The Tao of Style May 13, 2008

Embrace polarity & celebrate duality.

Style is one element of product design. Its stimulation of the senses - visual, auditory, taste, olfactory, tactile - often makes it the most prominent feature. Its importance, however, is relative.

In product design & communication, the metaphorical colors we choose and their luminosity determine the sensory positioning. The best palette is found by questioning what matters most to the specific target audience and what appropriately fits your brand. But does the product/service absolutely need to be strongly positioned in one direction or another?

The answer is No. Effective differentiation simply implies holding a unique position with the perceiver’s mind.

Style can be fluid and multi-faceted. When considering the emotions we want the product to evoke, one can look at a variety of themes, their opposites, and ways they can be combined together. Perhaps the product is destined to have a particular sensory experience, based on a defined company image and set of values. Perhaps fashion and trends drive the product line, or the industry product category. In either case, style serves a single purpose, but its strategy and execution is dynamic.

The goal in ideation is to quickly generate a variety of competitive product concepts aligned with your brand values, portfolio fit, and product innovation strategy. While these are the criteria we’ll use for screening concepts later, a strong cognizance of them during ideation can inhibit the process activity: Exploration.

Consider polarities and their potentially combined layering & blending. After some recent creative brainstorming, here are some contrasting styles, emotions, and patterns that I’ve put together.

Antique, Historic	Modern, Contemporary
Humility; Courage; Happy; Joyous	Pride; Fear; Angry; Sad
Dark; Opaque; Rough; Sharp	Light; Translucent; Smooth; Rounded
Fast; Continuous	Slow; Intermittent
Accumulation; Indulgent; Embellished	Reduction; Modest; Simplistic
Strong; Hard; Heavy; Dense; Loud	Weak; Soft; Light; Loose; Faint
Spicy; Hot; Bitter	Bland; Mild; Sweet
Conservative; Conformed; Commodity	Liberal, Customized; Unique
Industrious, Productive	Relaxed, Lazy
Individualist	Collectivist
Technical; Scientific; Objective	Artistic; Experiential; Subjective
Deep; Low; Near	Shallow; High; Far

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What additional methods of comparing & contrasting do you use?

Seminar: Design Green Now - Part 2 April 26, 2008

April 11th, I attended the local tour stop of Design Green Now, a seminar that explored green and sustainable product design & development. This article is Part 2 of a series that highlights the panelists, their presentations, and issues discussed during the Q&A.
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Nathan Vanhook
Art Director, Senior Wetsuit Designer
Body Glove

. . .
Body Glove, a water sports equipment and clothing manufacturer, decided three years ago to develop an eco-friendly line of products as part of a first step in transitioning the firm. Nathan was part of the development team that began first with life jackets (aka Personal Flotation Devices), then later with wetsuits and shirts.

The primary goal was to replace the foam, Neoprene, with an alternative material that could provide the same elastic and insulating properties. Neoprene is a DuPont product that is a form of PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride), that has additives called Plasticizers to make it soft and flexible. While PVC has been widely used around the world to make a variety of products, the material has been under growing international scrutiny for the last 10 years. This is because some of these additives are bio-hazardous and have been shown to leech/offgas after initial production and over time. Additionally, PVC (like all plastics), is petroleum-based.

Nathan recalled to the audience his first experience visiting their manufacturing plant in Donghuang, China. While being an eye-opening experience in many regards, Nathan told how he entered a poorly-ventilated massive room filled with new life jackets. The air had a strong chemical smell; a few workers who were affixing tags and performing quality control, weren’t wearing any protective gear for handling nor breathing. The experience awakened Nathan to the sobering reality of China: low cost labor, short life cycle designs, no environmental regulations, and a massive impact on the earth in terms of manufacturing volume.

Body Glove was able to find in Japan, a suitable alternative made from organic compounds. While this was great, the foreign procurement would mean adding to the products’ life cycle mileage - a new aspect that simply now had to be accounted for. From materials’ origin to factory, U.S. warehouses, and on to local surf shops, the products had a total of 8,806 miles. Nathan explained that while eco-friendly materials are definitely one of the most important aspects of sustainable product design, one should think about the total travel distance in life cycle analyses.

When asked during the Q&A about tools and processes helpful to design & development, Nathan heavily promoted using the Internet as a global research tool for materials science information, alternative sources, applications, and suppliers. New developments and best practices in sustainable materials and construction are happening around the world; designers and architects can learn a lot by looking outside their borders.

In closing, Nathan mentioned the Iriquois native Americans considering the impact of their activities for the next seven generations - a wise and responsible forward-thinking philosophy that we as mankind should apply today.

. . .

Design Green Now - Article Series:

Part One: Heidrun Mumper-Drumm

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For additional information about Nathan, please see his profile at DesignGreenNow.

Think -> Concept -> Build April 18, 2008

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A model for concept development I put together, as part of a weekly series of info diagrams from different designers, marketers, and other creative types. The series is called “Think Draw Make”, the website is www.thinkdrawmake.com , and is organized by DT of DesignSojourn.com

Here is my official explanation of the diagram, as left by my comment at ThinkDrawMake:

My inspiration is from product development phases, with the understanding of ‘product’ as being wide open to include objects (physical and intangible) for commercial, nonprofit, personal, and communal use.

