product development

What is WAGILE?

Posted on 01.28.21

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.

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.

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.

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.

Roles in Wagile Product Development

Posted on 08.20.20

When I was in graduate school, I spent the better part of one day organizing our tool chest. In one drawer, I put all of our metric wrenches and sockets and then laid them out by size . Not only did it look tidy, but it was much more convenient to grab the right tool when you needed it. Everything had an assigned storage place and organizing the parts and pieces according to the job increased our efficiency in the lab.

People are what makes systems work. We assign roles and responsibilities within organizations to ensure that activities and tasks are completed. Similar to a tool chest, assigning job roles to different people ensures they are trained appropriately to conduct tasks as expected. The system itself often is less important than how the people assigned to various roles and responsibilities carry out their tasks within that process.

Wagile Product Development Reviewed

In the Wagile system of product development (read more here), certain roles and responsibilities are assigned to ensure an efficient product innovation effort accomplishes timely goals. As a quick recap, Wagile is a hybrid approach to traditional waterfall project management and the Agile philosophy commonly applied to software development. The advantage of Wagile over other new product development (NPD) systems is that it enhances the frequency of customer feedback during design and development. Another advantage of Wagile is that it applies iterative development within predetermined boundaries (e.g. budget and schedule). Finally, the biggest advantage of Wagile is enhanced communication and team collaboration. Read more about Wagile here.

Roles in Wagile

In every project management and product innovation system, it is critical to include customer perspectives, internal stakeholder viewpoints, and contributions of vendors and suppliers. The key roles of internal stakeholders in a Wagile process include the Project Leader, the Customer Representative, the Team Leader, and the Cross-Functional Team.

Project Leader

Because Wagile adopts the Agile philosophy, the process succeeds at improving time-to-market of new products by reducing hierarchy and bureaucracy. The role of Project Leader is much like a Scrum Master. The Project Leader serves the team to reduce barriers to efficiency and productivity. In addition, s/he interacts with senior executives, external stakeholders, and the Customer Representative to ensure the product development effort is on target. Some Project Leaders act in a dual role as a brand manager or product manager, tracking the overall life cycle value of the new product.

Customer Representative

No product development project can be successful without customer input. The role of Customer Representative in Wagile is to build trust with customers, to collect end-user data, and to organize market research activities for the target customer segment. In Scrum, the voice of customer is delegated to the Product Owner role. (Read more about typical Scrum roles here.) Yet, in practice, the product owner often bypasses true customer insights and reflects internal priorities for project execution instead. A critical performance metric for the customer representative in Wagile is the number of external customer, consumer, and end-user interactions.

Team Leader

The Team Leader and the Project Leader are like an old, married couple. They work together to accomplish the project goals and complement one another. While the Project Leader often focuses on longer term strategic objectives, the Team Leader focuses on operational and tactical goals. The Team Leader is charismatic and builds collaborative skills for the team. S/he also manages the new product development scope, schedule, and budget but has autonomy for decisions for project outcomes.

Cross-Functional Team

Not all project teams are created equal. The Wagile Cross-Functional Team brings together the “generalist–specialist” mentality of Scrum team members while also capitalizing on the depth of skills needed in a traditional project team. While teams are generally small in Wagile as in scrum, scalability is less of an issue.

Small teams allow for quicker and better decisions, so Wagile uses intimate Cross-Functional Teams to complete the tasks of the new product development project. However, as product innovation advances to later phases and requires greater talent investment, sub-teams form to accomplish specific goals and objectives. Communication among Cross-Functional Teams (and sub-teams) is vital to the success of any project, regardless of the project management system.

Roles for Wagile Product Development

Like any system, Wagile product development relies on the people to do the work of the project and to progress toward goals. Understanding the roles and responsibilities of key players within the system allows each person to access necessary training, streamline workflows, and improve communication. Critical roles in Wagile include the Project Leader, the Customer Representative, the Team Leader, and the Cross-Functional Team.

Learn More

Learn more about Wagile Product Development in my Webcast with PDMA on 10 September (register here). Contact me at info@globalnpsolutions.com for a complimentary 30-minute innovation coaching session.

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).
Reference the new PDMA Body of Knowledge, available at Amazon.
Get your NPDP Certification! Join our October online class (Thursdays) following the brand new, 2^nd 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 info@simple-pdh.com or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

What is Emotional Design?

Posted on 07.23.20

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.

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.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

About Me

Product Design Process

Posted on 06.25.20

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

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 info@globalnpsolutions.com for more information.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

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Using PESTLE in a Recovery Strategy

Posted on 05.28.20

Watch the short video (<1 minute) and then read on for all the details!

