that Innovation Leaders Must Master

Innovation leaders must be adaptable, flexible, knowledgeable, and expectant.  All managers must know their trade and be ready to measure performance outcomes.  Yet, successful innovation leaders balance risk, investment, markets, and talent in a unique stew to produce customer satisfaction.  Mastering the skills in business knowledge, talent acquisition, process capability, and strategic decision-making differentiates the successful innovation leader. 

Learn More

I highly recommend New Product Development Professional certification for any innovation manager.  You will learn how strategy, portfolio management, and NPD processes guide decisions for innovation with best practices tools and techniques in process design, market research, and team-building.  Register now for the next session of the NPDP workshop here.

Hydrate Your Creativity

Water.  We all need water to stay alive.  When we become dehydrated, our minds get fuzzy and our bodies collapse.  Water is a fundamental component of life and we must continually take it to survive. 

Creativity is like the water of innovation.  A company cannot survive if it does not explore new ideas and without creativity, products become stale and collapsed.  Creativity is fundamental to new product development (NPD) and we must continually supply it for a firm to stay in business. 

But just as we take water in different forms to stay hydrated, we can use creativity in different ways to maintain and sustain innovation.  First, we must understand the goals.  Then, we must invest in the right tools.  Next, we must make creativity and its companion – failure – acceptable within the culture.  Finally, we can take the small steps to encourage creativity across organizational boundaries. 

Goals for Creativity

Most firms clearly articulate the need for innovation to stay competitive and to meet a variety of strategic objectives.  Business goals and objectives are typically identified in the strategic mission statement and visualized on the product roadmap.  Yet, creativity is not a clearly identified goal in itself.  However, without creativity, innovation and product development cannot thrive. 

Management can inspire creativity by linking business goals with innovation objectives.  This is easier than it sounds.  Often our R&D and NPD teams gather for “brainstorming.”  Brainstorming is one of several techniques that is useful for generating new ideas and concepts, but brainstorming can be largely ineffective if not applied in the right situation(s). 

It is more important to choose the right problem to solve than the right technique.  A lot of firms will automatically turn to brainstorming when other creativity tools can be used to find potential solutions to customer problems.  The objective of the company is to sustain business growth which may require marketing for sales solutions in addition to product development.  Brainstorming tends to focus on generating ideas around a single concept and many of these ideas never have any follow-up. 

Instead, task your product development and engineering staff with a set of business goals.  Striving to meet a specific goal can generate more creative solutions that are realistic and actionable. 

For example, consider a product that has lately experienced lagging sales.  Instead of jumping to a brainstorming session to generate ideas for added features, use the experience and expertise of your product management teams to better understand the sales data from the perspective of business goals. 

  • Are there new competitors in the market?
  • What is your market share?
  • Our customers once-through or repeat buyers?
  • What fashion or geographical trends are impacting the sales?

Invest in Creativity Tools

Brainstorming is a great technique under certain circumstances, but it is not a cure-all for creativity.  Companies must invest in a wide range of efforts to induce creativity.  This includes a financial commitment, year-after-year, to basic R&D.  Skills development in research cannot be advanced with annual budget fluctuations due to the interruptions in project progress.  Creativity grows from a long-term investment in R&D and in building skills for NPD within staff and personnel dedicated to bringing new ideas to fruition. 

Brainwriting is a structured group method to generate new ideas but is more focused on specific problems and goals than are general brainstorming sessions.  This technique eliminates the wild and often chaotic atmosphere of a brainstorming event to bring forth more actionable ideas.  Each individual will quietly inscribe three to five ideas on a sheet of paper.  Because the problem statement has been circulated in advance, the ideas are immediately forthcoming.  The paper is passed to the next person who builds on these ideas.  Or they may record a new idea.  After a few rounds, the paper returns to the originator who reviews and selects the best idea.  The team then notes the “best” concepts from this compilation of ideas.  These “best” ideas are recorded as in a traditional brainstorming session.

Another technique that works well to generate creative product concepts is built on the customer’s problem, or “job-to-be-done”.  The NPD team should actually use the product as it was designed in the same situations that a customer might use it.  Product use (and role-playing if that’s not possible) helps to identify real pain points from the customer’s viewpoint – areas that are ripe for innovative solutions. 