The word ‘Market’ may imply designing an object for commercial use only. However, it could be stretched so that we simply mean looking at non-competitive objects elsewhere in the world. This may be done for noting best practices, styling, and other inputs into concept development.

In the diagram, multiple ideas are thought out then each is examined against:

- Our Objective or Scope
- Quality (as a function of time, cost, and absolute value)
- Strategic Fit (organizational or personal values, culture, intended future direction)

If the idea passes that preliminary intuitive test, then it’s a good ‘Concept’. These will then be further explored and refined through detailed descriptions, models (drawings, 3d forms, etc.), research, and viability analysis.

The second screen simply asks which concepts are worth making, given our scope, their viability, attractiveness, and whatever constraints we may have (time, money, etc.).

Then we build prototypes and lastly, finished objects. In the diagram, we began with 5 ideas and ended up building 2. I don’t want to make the whole process seem too disciplined or difficult - but hey that’s life - to make great objects we have to be a little critical, you know? Money and time doesn’t grow on trees

Multi-Functional Product Design - Part I March 26, 2008

One thing I love about product design is the ability to combine separate objects into something new and practical. I like to stress that last adjective. The concept of novelty can be applied liberally, and usually implies a sense of amusement. However, the degree to which the novel product (or aspect thereof) is ‘useful’ (in purpose and time-span), can be highly questionable depending on the end user profile, and our own qualitative value assessment.

All of this analytical reasoning lead to the questions like:
What is of Value? For whom? Under what circumstances?

While user profiles are excellent tools to expand upon basic demographic and psychographic modeling, there are two major considerations that affect the attractiveness of a multifunctional product: space and time.

Space - This involves the environments in which we live, work, relax, commute, etc. It includes the amount of physical space you have, shared spaces, and their salient and secondary aspects.

Time - What we all value and may sometimes feel deprived of. This includes dedicated time for particular activities, shared time for multiple activities (like often found in the multitasking workplace), and random time for the unexpected (pleasant, neutral, undesirable) situations and activities.

When examining both of these considerations in a particular context, look for what your allowances and constraints are. Doing this will help you find an opportunity to take advantage of.

Lifestyle changes (gradual and sudden), will serve as catalysts for utility and value in multifunctional products. Maybe we already have individual products that can currently do their job well, but in the new circumstance or lifestyle change, a single product with increased functionality that allows for time & space improvements can be of moderate to significant value.

One area where time and space are often limited is in urban areas, where living spaces tend to be smaller, resources and amenities may be geographically dispersed, reliance on public transit is greater, and people can tend to live faster. An additional factor that affects time and space is the blurring line between work and leisure. Flexible working hours and more individuals working from home has created opportunities for manufacturers to create products that can be catered for both environments.

Where there is a user will, there is a way. Change will force us to be creative - whether there’s a commercially available and affordable solution to the little things and bigger issues in our lives, or not. It is in this intersection where ethnographic research holds large value - identifying behaviors and looking for opportunities.

The Stage-Gate Model of Product Development February 25, 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the model that Robert G. Cooper established in the early 80s to describe a systematic approach toward developing new products. It was the result of three companies who approached him and asked to research their processes and establish a common best-practices framework; they were DuPont, Nortel Networks, and Pratt & Whitney. While the basic underlying principles of a development process have long been around, Cooper established a framework that also included project review sessions known as “Gates” and/or “Decision Diamonds”. The entire model is also known as a Phased Review model (among other names), and is commonly referred to as such in academic and commercial settings due to the trademarking of the name.

The following links are posts I’ve written that cover these phases:

• Discovery
• Idea Screening
• Scoping
• Business Case & Plan
• Development
• Testing & Validation

Because the Launch phase involves many differing factors and activities that are different for each product category, I will not be covering it. However, I do have a diagram that outlines how a marketing plan is developed. This is a ‘living document’ that is created within the Business Case & Plan phase, and updated throughout the NPD process. A related topic that is formed between the Business Case and Development phases, is a new product design strategy.

The next post on this topic will cover what the ‘Gates’ are all about.

Testing & Validation February 22, 2008

Continuing on the subject of New Product Development, today I’ll cover the essentials of ‘Testing & Validation’. The purpose of this phase is to completely validate your project in terms of the product, its marketing plan, and the production. It is broken up into three phases:

Near Testing
Also known as alpha testing, here your main objective is to find the bugs. Your product is not a prototype any longer. It has nearly all the features of its commercial model in terms of appearance and functionality, though its packaging and promotional materials may not be fully ready.

You will want to test your product with and get feedback primarily from in-house staff, and additional parties like customers and partners you feel are close to the firm. Give them a clear understanding of how the product should perform so they know what to look out for. Have a few members of your development team observe participants using the product and/or conduct surveys to gather the needed data.

Field Testing
This process, also known as beta testing, is carried out usually for an extended period of time with a larger number of participants that includes customers, partners, and others whose feedback would be valuable, but may not be familiar with your company. Your product now fully resembles its planned launch model in all aspects. Participants’ interaction rate is higher and they are much better informed on the product’s functions, features, benefits, and intended use conditions.