While our country has never before shuttered the economy, we have also never been faced with such challenges in innovation in business. “Experts” predict V-shaped and U-s0haped recoveries. Personally, the prediction of a “swoosh”-shaped recovery seems more reasonable; and it gives me hope for fan-based sports in its terminology, too.

Regardless of size or scope of your business, the so-called “reopening” allows you a chance to reset your strategy. In an earlier post, we discussed using SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) as a strategic assessment of your internal capabilities. Opportunities and threats are external drivers in the model, yet how do you ascertain competitor actions when the shape of the business landscape has shifted irreversibly?

This is where another strategy planning tool can be of essence in resetting your business and innovation strategies. PESTLE is a technique that forces an organization to examine trends outside their control, narrowing the possible scenarios for future conditions. The acronym PESTLE represents political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental situations and trends.

Political

In the US, the corona-panic has illuminated some strong political trends that are likely to continue unabated into the future. First, increased socialism and government control is likely. American citizens have demonstrated they will give up fundamental rights (e.g. the right to assembly and the right to religious freedom) when threatened with an unspecified health fear. It is unwise to trust that all elected and appointed government officials will treat their power with fairness and justice.

Second, policy makers have realized that using the word “science” in any conversation is effective to convince the electorate to succumb any personal responsibility or liberty. Many US citizens have only a limited math or science education (and, unfortunately, we continue to fall behind most other first world nations), so telling someone it is “science” without providing factual data is proof enough for most.

How do these political trends impact your business and innovation strategies? Are you positioned to take advantage of growing government bureaucracies? Will you be nimble enough to navigate a flurry and inconsistent network of illogical rules and regulations again?

Economic

There are not enough words in my vocabulary to describe the economic damage of the corona-panic. As we plan new business and innovation strategies, one key economic trend stands out. Debt. Before the corona-panic, the US economy was already headed toward an unsustainable debt-to-GDP ratio. With massive stimulus bills and shrinking output, the debt-to-GDP ratio is at astronomical levels, never seen before – even in times of war.

With a fiat currency (meaning printed money and not based on bullion value), increased debt means inflation and higher taxes. How can you incorporate these threats into your business and innovation strategies going forward? What does it mean for product pricing strategies?

Social

Social trends are yet to be determined coming out of the corona-panic. There are some people who had readily believe the disastrously wrong models from government agencies and consequently believe any social interaction will result in immediate death. Many of us have looked at the data and will continue to want to live our lives with normal human contact: going to the movies, concerts, and trade shows.

As an individual, I dread the trend away from face-to-face events. It is nearly impossible to meet new people and to connect in a virtual world. The coffee pot conversations, lunch discussions, and happy hour connections at events allow us to interact as human beings were designed to do. No one should be expected to sit in front of a computer screen for hours (or days) on end and expect to build an important relationship.

Yet, as you reset your business and innovation strategies, virtual meetings are, at least, a short-term reality. How can you involve customers in your product innovation work in a virtual world? How will you plan for qualitative feedback when you can’t see your potential customers? What does “moving online” mean for your business?

Technology

With the advent of doing everything virtually and without contact, your business and innovation strategies must incorporate technological changes. We are sure to see a slew of new technical tools (other than zoom, I hope!) to run our business in a digital, nonhuman world. There are also going to be more frequent and more numerous cyberattacks. Are you building IT strength into your business and innovation strategies? Digital transformation trends will continue to dominate physical product development. Are you linking “digital” applications with all hardware development?

Legal

There is no doubt that legal implications will continue to grow as the world emerges from the corona-panic. HR experts will tell you that if your employees are afraid of getting sick at work, you will need to make a legal disability accommodation and let them work from home. How will you monitor project work and schedules when your staff does not meet together?

Further, if one of your team members coughs or sneezes, how do you treat that? If another team member catches a cold, will she sue you? I believe there will be a whole host of new illnesses arising from the overuse of cleaning products. Government “experts” are encouraging nearly continuous use of hand sanitizer, yet I am reminded that it is the only solution I use to effectively remove bicycle grease. Once I spilled a few drops of hand sanitizer on my desk and it removed the varnish. Are you prepared for a trend of chronic diseases from chemical usage in a workplace? What other legal implications threaten your business or the introduction of a new product?

Environmental

As a result of the corona-panic, I believe there are favorable environmental trends to influence our business and innovation strategies. The tremendous hit that oil and gas took during the panic creates opportunities for petrochemical manufacturing. Distribution costs should decline as diesel and jet fuel are less expensive. Peoples’ fears regarding short-term environmental destruction have been replaced with an immediate health and safety fear. While both fears are completely irrational (and not based on existing data but so-called “science”), environmental restrictions will be loosened in many areas so business can get going again. For example, allowing a truck driver to haul two trailers in tandem versus a single trailer might benefit how your products get to market.