Accept Failure

We’ve all heard Thomas Edison’s famous quote of not having found the right invention but instead having found 10,000 ways not to do it.  Failure is a part of the creative process and companies must learn to accept some failures on the pathway to success.  This is precisely why athletes practice and practice.  When they encounter the real-life conflict in a game, they know what worked and what did not. 

While failure is a part of the creative process, there are limits to acceptable failures.  Companies should not tolerate new product development without corresponding customer research.  Product designs should not be created in a vacuum without consumer input.  Marketing campaigns should be tested with a subset of the target audience.  The NPD process is devised to engender fast and smart failures, leading to knowledge that increases the success rates of new products. 

Creativity Across Organizational Boundaries

Creativity for new products and services is not limited to named R&D staff or those personnel assigned to the product development organization.   Seek creativity across organizational boundaries to increase idea generation, manufacturability, and sales and marketing of products that meet customer needs and wants.   Workers on the factory floor should be empowered to add value by saving costs or increasing productivity.   Sales teams often have the most contact with customers and know their needs best.   Every NPD effort must be staffed by a cross-functional team that can look across organizational boundaries to build better, smarter, faster products and services to solve customer problems.

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The traditional “suggestion box” might be accompanied by incentives and rewards, linking exceptional ideas to the corporate business goals.   Every suggestion, however, must be acknowledged with a heartfelt “thank you” and how the suggestion will (or will not) be implemented.   Suggestions that aren’t timely or do not have enough cost impact must be acknowledged, rewarded, and encouraged.   Small steps can eventually cover great distances, especially when taken together.

Supporting Creativity

We have to support our bodies and minds by staying hydrated as water supports all the life-giving mechanisms.   Similarly, creativity supports all the business-sustaining systems for growth and productivity.   We set goals for daily water consumption – my fitness app recommends 64 ounces of water per day.   I have invested in tools to help me achieve that objective – refillable water bottles for my bicycle, for instance, and an insulated thermos for the car.   Sometimes I fail to meet my hydration goal – sometimes by a few ounces and other times by a lot.   But I can accept that failure and try again tomorrow.   Finally, I have enlisted help across my institutions – each evening, my husband brings me a fresh bottle of water while I watch television or read.   Staying hydrated helps me achieve so many other goals.

Likewise, senior executives today recognize more than ever that that innovation is key to long-term success.   Inspiring creativity is not easy, yet most employees feel empowered and more engaged in their work when they seek creative solutions to address real-world problems.   Just as I’ve taken simple steps to increase hydration in my daily life, firms can take some simple steps to enhance creativity in their organizations.

  1. Link innovation to specific business goals.
  2. Invest in effective innovation tools.
  3. Accept failures on the pathway to creativity.
  4. Take small steps to generate big results.

Creativity is part of being a successful new product development professional (NPDP).   Learn more about NPDP certifications here. 

Read about more creativity tools in my recent article in Chemical Engineering Progress (published by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers) here.

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Planning for New Product Development

A famous quote by Eisenhower tells us that we should plan well but know that our plans will be disrupted.  Planning includes creating a set of activities, tasks, and milestones to achieve specific goals and objectives.  You can think of planning as a roadmap to a destination with rest stops (checkpoints) built into the route.

New product development (NPD) is important for every organization, regardless of size or industry.  Technology and markets are changing constantly.  Globalization introduces changes in raw material supplies, labor, and distribution.  Digitization has brought forth changes in how we manage relationships with customers and a dependence on sophisticated data models.  Without designing and launching new products, services, and applications, organizations will fall behind their competitors.

As Eisenhower’s quote describes, our ability to anticipate and manage risks is the purpose of planning.   NPD is risky.  Financial investments are lost if the technology or markets failed to materialize.  Revenue shrinks and expenses soar if customers express dissatisfaction with an existing or new product.  The organization’s reputation suffers irreparable harm if a commercial product fails to meet expected quality and reliability standards. 