Your product testing has three primary objectives. First, you will want to measure participants’ interest in the product and its features, their preference of individual attributes, and if they would be willing to purchase the product. It must not only be acceptable, but desirable compared to any current purchases or competitive offerings.

Secondly, you will want to find out how the customer uses the product and its durability under normal conditions. Are there particular applications, use environments, or occasions that are appealing? Not so appealing? What kinds of participants were these?

Third, you will need to record and analyze all the feedback received. This will give you hints on minor design improvements that will not significantly affect your production, and perhaps if a line extension should be added or dropped. Additionally, your participants’ responses will provide your sales & marketing team with words, phrases, and stories that can be used in communicating the product during the launch. The features and benefits that elicit the highest initial positive reactions can be used when designing advertisements, brochures and sales presentations.

Market Testing
This last form of testing is completely optional. Its costs versus benefits will depend on your unique product category, operational flexibility, and channel strategy. Basically it comes down to this: If you feel confident that your marketing and launch plans are sound, and you have a high degree of certainty about the product’s eventual sales, proceed to launch. On the other hand, if you want to test the launch strategy with a limited production run while refining your marketing plan, there are two options available:

• Simulated Market Test - Offered as a service of specialized consumer market research firms, this test involves exposing consumers to new products and their claims in a staged advertising and purchasing situation. The goal is to obtain an early forecast of sales and/or market share from the key metrics observed, applying mathematical forecasting models, and making adjustments through management assumptions and judgments.
• Trial Sells - Here you will test your product either through specific channels, geographic regions, or particular consumer demographics. The marketing campaign is limited in scope and size, however it resembles the expected launch plan to the full extent.

Summary
A ‘product’ can be a consumer/business good, service, software, website, album, film, catalog…anything that is the result of a creationary process. While what I’ve outlined above leans toward physical goods for commercial sale, the basic principles apply toward other products as well.

For information on other phases in npd, visit the master page on The Stage-Gate Model of New Product Development

A Brief Note on Development December 12, 2007

Was emptying my paper tray and came across a page of notes I’d taken for a client’s web copy, regarding what the Development phase in NPD is all about. I have to laugh when I think about it though, because the very nature of creativity is such that we like to think of it best expressed as boundless force. And yet the law of restraints, considerations, and best practices come into place based on the unique aspects of the objective, the application, the artwork, the craft being performed.

The influencers to this stage are the marketing plan, business case, and design strategy.

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The substantive deliverable of this phase is a prototype that has been at least partially validated with customers, and through extensive in-house, alpha, and lab tests.

Aspects:

• Sourcing, Building, Testing.
• Multifunctional team with empowerment to cut silo-ing.
• Specially-managed plan of action with milestones.
• Timeline formed through input of development team members.
• Timeline is realistic and objective, with buffering on activities whose expected completion time is variable.
• Milestones are quantifiable and have attached timeframes.
• Great milestones are SMART - Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time-Bound.
• Frequent reviews of activities and timeline with revisions as necessary.
• Concurrent activities; parallel processing by different members of the development team; Un-bundle big tasks.
• Project management tools and software
• Team-Leadership established; Defined member roles alongside creative teamwork.

If you think of anything else for me to add to this list of aspects of what Development might mean to you, please leave a comment. - Mille Grazie…

The next phase in this process is: Testing & Development

For more information on the various phases in NPD, visit the master page on The Stage-Gate Model of New Product Development

Design Strategy Conversation with DT October 13, 2007

Mario: To build some greater perspectives on product design in the modern age, I’ve invited DT of Design Sojourn to a little chat about the subject. DT helps build objectives, strategies and development plans for consumer electronics firms across Asia. He’s been a pioneer in promoting the field of Industrial Design, in many more regards than simply admiring fanciful oeuvres d’art et leurs aspects fonctionnels (French for art and functional objects). He reaches out to students and other professionals alike in sharing theory, trends, and best practices in the workplace and beyond, while celebrating the contributions of others to the field.

DT, thanks for stopping by and leaving some feedback on my post New Product Design Strategy. I feel that I’ve barely scratched the surface on this field, as most of what I’ve come to learn has been from my own experiences with CPG manufacturers, some friends, and my PDMA Handbook . What other kinds of strategies or considerations should marketers and product developers be making these days?

DT: Thanks for the wonderful introduction. I have to say you have nailed it at first go. With regards to your list of strategies, they are pretty much all there. But from my point of view I would consider them as tactical implementations instead.

These days marketing and product development and perhaps corporate people have to understand that Strategic product development takes a 360 degree holistic view and outlook. Also to me strategic product development is multi-disciplinary and success means satisfying all requirements of stake holders.

Under the current environments stories such as where marketing communications come up with great ad campaigns, but some how the products fall short on the brand promise, or Research and Development creates an amazing technology, but some how sales don’t seem to understand it, are very common.

Strategic product development prevents this. In many ways Industrial Designers are uniquely positioned to bridge this gap, as they have a multi-disciplinary approach to problem solving that is based on a strong background in research drawing inspiration from many sources.