Use PESTLE to Design a Recovery Strategy

Every business, large or small, must deeply probe its innovation strategy today. Understanding and studying external opportunities and threats can help you formulate an effective recovery strategy. Use PESTLE to identify trends impacting innovation and business conditions during “reopening”.

What political trends are happening locally or nationally to threaten your business? Will the economic conditions (especially increasing debt, inflation, and taxes) cause a change in your business structure? Which societal trends will allow you to grow and which fears of society might threaten your innovation programs?

Examine technology advances and incorporate enhanced cyber security into your strategies. Be prepared for a slew of legal actions, especially as elections are anticipated and the way we vote in a democracy is changed away from secure and known trends. How will employee behaviors influence your strategies to prepare for health and safety lawsuits? Finally, are there any environmental trends that can open opportunities or provide a benefit to your innovation strategy?

Learn More about Strategy

Strategy lays the groundwork for all innovation work. If you don’t know what your strategy is, you cannot succeed. Contact me at area code 281, phone 787-3979 for a complimentary 30-minute innovation coaching session. We will discuss how you can apply SWOT and PESTLE in your own unique business situation to immediately see results.

Other Resources

Innovation and Project Management: It’s NOT about You (PMI Houston Virtual Chapter meeting, Tuesday, 2 June 2020 at 5:30 pm, register here)
The Innovation ANSWER Book (available at Amazon and now in Kindle format)
NPDP certification (register for New Product Development Professional self-study here)
20 Tips for Innovation (webinar recording and eBook)
The Innovation PRACTICE Book (coming soon)
Life Design Master Mind Q&A webinar (18 June 2020 at noon CDT, register here at no cost)

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

About Me

Identifying Your New Innovation Workflow

Posted on 05.21.20

In a recent blog, we discussed how to Use SWOT to Reset Your Business and Innovation Strategy. As has been said, execution overrules strategy any day. Strategy is important because you have to know where you’re going and to explain why you’re headed there. But how you get there and when you get there is even more important.

I often think of strategy as a destination. An analogy is found in planning a vacation. The destination (for me) is often a National Park (where I’m going) so I can go hiking (why I’m going). The SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) yields insights to help in the decision-making process of laying out a business destination and innovation goals that will increase revenue and lead to customer satisfaction.

How I get to a National Park and the timing of vacation are related to workflows. I could fly to a nearby city and rent a car or drive to the park directly from home. Driving usually takes longer but allows me to easily carry bicycles and camping gear. In the end, flying or driving achieves the same goal – hiking in a beautiful place – but the execution of the plan is quite different for each case.

What is a Workflow?

We often don’t think a lot about workflows. Somehow work just gets done. If tasks or activities are behind schedule, someone calls a meeting to figure out why. But it is more efficient to establish processes upfront and follow a standardized path – a workflow – to achieve repeatable success. A workflow is thus a system or process.

Even for tasks and activities as unpredictable as developing a new product or service, we need a process that informs the project team how to convert an idea into a saleable product or service. The workflow illustrates a series of steps with assigned roles and responsibilities. The system also includes decision-making criteria to indicate whether a particular initiative should continue to advance. These decisions are particularly important for product innovation as trends in customer needs, markets, and technology can change during the development life cycle.

Workflow is NOT a Schedule

As good project managers, we always prepare project schedules. These include key milestones and deliverables. Innovation systems often use gate reviews to establish the continued attractiveness of a product idea through design and development. Product portfolio management reviews determine strategic alignment and value-add for innovation projects. The workflow captures these hand-offs and decision points as well as responsible team members to accomplish the work.

A schedule is different than a workflow in that it shows (often as a Gantt chart) which tasks must be done and in what order. A schedule shows overlaps in activities and highlights the critical path that determines the earliest possible completion date for a project. Project managers are held accountable for delayed schedules. In my vacation analogy, the airline has a specific schedule and if I miss the flight, my entire vacation is delayed.

Designing an Innovation Workflow

First, remembering that a workflow is not a schedule, list all the tasks that must be done to transform an idea into a product innovation. The list should include direct tasks (such as prototype testing) as well as indirect activities (such as applying for a patent). Next, as shown in the figure, order and prioritize these tasks to optimize the project goal. Remember that activities like concept testing can be conducted in parallel with technical development and production testing.