So, instead of anticipating doom and gloom, let’s look at how planning can improve the execution and outcomes of NPD. 

NPD Processes Manage Risk

Implementing and following a step-by-step NPD process reduces risk.  For example, a standard waterfall process (see the figure below), simultaneously minimizes investment risk and technology risk.  In a traditional staged-and-gated NPD process, work is done in stages and decisions are made at gates. 

Each subsequent phase of work requires additional investment as R&D work scales to commercial production through the process steps.  Fortunately, technology risk is minimized because the knowledge, data, and information gained in each stage frames a go/no-go decision at the next gate.  If the business case and markets continue to look attractive, the new product development effort moves to the next stage of work. 

Planning Estimates

One element of planning that helps us to reduce risk is estimating.  The most successful organizations use both cost estimates and resource estimates to plan an NPD project.  Furthermore, the best organizations also use actual project data and metrics to create future project plans. 

What do we mean by using current data for future planning?  Most organizations create new products in just a handful of categories:

In many organizations, the bulk of NPD work is tweaking features of existing products to deliver a “new product” to existing markets or to introduce existing products to a new market.  These “derivative” products are common enough that it is easy to establish a database to improve estimates of future, similar projects.  That is, we can take averages of elapsed time and actual costs from a set of completed projects to plan a better estimate for a similar project in the future. 

An Example

Let’s say you are the Product Development Manager at a food and beverage company.  The company is constantly on the lookout for new flavors and considers any novel combination of juices as a new product.  Upon investigating the last three new flavors of juices launched in the past three years, you uncover the following data. 

  • Stage 1 (Brainstorming):  3 days, 10 people
  • Stage 2 (Concept Testing):  2 weeks, 4 people
  • Stage 3 (Business Case Development):  6 weeks, 3 people
  • Stage 4 (Prototype Testing):  12 weeks, 10 people
  • Stage 5 (Scale-Up):  15 weeks, 18 people

As the Product Development Manager, you can use this “average” data to estimate, to plan the next similar new product development project.  The result includes an estimated project schedule in Gantt chart format (see figure below), resource estimates, and cost estimates (see the table below). 

Derivative Product Development Estimates
Stage# FTE
(Full-Time Equivalent days)		Cost
($100k/year per FTE)
1:  Brainstorming30$11,538
2:  Concept Testing40$15,385
3:  Business Case Development90$34,615
4:  Prototype Testing600$230,769
5:  Scale-Up1350$519,231
Total Estimated Cost2110$811,538

For this project, the innovation team has estimated a profit of $1 per bottle of juice sold with 5-year sales of 100M bottles.  Thus, we can get a rough estimate of profitability (approximately $99.2M).  A rough business case estimate can help the organization determine whether to continue this project or allocate scarce resources to another one.

NPD Project Planning

Planning is the act of creating tasks, activities, and milestones to drive completion of goals and objectives.  Planning does not prevent all risks from occurring but minimizes uncertainties in technology and market development.  Even though new product development (NPD) is risky by its very nature, planning via a structured process allows us to create more accurate cost and resource estimates, thereby reducing investment risk. 

To learn more about NPD Processes, join the two-part workshop sponsored by PDMA and Global NP Solutions.   Register here – the first session is 17 June 2021.   Contact me at info at Simple-PDH.com to learn more about utilizing effective planning as a Product Development Manager.   

Learn more about building a successful NPD team at any of these upcoming events. 

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What are the Functions of New Product Development?

Most organizations recognize that innovation is crucial for both the short-term and long-term success.  We are acquainted with stories of familiar brands, like Kodak® and Sears falling into decline.  And while business and change management played a role in the recent decline of the JCPenney’s brand, a lack of customer-oriented innovation is also to blame. 

Innovation and new product development (NPD) serve as important business functions for strategic growth.   R&D requires a long- term investment, as do market and technology development.  Thus, we can say that NPD serves three primary purposes for the business:

  • Value Creation,
  • Value Extension, and
  • Value Preservation.

Note that “value” here means the ability to deliver profit to the organization while simultaneously establishing market demand for products and services. 