Mario: Interesting. It appears to me that the situation you’re pointing out is that there’s a disconnect between product development and the marketing function, arising in the form of communication. In theory, a firm is supposed to carry and update the product definition from its beginnings in concept development, through the product development phase, and into the launch phase where it is then slightly tuned for the target markets. Traditionally, the responsibility for this communication lays in the hands of project leaders, core product development leaders, and launch leaders.

But what happens leadership is weak or non-existent? This seems to be a common risk these days, with global distributed product development and outsourcing being as common as it is. What I believe you’re hinting at, is that communication is an inherent part of all design strategy. Not just for project management purposes, but for the eventual market success of the product as well. This means that marketing and product development have a responsibility to collaboratively spell out the product’s features, attributes, benefits, value proposition, and positioning. I think it’s irresponsible to expect marketing (especially outsourced agencies), to make all this up on their own.

Do you see the current climate of outsourced product development necessitating even stronger communication bridges with marketing and stakeholders? What do you think?

DT: It not so much about just fixing a disconnect or making communication better, its actually more about a strategic management of the product development process.

You could say that project management manages and forms a node point between say R&D and marketing thus facilitating good communication. In fact that is still a major requirement in making successful products. However in my view this is still a line function. Project managers are often so caught up in the daily grind such as, tracking schedules, negotiating contracts, ensuring deliverables, that I often find that they don’t have a chance to ask if all this madness is right in the first place.

Therefore as a result of this designers recently have been finding a niche, especially in large organisations. Their strategy visualisation skills are vital in ensuring if the organisation is traveling in the right direction in the first place. Furthermore the designers ability to move between disciplines or departments and empathising with them, means this new thought in strategic product development assumes that the designer is not a function of any other department (ie R&D or Marketing) but a function of management. As a result if you notice many successful companies today, such as Apple, P&G or IBM, have very senior design managers working closely with the CEO or the board of directors.

Not only that, if we zoom out from our discussion here, this is really all about innovation and getting ahead right? So if a designer’s strategy visualisation has to have any weight, it must come as a directive from the top. It is, ironically, pretty regimental if you look at it, but innovative thought, solutions and strategy puts people out of their comfort zone and if the “order” does not come from the top, personal motivations tend to get into the way of the best interests of a company.

This also leads me to you next point, outsourcing. It is inevitable, companies need to out source to stay alive. But the down side means development gets more fragmented and as a result the strategy stake holder is absolutely vital in ensuring that the end product meets all the expectations set out.

Mario: I like your description of design leadership transcending the traditional organizational departments and becoming a part of upper management, should a company allow such integration. Although it might seem idealistic to imagine industrial designers reaching across different parts of the company to develop creative solutions where there are problems, I believe their greatest contribution to the firm lies with developing the company’s product innovation strategy and managing the product portfolio. This is an elevated position that will span disciplines in marketing, finance, r&d, and supply chain management, for which specialized masters education programs will be necessary.

Regarding outsourced product development, I see and share your concern. Traditionally, almost every part of a business can be outsourced these days. But in modern business today, when marketing and innovation are outsourced, there lies a very large potential risk of losing company identity, a spiritual sense of ownership, direction, and control. Companies that maintain a long-term vision must keep this in mind, and thus exercise due care when working with third parties. As external activities become more important to the firm as critical competencies, the level of partner relationships must deepen and in-house talent has to be developed as appropriate to the circumstances. All I’m advocating is that to be true to yourself as a company, you are responsible for your own vision and direction. Partners can help you build upon that.

Before I begin my next question, what are your thoughts on this?

DT: I actually disagree with you to a certain extent, but you are correct to say that the characteristics of such very senior designers require many years of training and exposure to many parts of the organization. A good MBA helps as well. Thus such designers with such abilities are rare indeed.

You are also correct to say that designers have the greatest contribution to innovation strategy and product portfolio, but that is what we traditionally think are the roles of designers. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying designers should take over or lead the functions of marketing or R&D etc., instead far from that. If you would like, the role of strategic designers are in a form of facilitators that make recommendations based on the empathy of the requirements of the rest of the team. Strategic designers work with the departments to find solutions in perhaps a role of a in-house consultant. Another way is to look at them are as “cooks”.

With regard to outsourcing, as you mentioned you can outsource everything including your own life. But these days companies are starting to get smart with this and realize you cant out source everything. So its only on one level that we need to talk about strong partnerships, but the smart companies are identifying their strategic competitive advantage and are choosing to keep it in house rather than out sourcing. Take for example HP they don’t outsource their printer component design.

New Product Design Strategy September 12, 2007

Continuing on the subject of new product development, today I’ll discuss “Design Strategy”.
This follows the previous phase: “Building the Business Case & Plan”. However, applying these principles can be done anytime during concept development. Ultimately, these design strategies help you build a solid product definition and guide you to focus on what’s important during the development phase.

The Design and Development phase is more than just a different set of likely actions that each product category does differently. At its core lies strategy influencing tactics.

Five primary design strategies include:

1. Cost Advantage - Minimize your component, assembly and production costs.
2. Design Prominence - Focus on aesthetics, ergonomics, packaging, presentation, and innovative materials and concepts to deliver consumer value. This will come in the form of enhancements to product usability and sensory perception that will stir up emotional reactions in shoppers related to their needs and desires.
3. Feature Leadership - Deliver cutting-edge and highly innovative solutions, then highlight how the features of your product deliver these benefits.
4. Concentrated Application - Design the product to be tailored to the needs and wants of a particular type of customer. Make it the most appropriate option available to them in terms of fit and performance.
5. Desirable Alternative - Design the product’s features and benefits within the scope of an existing product category or an established leader therein. This strategy will often work well within sales channels with room for category growth, but will need accompanying strategies to differentiate the product when competition heats up.

Selecting a particular strategy, or a combination thereof, involves looking at how you want to position the product in the marketplace and in the shopper’s mind. Refer to your product’s definition and its marketing strategy. This is important because each strategy involves a different set of actions and mindsets. Pursuing multiple strategies isn’t necessarily bad, but know that to be excellent in each position will require a considerable amount of time and effort. Just be aware of the following risks:

• Excessive development time increases the likelihood that the market opportunity will be diminished because of competitive offerings, shorter purchasing windows, and changes in consumer tastes and preferences.
• Distributing limited time, financial and human resources to multiple product positions will diminish the overall performance on those characteristics, resulting in mediocrity.
• A product that attempts multiple positions in the mind, will not effectively stand out for anything in particular and will not draw strong emotional appeal.

What tactics you should employ to meet the unique design strategy chosen, will depend on a second variable: the Design Situation. This indicates the degree of change that the product definition entails.

The four main design situations are:

1. Renovative - Existing products receive minor changes and updates.
2. Adaptive - Existing products are modified in response to technological improvements or changes in the marketplace affecting consumer demand or supply considerations.
3. Evolutionary - New products designed based on existing technology, that deliver similar capabilities and benefits as previous or other competitive offerings.
4. Discontinuous - Breakthrough products that differentiate themselves by either applying new technology to existing commercial applications, applying existing technology to new commercial applications, or both.

To form an effective design strategy, think first about how you want your product to be positioned, then look at the degree of change your product is going to exhibit. Each intersection of strategy and situation calls for a different approach and a variable amount of effort expended. Determine what’s best for your needs, solidify the strategy, then communicate it to your development team members and management, so they understand the priorities during the development phase and can make the most appropriate decisions based on rational intuition. This will reduce your development time and minimize any micro-management.

For more information on the various phases in NPD, visit the master page on The Stage-Gate Model of New Product Development

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Have you seen alternative principles or approaches to design strategy for product development? Please share!

Building the Business Case & Plan September 7, 2007

Continuing on the subject of new product development, today I’ll discuss “Building the Business Case & Plan”.
This follows the Concept Review and the previous phase: “Scoping”. This is the last phase of Concept Development.

A new product is a venture. It may represent the initial reason for a company’s existence, or it may be part of its plans to grow. Whether we’re building a breakthrough, platform, or incremental product…developers and companies still need to perform a solid analysis before they start developing. This phase is difficult, complex, and resource-intensive. I will admit that some scenarios will not warrant expending much time in this phase. After all, being flexible and highly responsive to the needs of the market and customers should be commended. However, the amount of effort a firm places into this phase, at least into the breadth of its activities, is directly relational to the success of the product. Both commercially and in terms of development time.

This phase is made up of 4 steps:

1. Product Definition and Analysis
2. Building the Business Case
3. Building the Project Plan
4. Feasibility Review

Product Definition and Analysis
The first step is composed of a series of activities that will give you the inputs to effectively define your product and justify your reasoning to develop and commercialize it. Some activities are run concurrently to others. I’ll try to explain it as follows:

• User Needs & Wants Study - Here we try to understand what creates value for the customer. What benefits does the product give? What features and attributes should it have? You should try and conduct interviews and surveys with existing and potential customers, in addition to sales channel partners. Don’t forget your staff’s opinion.
• Market Analysis - How large is the market and how is it segmented? What is its rate of growth? What trends are affecting the competitive offerings and buyer behavior? Who are the buyers and through what channels can they be reached?
• Competitive Analysis - Knowing how your competitors operate and their relative strengths and weaknesses is key to not only building a great product, but also in how and where you will launch it.

The results of the preceding activities will help build your product definition and provide the foundation for your marketing strategy. Next, we’ll have to do three things:

• Build a Technically Feasible Product Concept - This includes the substance (materials, form, packaging) and the various methods and activities needed to produce the product.
• Production & Operations Costs Analysis
• Marketing and Expected Launch Costs Analysis
  

Next we’ll want to:

• Test the Concept - Develop drawings, models and early prototypes which you can gauge reactions to through presentations to your staff, existing and potential customers, and channel partners. This should give you feedback on what changes may need to be made, in addition to an idea of what sales potential the product may have, which you’ll need for your financial analysis.
• Build a Solid Product Definition based on the cumulative activities performed and additional feedback received.

Lastly we’ll perform three analyses based on the information gathered so far:

• Business Analysis - Here we undertake a full examination of why this product makes business sense. We’ll want to look at the competitive and strategic rationale, the competencies of the firm, and determine the capabilities and roles of partners and suppliers. Letters of intent will be required from any 3rd parties.
• Risk Analysis - What are the variables that will affect the development and commercial success of this project? How might they be mitigated? Which will seriously affect the viability of this product venture?
• Financial Analysis - This involves taking combining data from your market and operational analyses to determine what kind of return on investment is possible. Methods include Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Payback Period, Expected Commercial Value (ECV), Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), and Shareholder Value Added (SVA).

These are the activities that make up the first step. Information gathered in the Discovery and Scoping phases are used as a foundation for further exploration here. Even if your product is just a line extension or an incremental change, it’s advised that you participate in as many activities that are reasonable for your unique strategy and business reasoning for developing the product.

Building the Business Case
The Business Case is a living document that defines the product and provides the rationale for developing it. It will be referred to throughout the development process and channel readiness phase, and will be revised as necessary. Although the exact format of this document will vary by company, these are its primary components:

• Results of the activities of Product Definition and Analysis
• Legal and regulatory requirements
• Safety, health, and environmental considerations
• Assumptions made to draw the conclusions you have, and why you believe they are valid and reasonable.
• Out-of-bounds criteria that indicate certain changes/events which will mandate an emergency business case review

Building the Project Plan
This includes:

• A scheduled list of events, tasks, and actions for the development phase. Timelines are included in the form of Gantt charts or critical-path plans.
• The human, time, and financial resources that will be required for the development phase.
• Defined and measurable milestones to be completed within the development phase.
• Tentative action and resource plans for the marketing, sales, production, and related channel readiness activities.
• An expected product launch date

Feasibility Review
This is the final review session where management, marketing, and technical staff meet to discuss and review the rationale for pursuing the project, the risks involved, a financial analysis, the resources required, and the project plan. If everything looks good, give yourself a round of applause! Now go ahead and proceed to Product Development.

For more information on the various phases in NPD, visit the master page on The Stage-Gate Model of New Product Development

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I would absolutely love any feedback on this phase or any elements thereof. Please share any thoughts you may have!

Scoping August 30, 2007

Today we’ll be covering the second phase in new product development: Scoping

This follows our first review: The Idea Screen

The purpose of this stage is to do a little homework on the great ideas you have. Not too much time is spent here though; it could take 10 days, but should not be longer than one month. Besides being an initial investigation on the merits of your project, this stage really acts as a reality-check before you commit any serious effort. In it, we perform three activities:

Preliminary Market Assessment
The purpose of this market study is to investigate the commercial prospects of your product idea. Your objectives should be to quickly:

• Assess the market attractiveness and its potential by looking at its size, distribution channels, patterns of growth or decline, and identifying fads versus trends.
• Estimate the product’s possible acceptance and level of appeal based on customer needs and interests.
• Survey the competitive landscape by identifying the major players, their relative size and product offerings

Again, do not attempt to gather in-depth information. It can be easy to become distracted by the variety of details you may uncover and want to further pursue. It is vastly more important to build a holistic view of what the market is like. Here are some recommended sources you can use:

• Employees - Speak with your own sales and marketing personnel to get their first-hand knowledge of customer habits, preferences, order-winning criteria including assortment and pricing, and what the competitive landscape is like.
• Internet Research - A lot of information can be found using the internet. However, it is highly recommended that you employ someone who is skilled at scouring the net using various search methodologies, news alerts, engines, and portals. Doing this will save your firm a lot of time and the results will likely be much better organized.
• Internal Data - Has your firm performed any research or purchased any reports related to your efforts? Do you have a reference library of books and publications? Sometimes these sources won’t give you any specific insights, but they will provide direction on where to look next.
• Lead Users and Customers - Have an informal conversation with a few customers or people in your target audience. Remember, this meeting is about them and their likes, needs, and opinions on this product category. An in-person discussion would be preferable, but telephone and email correspondence also works.
• Partners - Do you have external sales agents or other parties with whom you have a business relationship, that might be able to provide you some unique insights on this market? Strike up a conversation with them.
• Consulting and Research Firms - Certain firms publish standard reports or white papers that may cover aspects of your product category or industry at large. Look at their abstracts and publication dates to see if they might be right for you. Don’t buy anything that’ll take a lot of time to read and analyze; there are better secondary resources available right now.
• Competitors’ Advertisements and Trade Literature - Look at how your competitors talk about their product features, performance claims, and how they’re positioning their products.
• Industry Experts - Hire a specialist in your product category/industry for a day or two. Their knowledge can save you a LOT of time in your research efforts.
• Trade Associations - There are a variety of associations related to your industry or a unique aspect of your product concept. Seek them out. Sometimes they will publish reports or maintain directories of members and organizations that may be of interest.

As you can see, there are a variety of sources at your disposal. The important point is that you try to cover all your bases.

Preliminary Technical Assessment
Here, your firm’s R&D, development, engineering, and operations staff will examine the product concept and appraise it for viability. They will need to draft early technical and performance objectives, conduct preliminary studies for technical feasibility, and identify critical issues that may pose as risks or hurdles. Your in-house staff may be able to perform these duties, but it is advised that you seek professional advice for areas you may be weak in.

The following list of questions will help guide your team in this process:

• What requirements and specifications should the product have? This is part of further defining the core elements of your product concept.
• Is your firm technically capable of producing this product? What raw materials or components would need to be sourced? What aspects of the product could be designed, developed, and manufactured in-house? Which aspects would have to be outsourced?
• What are the largest technical risks and how might we mitigate them? Are there important quality, handling, health or usage concerns that we need to be aware of and/or advise affiliated parties of?
• Are there any Intellectual Property issues (ex: patents, copyrights, licensing) or product regulatory issues involved? If the product or components thereof are being imported, what implications does that impose on us regarding quality, certification, and duties among others?
• Given our limited knowledge, how likely is it that this product can be reliably produced?
• How much will it cost to product this product? How much time would it take to develop it? Again, rough estimates is all we can expect.

Every product category has a wide variety of issues to consider for design, manufacturing, logistics, and quality control among others. This basic assessment across these various factors will help your firm evaluate each product concept in an objective manner for consideration at the next review meeting.

Preliminary Business & Financial Assessment
After having evaluated the product’s market and its technical considerations, you’ll want to lay out the facts of this project regarding the business implications. Key elements of this assessment include:

• The strategic and competitive rationale for this product. How does this fit within your product portfolio? How is it aligned with your product innovation strategy?
• A core competencies assessment that addresses your capability to effectively execute this project. If partnering or outsourcing is necessary, you’ll need to explain in basic terms how these additional relationships would affect your business.
• A rough financial analysis that identifies expected sales, cash flow windows, investments required, costs, and the payback period. Note that this data will be highly speculative and based on early conjectures, but nonetheless important to know because you don’t want to spend further resources on a project that just may not make business sense.

Concept Review
Your development team should now prepare a concept brief for the second review. In it, they should include the following:

• The findings from the preliminary market, technical, business & financial assessments.
• A recommendation to either continue the project into the next stage, or to halt further investigation.
• Action plans, time lines, resources (personnel and time-requirements), and the deliverables to be expected for the final review before development begins.

Management will now hear the presentations from the development team and discuss the project details, recommendations, plans, and resources requested. Based on the information presented and the criteria by which concepts are evaluated against, Management will decide on the future of the project (go, recycle, terminate), appropriate human and financial resources, and decide when the feasibility review will be held (end of phase 3).

When you’re ready, continue to the 3rd phase in concept development: Building the Business Case & Plan

For more information on the various phases in NPD, visit the master page on The Stage-Gate Model of New Product Development

Note: The term ‘Scoping’ in NPD terminology, was coined by Robert G. Cooper as the first stage in his trademarked Stage-Gate process. A more universal term for this phase would be ‘concept development’, with the semantic implications also carrying over into the business case & plan phase.

Idea Screening August 20, 2007

In a previous post, I explained a little bit about the first phase in developing new products: Discovery

Today, we’ll briefly visit the first review session in the product development process: The Idea Screen

Once you’ve generated plenty of ideas, you’ll need to evaluate them for viability, score them, and decide which ones you’ll want to further investigate.

Winning Criteria

First, you’ll want to establish criteria to judge each idea against. The criteria will often involve the following:

• Alignment with your Product Innovation Strategy
• Degree of compatibility with the company’s values & principles (ex: moral, health, environmental)
• Market attractiveness / opportunity
• Project feasibility
• Degree of product advantage over other options
• Ability to leverage existing company resources

From the book “Launch It!“, the authors give in the first chapters some great questions to ask when evaluating your own ideas. A number of “No”s should indicate the idea needs some work or should be scrapped. Here are the questions (in my own words):

1. Does the product represent something completely new and different from anything out there in the marketplace? Would it likely appeal to a specialty/niche segment of people?
2. Does the idea have a unique design to it, that’ll make it appeal to more people than a comparable product does now?
3. Will this idea offer a noticeably superior quality in comparison to competitive offerings? If so, can it remain in the same price range as those competitive products?
4. If it’s a popular item (in terms of category volume), would you be able to noticeably lower its price without affecting its quality?
5. Is the idea able to offer enough new features to differentiate it from the competition? If so, to what degree would these additional features be of value or seen as advantageous?
6. For popular products, will your idea enable you to produce and distribute it faster than the competition? Importantly, will this matter? Popular competitive products may carry a strong brand appeal which may be too high a hurdle. However, if the product category is a bit more commoditized, then speed to market will definitely be a strong advantage.
7. How much longevity does your product idea have? Is it part of an established category of products, a trend, or a fad? Having a grip on this is crucial. I’m not saying some product categories are no-growth, sometimes it depends on the sales channel. But obviously you don’t want to base a lot of business on a me-too product whose lifespan may only last a few years.
8. Similar to #7, how new is this idea compared to existing products in your portfolio or pipeline? Buyers are likely to be approached next season by similar products with the additional features and attributes you’ll be pitching. If you’re redesigning a SKU to extend its lifespan, that may be fine. But ultimately, you should try and have additional, newer concepts in your development pipeline.

The Review Session

The format for the review session and how it’s conducted is up to each firm. Here are some tips:

• Allow transparency into the presentations and foster open discussion. The more people that feel they are a part of the process, the larger the buy in will be. Personnel from Sales, Marketing, R&D, and PDD (Product Design and Development) are the key attendees to these sessions. Communicate to them the decision-making criteria and the primary aspects of the Product Innovation Strategy.
• Create standardized idea forms for presenters to fill-out and distribute. Fields include: product definition, target market, explanation of user benefits, and criteria against which the ideas are judged, and a sketch (if applicable).
• With a large number of ideas and participants, create voting schemes. This could involve having idea cards/boards set up around the presentation room, and giving every participant a number of votes. Voting by raised hands can work, but perhaps it might be best to give people post-its to place on the ideas they like, then tally the votes. Techniques may vary - the idea is that participation is important.

Once you’ve selected your winning ideas, place them into an idea portfolio. Any ideas leftover that had some terrific potential, but for some reason couldn’t make the cut, should be stored in an idea bank for future review. There might be a new sales channel opening at a future date, through which these older ideas may be of value.

When you’re ready, continue to the next phase in concept development: Scoping

For more information on the various phases in NPD, visit the master page on The Stage-Gate Model of New Product Development

Discovery - The Pursuit of Breakthrough Ideas July 30, 2007

How do individuals and businesses develop new products and services?
It all begins with a trip into the Ocean of Opportunity and charting the waters.

Before we set sail, we need to know where we’re going. Shall it be the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, or the South Atlantic? The relational concept we need is a Product Innovation Strategy, which defines the territories of strategic focus for our efforts. Although ideation and concept development should be an open-minded process, borders remind us of what ideas are ‘in and out of bounds’ and improve the quality of ideas we produce in the time we allocate to the Discovery process.

I’ve organized this list of techniques according to whether we’re looking outside or from within.

External Environment

• Use Voice of the Customer (VOC) research. This involves conversing with your customers, trying to identify their problems, unmet needs and simply asking for suggestions where you can improve. Additionally, try to understand their business or operation and its workflow. Using and maintaining customer profiles will not only focus your communication beyond the generic and subjective, but it will elicit more candid responses now and in the future. Specific techniques include interviews, brief surveys, customer visits, and running a weblog.
• Work with “Lead Users” - organizations and individuals that are passionate and active users of the function and benefits your product provides, whose needs extend far beyond an average user, and who are generally well ahead of current market trends.
• Analyze your customer’s industry for shifts and disruptions that affect the activities in their value/supply chain. Where there are problems or trends, lie opportunities for emerging markets and products.
• Develop alternate scenarios of the future that reflect best and worst cases, as a tool for creating and revising your product innovation strategy. The future is uncertain. Knowing how to react in advance of unexpected changes is at the heart of all strategy be it commercial, military, or personal.
• Analyze your competition for their strengths and weaknesses, in addition to their keeping an eye on their activities up and down the value/supply chain.
• Look into your suppliers’ activities and ventures. Talk with them. Are they currently engaged in or pursuing other activities and areas from which you may take advantage of, now or in the future?
• Attend trade shows, read trade publications (foreign & domestic), read academic/scientific journals and weblogs, and watch the activities of universities with departments engaged in R&D related to your innovation strategy.
• Acquire professional intelligence services that can provide you with specific industry trend reports or research, analysis, and recommendations customized to your particular needs.

Internal Environment

• Conduct primary research & development that is based on stages separated by critical review sessions. These sessions (aka ‘gates’) will examine progress to date, determine technical and commercial viability, and decide whether to proceed to the next stage, return again after more study, or cancel the project altogether. Such discipline results in research projects that are directed, focused and more productive than those based on sheer curiosity.
• For special organizational conferences and events, organize multiple breakout sessions that foster open discussion of the organization’s industry and trends, their strengths and weaknesses, and lastly suggestions where opportunities may lie. Organize and present the generated ideas to management, openly discuss to weed out unfit concepts, and have attendees vote.
• Develop in-house suggestion schemes and idea repositories. Specific tools may include intranet discussion boards or weblogs.
• Employ in-house Ideation Evangelists whose sole job is the coordination of all activities related to idea generation, collection, and dissemination.
• Use ‘Plussing’ - taking an idea intended for one line, and asking other line managers how they could apply the base concept to their department.
• Give personnel time allowances for scouting and personal creative development projects.
• Use creativity tools and conduct staff exercises such as storyboards and skits. You may consider commissioning outside professionals to come in for special sessions.

Results & Sail Plan

The purpose of all these techniques is to identify opportunities in the form of:
Unmet needs, problems, emerging areas, profit areas, and voids and gaps

With these opportunities in hand, we’ll shape them into:
Major initiatives and ventures, research projects, customer solutions, new line extensions or even platforms, and lastly revised product roadmaps.

When you’re ready, continue on to the first review session in the ‘fuzzy front-end’ of product development: Idea Screening

For more information on the various phases in NPD, visit the master page on The Stage-Gate Model of New Product Development

Note: The term ‘Discovery’ in NPD terminology, was coined by Robert G. Cooper as the preliminary phase in his trademarked Stage-Gate process. A more universal term for this phase would be “Idea Generation”.