Innovation Workflow, copyright Global NP Solutions

As you begin to order the required tasks and activities, you will find that some are dependent on others. This is not unlike putting together a project schedule but as you create a workflow, you can identify methods to optimize your resources when you recognize a dependency. In scheduling, we must increase the time if Task A must be fully completed before Task B starts. Yet in a workflow, or systems analysis, we can collate certain dependent activities or decisions for a management council or portfolio review.

The workflow considers roles and responsibilities, skills and competencies, and training needs of functional staff to complete activities. An effective workflow identifies cross-functional relationships as well as cross-training for various roles so that the project work progresses continually. Then, when hold times or transfers and hand-offs are unacceptable, resource allocation is optimized to eliminate overload (Step 5).

As with all innovation projects, the innovation system itself should be tested. Prototype the workflow on a “typical” new product development (NPD) project to identify bugs, holdups, or bottlenecks in the workflow. Then, as you implement the workflow across all projects and functions, relentlessly streamline the process. Continuous improvement and being aware of bureaucratic sand traps is key to successfully maintaining optimized workflows.

Innovation Workflows

Learn more about the innovation workflow matrix here. You will see many of the common project and innovation management systems categorized by serial or integrated teams on the x-axis and via waterfall or Agile philosophy on the y-axis. Learn more about product innovation in New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification self-study course. Then, join me on 18 June 2020 at noon CDT (1 pm EDT, 10 am PDT) for a free Q&A webinar on the Life Design Master Mind group where you will apply the Design Thinking workflow to current challenges for knowledge workers maintaining full employment. Register here and we’ll see you soon!

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Three Elements of Service Design

Posted on 09.21.17

Product, project, and engineering development today are more than just designing features and functions. Customers across the global spectrum expect fantastic service to be fully satisfied with a product purchase. Moreover, in many instances, in product, project, and engineering management, our only product is a service.

Superior service doesn’t happen by accident. Organizations need to consider a service design strategy and train employees on acceptable behaviors to deliver consistent customer service experiences. WE can borrow the ideas from “Woo, Wow, and Win” by Thomas Stewart and Patricia O’Connell to name three important elements of exceptional service design:

Every customer is not right,
Customer service should be consistent, and
You’re never done.

Every Customer is Not Right

We’ve all heard the old adage that “the customer is always right.” Innovation for service must recognize the fallacy of this statement. First, we know that we do not design products and services for all customers. We develop new products and undertake engineering projects for a specific target audience. Not all customers are right for every organization and certainly customers are not always right.

The latter point is especially relevant as a firm scales its product and service offering from niche, early adopters to a majority market. Features and functionalities desired by an early user can be more complex and less refined than those necessary to be successful in a mass market. Firms need to utilize feedback from early adopters to initially develop a new product, yet the design must be streamlined for cost-effective manufacturing as the product transitions to the mainstream. The initial customers might be “right” to want you to add advanced technology to their product, but they may no longer be the “right” customers.

Customer Service Should Be Consistent

Consider the last time you stayed at a really nice, luxury hotel. The lobby shines and the staff are formally dressed, offering polite comments as you check in and transfer your luggage to your suite. The room itself may be quite plush with thick carpet and fluffy pillows. Bath products include aromatherapy scents to relax and calm you after a long day.

Yet, you’d also like to get an ice-cold soda so you consult the (faux?) leather-bound guide book on the desk. Ugh! The ice machine is on another floor, all the way down the hall. The soda and candy machines are on another, different floor and the room is barren, noisy, and dirty. Your shoes stick to the floor where someone has obviously spilled something and the trash can is overflowing. The ambiance is ruined.

Organizations need to provide a reliable, consistent customer service experience. One way to ensure that service delivery is predictable is to use the service yourself. Managers should go shopping at their retail outlets to understand and empathize with an ordinary customer. The service experience should be consistent through all levels of the company.

Employees across the board should be trained to understand the service experience and the overall standards expected in the business. Nothing should be outside of anyone’s job. Front desk clerks should tour the hotel to check for consistent “messaging”. If trash left in the hotel lobby is unacceptable, a dirty snack and ice room or guest laundry room is also unacceptable. Each employee must also be empowered to make decisions (within the bounds of a set of standards and guidelines) that ensure a consistent, reliable, and satisfying customer experience for all.

You’re Never Done

One of my favorite philosophies of quality management is “kaizen,” or the idea that you must continuously strive to improve. This is more than true in customer service design! Especially in a world of social media, customer service matters.

A company that can provide consistent and reliable customer service will excel ahead of its competitors. But the race never ends. Consumers expect more and your competitors will add features and services to try to gain market share.