Value Creation

Most of us think of innovation in terms of value creation.  By designing new-to-the-world products with new technologies, we can create market value.  Such products meet the specific needs of a target customer who spends their money to acquire a convenience, a luxury, or a new way to solve a problem. 

Consider some examples from your office that you probably use every day.  These products create value for you through convenience.  For instance, a combination webcam and microphone provide the ability to move about during a virtual meeting.  You are not tethered by a USB cable to a headset and with a wide-angle camera, you can move a few feet to the left or to the right.  This convenience allows you to stand or stretch during a virtual meeting, just as we used to do in real life.

Another convenient product that you might find in your office that adds value to your everyday routine is the software on your computer.  We have the luxury of single click calendar scheduling in apps.  This saves us the time and headaches of back-and-forth scheduling with others.  It’s especially a time-saver to schedule meetings with large groups of stakeholders!

Value Extension

So, new products give us new value, especially through convenience and solving problems to eliminate wasted time, money, and energy.  NPD also offers to extend the value of existing products and services.  We often call these innovations “derivatives” since they are derived from a primary product.  Many organizations spend the bulk of their R&D effort in value extension. 

Value extension uses new technology to make the product better, faster, or cheaper.  Making the product better allows the company to maintain strategic pricing and sustain revenue over the long–term.  Making the product faster or cheaper (from the manufacturer’s viewpoint) goes directly to cost-savings and to the bottom line. 

Google appears to have mastered value extension.  A combination of products and product families has grown from a simple search engine.  Accessing advertising, shared documents, and e-mail through a single log-on ID and password offers convenience but also offers more (a version of better, faster, cheaper).  Features extend from desktop and laptop computers to mobile devices giving customers access to their accounts at all times, all places (value extension). 

Value Preservation

Finally, NPD helps to preserve product value over the long run.  A typical product life cycle includes introduction of a new product, growth in market share, maturity with increased competition, and decline as the market reaches saturation and profits decrease.  (Read about the product life cycle – PLC – here.)  Innovation can revamp and revitalize a product or brand so that declining profits are reversed.

For example, many of us remember an advertising campaign from a few years ago for a very dull, everyday product:  milk.  The California Milk Processor Board successfully reversed declining sales and preserved product value by increasing product awareness. 

Preserving value might be as simple as a new ad campaign to re-ignite interest in a product or service.  On the other hand, technology improvements or new market applications may be needed to spark renewed customer interest in the product or brand.  It is the job of a product manager to watch for market disruptions and trends, including timing for revamping a product or brand.

Take-Aways

As a business owner, product innovation professional, or technologist, you have some simple take-aways to construct your own analysis of NPD functions.  Follow these steps.

  1. Classify your new product portfolio according to the NPD function (value creation, value extension, or value preservation). 
  2. Assess the value (revenue or cost-savings) of each product and category of products. 
  3. Prioritize the projects and resources assigned to NPD efforts.
  4. Identify gaps between necessary resources need and assigned for the highest value-add projects. 
  5. Reprioritize your new product portfolio according to available resources and strategic growth objectives. 

Let me know if you want some guidance in assessing your NPD functions!  A deeper dive into the knowledge base, such as NPD Processes (sponsored by PDMA and Global NP Solutions), can introduce you to some additional important concepts for successful innovation.  Register here – the first session is 17 June 2021.  Contact me at info at Simple-PDH.com to learn more about the functions for value in NPD.

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Separating Wheat from Weeds

There is a parable in the Bible (Matthew 13: 24-30) speaking of a farmer who bought good seed and planted it.  But, when small shoots first came through the ground, there were weeds mixed among the wheat.  Knowing that if he pulled the weeds, he would also uproot the wheat, he let the weeds grow with the good plants until harvest.  At the final harvest, the weeds were separated from the wheat and burned. 

Aside from the eternal lesson, this parable teaches us something about creativity and innovation.  Not every idea is a good one.  But if we try to kill all the bad ideas, we might also uproot some good ones at the same time.  Instead, if we let ideas grow, we can harvest creativity and separate innovation ideas for further processing while we discard the poor ones. 

Creativity

We often judge creative ideas after the harvest – when a new product is delivering profit and customers express satisfaction with service and functionality.  Likewise, we often “kill” ideas early in new product development (NPD) process when they do not appear to bear fruit – profitability or competitive advantage.  From a business perspective, I totally agree with separating the “weeds” from the “wheat” early in the product development effort.  From a leadership perspective, we do have to be careful to not tamp down the team’s creativity. 

Leaders must nurture creativity, just as a farmer nurtures young shoots.  Apparently, the leaves of a weed called “darnel” are indistinguishable from wheat – even by experts – until the plants mature.  Similarly, we do not know if an idea is good or bad until we test it with customers. 

One strategy to improve creativity, and to encourage customer feedback on all ideas, is to let the biggest naysayer try to prove an idea is bad.  Within constraints of time, budget, and scope, a team member who doubts the success of an idea can try to demonstrate it is a bad idea.  Either they are correct, or they become the biggest champion for the concept.  Either way, the team wins, and customers are best served with creative, innovative ideas. 

Tools

In innovation, we have several tools at our disposal to separate the wheat from the weeds.  First, a rigorous NPD process compares the goals of an individual idea with the strategic objectives of the organization.  A company’s vision might be to grow a specific product line or brand.  Or the firm may have goals to cut costs.  New product development projects must align with these goals to advance. 

Another tool that product development professionals use to promote good ideas is Product Portfolio Management (PPM).  Within the framework of PPM, organizational leaders rank and prioritize all projects and ideas.  Decision criteria vary from firm to firm but generally include strategic alignment, profit potential, and customer satisfaction.  PPM balances risk of short-term and long-term innovation investments as well. 

Quality

Finally, innovation is mixed with quality just as the farmer’s field was mixed of weeds and wheat.  Successful product development only occurs when we deliver quality products and services to our customers.  Quality includes elements of reliability, functionality, and maintainability. 

Quality in new product development encompasses the product design and the project management process.  In the former case, we test ideas and concepts with customers and ensure that QC standards guide manufacturing.  In the latter case, we work to constantly improve the system in which a project moves through various development phases and gates.

Separating Wheat and Weeds

Today’s technology is very different than in Biblical times.  Robots patrol fields taking photos of young shoots to classify them as weeds or wheat.  Ultra-accurate machines then spray precisely on the weed leaves to kill them or exactly on the wheat leaves to fertilize them .  However, the risk is the same – if you mistake wheat for a weed you can kill your entire crop. 

As product innovation leaders, we must be careful not to kill good ideas along with the bad ones.  Maintaining creativity is important to continue designing and developing new products and services to satisfy customer needs.  We need to let ideas mature to test concepts with potential customers.  On the other hand, limited investment reduces the risk of failed products. 

Tools like an NPD process (we recommend WAGILE product development) and PPM help to sort the “weeds” “wheat”.  Organizational strategy and growth goals help to differentiate good ideas from poor ones.  PPM, in particular, ensures the best ideas are ranked the highest. 

Finally, quality is what the farmer sought – wheat provides quality food while weeds are mostly inedible.  Likewise, positive innovation quality metrics include customer satisfaction, market share, and market penetration.  Having QA and QC in place throughout the product design and development process.

Learn More

If you want to learn how to separate the wheat from the weeds, please join me for an in-depth Innovation Best Practices Workshop starting 2 June March 2021.  Special discounts for multiple attendees and the unemployed.  Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com for more information.

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Project Controls in Innovation

Controlling is often a misunderstood management function.  In everyday use, we use the term “controlling” to mean manipulating or limiting other’s behavior.  Yet in engineering management, project management, and new product development (NPD), controlling is an important process that helps the team leader assess the performance of a project and of his or her team. 

Definition of Controlling

Let’s define controlling as follows, consistent with the American Society of Engineering Management (ASEM). 

“A management function of measuring performance and comparing the results with established standards to ensure that the work conforms to requirements and brings a desired outcome.” 

Defined in this way, controlling is a critical function that assures work meets expectations.  If at any time, the project outcomes are not meeting expectations, we make adjustments to bring the product or project work into alignment with the plan. 

Steps in Controlling

There are typically four steps that product and project managers follow in controlling. 

  1. Set a baseline,
  2. Measure performance,
  3. Compare the baseline against performance measures, and
  4. Take corrective action as necessary. 

Set a Baseline

In project management and NPD, setting baselines for performance should be easy.  In reality, however, setting baselines requires substantial planning effort on behalf of the project leader.  The baseline must reflect the best outcome of project planning.  Principles of project management dictate that during the initiation phase, the project leader and team members identify requirements from all project stakeholders.  Gathering and documenting project requirements ensures that stakeholder expectations can be met. 

In innovation projects, customer needs are documented in the PIC (product innovation charter).  During all stages of the structured NPD process, the innovation project team will test customer needs to ensure alignment with the product design.  One way in which to map customer needs to engineering design specs is to use the QFD tool (quality function deployment).  Read more about process design here. 

Measure Performance

In Step 2 of controlling, we measure the performance of engineering and project teams.  Here, both individual and team member performance are assessed as well as the project requirements.  For example, if a new product development project had a customer requirement to increase battery life by 50%, the engineering team would measure all new battery designs against the performance standard.  A new battery with just 20% increase in lifetime would be inadequate, while a battery with a life that is 48% longer is considered a successful technology.  The project is approved when it meets the technical hurdles and would move along in the NPD process. 

image from creative commons with free to share and use

Compare Baseline Against Performance

In Step 3 of controlling, the project leader and project team members assess the project performance by comparing current design elements against the baseline set forth in the project plan.  It is important to ensure that the baseline and product performance requirements are measurable so that this comparison is meaningful.  Objectives are stated in measurable terms and metrics are gathered without difficulty or subject to opinion or interpretation. 

Again, for instance, battery life extension of 50% is measurable.  The initial battery in the current product demonstrates an average of 3-hour life before requiring a recharge.  Sample batteries in lab tests demonstrate 4-hour, 4.2-hours and 4.4-hours.  These data points are easy to compare to the initial product performance level.  The product development and innovation teams strive for measurable goals and objectives to improve customer satisfaction. 

Take Corrective Action

At the heart of the controlling process is the idea that correcting errors early leads to higher quality products and that the development effort will be less expensive overall.  Thus, the final step in the controlling function is to take action based on analysis of the data from Step 3.  In the case where performance matches expectations and baseline plans, no action is required. 

Frequently, controlling will reveal that a project is over-budget and/or behind schedule.  In these situations, the project manager and sponsor must work with the customer to modify the plan.  Some tools are available to help accomplish the work within the required time frame, but these schedule adaptations normally require additional costs (e.g. crashing and compression).  Further, missing the timeline for a new product launch can impact the overall profitability of an innovative new product. 

Controlling Function

In engineering management, project management and new product development, controlling is an important management function.  The four steps in controlling are: (1) set a baseline, (2) measure performance, (3) compare the baseline against performance, and (4) take corrective action as appropriate.  To learn more about the controlling function and other ways to improve new product project execution, you must earn your New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification.  Check out our training and speaking schedule for innovation and project management here. 

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Customers and Product Development

As product development professionals, we often think of our customer.  What do customers feel?  What do they need?  What are their expectations?  Our responses, generally, focus on features and functionality of the product.

Of course, we have many types of customers and the best new product development (NPD) processes address customer needs throughout the value chain.  Let’s take a look at the various types of customers and their role in NPD.

Types of Customers

One of the fundamental decisions you make in product innovation is who is the customer.  We must consider several types of customers.

Internal Customers

First, we have internal customers.  These are departments or units that are downstream within a single company.  It is folly to ignore logistics or sales during product design and development.  No new product makes its way into the hands of a customer without first being manufactured (supply chain logistics), being delivered (distribution), and being purchased (sales).

Supply chain is an internal provider and customer to the NPD effort.  Working with the purchasing department early in concept development can reduce costs of raw materials.  Perhaps your purchasing department can work a deal that gives a component discount as production ramps up after new product introduction. Your purchasing department should be a partner not an adversary.

You also need your internal customers to provide timely actions to get a new product to market.  Legal teams must work with the NPD team throughout design and development for functional patent protection and trademarking of new logos, etc.  Many other functional departments serve to assist the development effort as well.

External Customers

External customers are who we typically think of when we hear the term “customer”.  These are folks outside the firm that buy the product and consume it (thus, the oft-used, interchangeable term of “consumer”).  Our communication with external customers is frequently one-way by telling them about a product’s features.

However, the most successful innovators use two-way communication with external customers. We must know the thoughts and feelings of our customers to design and develop new products. External customers provide infinitely valuable feedback on our ideas and concepts.  They test prototypes and lead us to the designs that will best satisfy their needs.

External customer feedback is at the heart of the WAGILE process.  WAGILE takes the best of the traditional waterfall development processes and the best of Agile design to create a disciplined yet flexible customer-focused NPD process.  Register here for our interactive WAGILE product development course (online 18 and 19 February 2021).

End-Users

Not all customers are end-users.  Most of the time, a consumer purchases a product and uses it herself.  There are many situations, though, in which other people use the product after it is purchased by someone else.

The easiest example of a non-purchasing end-user is a child.  Mom and Dad buy toys, books, games, and snacks for Little Johnny often without his input.  Of course, Little Johnny does not have money (and sometimes doesn’t know how to talk yet), so he is incapable of buying a product.  However, Little Johnny does play, read, and eat so he “consumes” the product.

In product innovation and in the WAGILE process, we test not only the market response of the decision-maker (see below) but also the end-user.  If :ittle Johnny prefers to play with the box instead of the toy inside, should we proceed with development of that particular product?  We also might find that parts and components need different assembly for children than in a product built by adults.  The end-user is an important customer in NPD.

Decision-Maker

Little Johnny’s mom and dad are the decision-makers in this scenario.  Naturally, other products and services have customers that are decision-makers different from the end-user.  Medicine has tons of examples.

For example, your insurance provider (private or government) determines which physicians you can afford to visit.  Insurance companies often pay for pharmaceutical drugs but not naturopathic therapies.  They may tell you which hospital is okay for you to go to for a knee surgery, regardless of the distance from your home.

Decision-makers are likely to look primarily at cost for a new product.  Effectiveness and satisfaction by the end-user (unless it’s Little Johnny) may not be the defining characteristic of a purchase.  For corporate decision-makers, “average performance” might be more important than delivering a quality experience to the ultimate consumer.

Who is Your Customer? 

As you design a new product innovation, you must consider the customer.  It is extremely unwise to ignore your internal customers.  Use the various departments in your firm as partners to find the best solutions (especially for supply chain and distribution).

One our external customers, likewise, often are ignored.  Why wouldn’t you want to test concepts and ideas with the person whom you ultimately want to sell?  Customer feedback is essential to successful product innovation.

Finally, don’t confuse the decision-maker with the end-user.  Satisfying the needs of both of these customers might mean a trade-off in cost versus quality.  Make sure your NPD process involves testing for all external customers, including decision-makers and end-users.

Learn More

I’m excited to share my podcast interview with Kevin Brennan.  You can listen to a summary of WAGILE here.  Then, register for the interactive online WAGILE Product Development course on 18 and 19 February 2021 (register here).  You will have homework because you must understand customer needs to be successful in product innovation!  Contact me at info@Simple-PDH.com for more information.

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What is WAGILE?

WAGILE is an emerging approach to product innovation.  You might ask, “Why do we need yet another, new approach to managing product development?”  The answer is that every system has advantages and that over time, we can recognize process improvements.  A secondary answer is more data-based.  Studies indicate that revamping and revitalizing your new product development (NPD) process can not only enhance participation but yield improved results, such as creative solutions, time-to-market, and profitability.

Traditional NPD Processes

Organizations implement NPD processes to manage risk.  Risk in innovation is more loosely defined than in traditional project management.  Innovation professionals encounter risk from two perspectives:  understanding the product or project requirements and developing the required technology.  These are identified as “requirements uncertainty” and “technical uncertainty” in the figure.

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A traditional NPD process, such as the staged-and-gated process, is designed primarily to manage investment risk.  Each stage of work involves more resources but as the project advances through the various stages, technical risks are addressed.  Each subsequent stage of work encounters less uncertainty.  In this way, financial risk is minimized because there is little investment for small-scale experiments during initial stages and as more knowledge is gained, the investments will grow but with reduced uncertainty in the outcomes.  Sometimes these processes are called “waterfall” since each step flows to the next; however, there is no easy way to go “backward” in the system.

To counter the bureaucracy that many large companies incorporate alongside traditional NPD processes, the Agile methodology intentionally leaves the overall requirements uncertain.  Theoretically, the customer provides feedback after each incremental development step (called a “sprint”) so that the requirements uncertainty is reduced.  A drawback of Agile is that real customers are often not included in the process.  Further, it is difficult to determine when a project is “done” in terms of meeting market requirements.

What is WAGILE?

WAGILE is a hybrid process that blends the best of the traditional waterfall systems with Agile philosophy (“W” + “Agile”).  The rigor of a staged-and-gated project management approach is coupled with required customer feedback in each phase.  Incremental and iterative work within a stage allows innovation teams to adequately address design and development needs.  Yet repeating a phase of work is done only when necessary.  The WAGILE philosophy incorporates key ideas from these innovation approaches.

  • Move fast
  • Practice discipline
  • Understand risks
  • Engage customers
  • Provide autonomy

You can read more about the WAGILE Philosophy here.

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WAGILE Roles

Roles and responsibilities are defined clearly for Agile processes, such as Scrum, as well as in traditional project management.  Many of these roles are similar to those utilized in WAGILE.  Some key roles and responsibilities for WAGILE are described below.  You can read more about the WAGILE Roles here.

  • Project Leader:  Somewhat like a traditional brand manager, the Project Leader in WAGILE is responsible for the overall product life cycle and drives product innovation.
  • Customer Representative:  In Scrum, the product owner represents the voice of the customer.  In WAGILE, the Customer Representative carries out this responsibility and helps to translate or articulate customer needs for the innovation team.
  • Team Leader:  In many ways, the team leader in WAGILE is similar to a traditional project manager with tactical and operational responsibility for the execution of the project.  Team leaders are servant leaders yet maintain autonomy for project decisions within the scope of the project.
  • Cross-Functional Team:  Like all new product development teams, successful innovation under a WAGILE approach requires participation from all relevant departments and functions.  Team members are generalist-specialists, as in an Agile approach and the core team maintains continuity throughout the project effort.

Some WAGILE Tools

WAGILE tools are based primarily on Design Thinking to incorporate customer feedback at each stage of development.  Each individual WAGILE project will use several complementary tools to complete the work of a given phase.  Depending on the scale, scope, and breadth of the innovation work, several tools are used at multiple points during development.  A fundamental decision point in selecting feedback techniques is to use the data gathering, testing, and experimentation tools that provide the highest density of customer information.  Read more about WAGILE Tools here – a list of some of my favorite tools follows.

  • Customer empathy map
  • Customer journey map
  • Affinity diagrams
  • Product Portfolio Management
  • Scrum board
  • Business model canvas
  • Paper prototypes

Benefits of WAGILE

Again, you might be asking, “Why do I need a new system to manage product development?”  Often the NPD process becomes stale and the links to customer feedback become broken.  You need WAGILE if you find your innovation teams bogged down in idea generation stages or if recent product launches are met with “ho-hum” market responses.  The biggest benefit of WAGILE is that it is a flexible, risk-based process to get new products into competitive markets.  We measure success of product innovation in WAGILE via market success:  customer satisfaction, market share, and profitability.

What’s Next? 

If you’d like to learn more about WAGILE, please join our WAGILE class on 18 and 19 February.  We will dig deeper into each of these concepts.  Your homework during the course allows you to begin transitioning to a more flexible and adaptable approach to innovation within the governance of a risk-adjusted process.  For personalized problem-solving or customized training, contact me at info@globalnpsolutions.com for innovation consulting.   

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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 info@simple-pdh.com or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

Unless otherwise indicated, images used under Creative Commons.