Companies must continually benchmark against their top industry competitors to maintain exceptional service standards. The best firms will also benchmark and study top firms in other industries to learn what works best. For years, REI (a sporting goods cooperative) has taken returns with no questions asked. Zappos, a relatively new online shoe retailer, learned from this policy and offers shoe returns with no questions asked.

You’re never done and translating a customer experience success from one industry to another can keep your firm ahead of the competition.

Service Design Principles

Product, project, and engineering managers today are faced with satisfying a more selective and differentiating group of customers than ever. Features and technology functions will only get you so far. Service can make the difference to fully satisfy customer expectations and to lead the competition. Exceptional service is built on choosing the right customers, delivering consistent and reliable service, and recognizing that you’re never done.

You can learn more about service design and strategy in an NPDP workshop where we discuss specific marketing tools and techniques for new product development. Contact me at info@Simple-PDH.com or 281-280-8717 to enroll in a free NPDP overview course or any of our newly scheduled PMP, Scrum, or NPDP workshops in Houston as well as our online PDH courses. At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications. You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Integrated Product Development: The Basics

Posted on 07.27.17

Both New Product Development Professionals (NPDP) and Professional Engineering Managers (PEM) are tasked with transforming ideas into commercial realities. In many instances, hope is the main tool deployed to make the transition – we hope to make the technology work and we hope to hit the delivery date. We hope that customer will buy lots and lots of the product and we hope to reap huge profits as a reward.

I am personally a big believer in hoping for the best but as we’ve been taught, we should also add preparation to out toolkit. A positive attitude goes a long way but should be accompanied by a systematic approach to convert those great ideas into marketable products and services. One approach that NPDPs and PEMs can use to transform creative ideas into tangible goods is Integrated Product Development (IPD).

History of IPD

IPD is a waterfall process based on cross-functional, multi-disciplinary approach to product development. In fact, “integrated” means just that – an integrated team and an integrated life cycle perspective of the development program.

For reference, IPD has its roots in software development from the last century. In the 1970s, waterfall processes were commonly used to create code that powered PCs and other computers. A waterfall process is so named because work flows from one level to the next, just as a stream cascades over rocks and ledges to reach its destination.

A typical waterfall process includes the following steps:

Requirements development;
Design specifications based on requirements;
Implementing or writing and structuring of the actual code;
Verification that the product (software code) meets customer expectations; and
Maintenance to identify bug fixes and improvements.

Concurrent Engineering

Another key concept in IPD comes from the principle of concurrent engineering. In unenlightened times, R&D folks would develop a new technology and then hand-off that technology to an engineering team. The engineering team would study the technology and scale it up to production levels. Then, the engineering team would hand-off the full-scale engineering design to a construction team to build the factory. Upon completion of the factory, operations would begin start-up of the plant to eventually manufacture the product.

Not surprisingly, hand-offs between the teams were incomplete and both data and knowledge were lost in the transitions. Sometimes the transitions were so poor that the next internal customer had to rework the technology and design completely. Naturally, all of these hand-offs and rework cycles created delays and added cost to the final product.

The concept of concurrent engineering grew in the aerospace industry in the 1990s in order to improve quality and time-to-market. Concurrent engineering describes a systematic approach to new product development (NPD) in which multi-disciplinary teams work together, from start to finish, on the product. There are no hand-offs between functional departments because the work is integrated. Manufacturing and support organizations participate in product conceptualization and design specification. Furthermore, the entire product life cycle is examined during development as a part of concurrent engineering (design, manufacturability, reliability, and disposal).

Example IPD System

An example of an IPD system is Intel’s Product Development Framework which is applied across the corporation (“Making the Product Development Framework” by CR Galluzo and Deanna Bolton, 2011). Here the IPD system involves four steps, each of which include appropriate milestones and approvals.

Exploration
Planning
Development
Production

Another example of an IPD system, familiar to PEMs, is systems engineering which involves multi-disciplinary teams determining customer requirements upfront and following a structured development process.

The Basics of IPD

Integrated Product Development (IPD) is contrasted with serial development processes in which project hand-offs occur during the project life cycle. IPD is a water process in that specific stages of work must be completed before the next stage of work is initiated. While serial development can be successful for lengthy and complex projects, integrated teams and concurrent engineering aid in developing products with shorter life cycles and lower cost of investment.

To learn more about IPD, please join us for an NPDP workshop where we discuss several alternative processes for developing new products including serial and integrated teams, waterfall and Agile approaches. Contact me at info@Simple-PDH.com or 281-280-8717 to enroll in a free NPDP overview course or any of our newly scheduled PMP, Scrum, or NPDP workshops in Houston as well as our online PDH courses. At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications. You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC