Articles of Interest...
The following links will take you to articles and white papers on a variety of market
research and new product development topics.
Please note that each link will open a new browser window. You will need to close
the new browser window to return to the Karlamar Associates web site.
"Winning Business In Product Development: The Critical Success Factors" Dr.
Robert G. Cooper and Dr. Elko J. Kleinschmidt
"A formal new product process isn’t enough – you need a high-quality
process, a clear and visible strategy, enough people and money, and a respectable
R&D budget. How does your program rate on these 10 metrics?"
"An Analogy to a
Competitive Intelligence Program: Role of Measurement in Organizational Research
" Yogesh Malhotra, Ph.D.,
"A conceptual model of a Competitive Intelligence Program is developed based on
extant practitioner literature. Key aspects of this model are then used for defining
the 'critical ingredients' of measurement in organizational research: constructs,
validity, and reliability, as well as their interrelationships."
"Taking a Road Trip:
Customer Visits Help Companies Recharge Relationships and Pass Competitors "
Edward F. McQuarrie
"Customers visits can seem like such a simple, obvious activity that it's easy to
forget how powerful they can be. The biggest payoff comes when engineers and others
from outside marketing participate in visits. Technology firms like Hewlett-Packard
have pioneered the use of cross-functional customer visits as a market research
tool. This article discusses many "best practices" gleaned from the study of leading
firms. "
"Taking a Long Road Trip:International
Customer Visits Lead to Global Success"
David T. Zawadzki
"Companies such as Ford, Lexus, and Xerox know that successul global products start
with understanding the unique customer needs beyond their domestic market borders.
This artcile, written by an experienced practioner, provides tops for conducting
international customer vist market research, as well as some examples of insights
discovered..."
"Lead Users: An Important Source of Novel Product Concepts"
Eric von Hippel
"Accurate marketing research depends on accurate user judgments regarding their
needs. However, for very novel products or in product categories characterized by
rapid change such as ‘high technology’ products most potential users
will not have the real-world experience needed to problem solve and provide accurate
data to inquiring market researchers. This paper focuses on the ‘lead users’
of a product or process."
"Developing New Product Concepts Via the Lead User Method: A Case
Study in a ‘Low Tech’ Field " Cornelius Herstatt and Eric von
Hippel
"The Lead User market research method is built around the idea that the richest
understanding of new product and service needs is held by just a few ‘Lead
Users.’ They can be identified and drawn into a process of joint development
of new product or service concepts with manufacturer personnel."
"Fundamentals of Technology Roadmapping " Sandia National
Laboratory
"Technology roadmapping is critical when the technology investment decision is not
straight forward.Technology planning is important for many reasons. Globally, companies
are facing many competitive problems. Technology roadmapping, a form of technology
planning, can help deal with this increasingly competitive environment. While it
has been used by some companies and industries, the focus has always been on the
technology roadmap as a product, not on the process. This report focuses on formalizing
the process so that it can be more broadly and easily used."
"Technology Roadmapping: Mapping a Future for Integrated Photonics" Elizabeth
J. Bruce and Charles H. Fine
"Roadmaps provide a framework for thinking about the future. They create a structure
for strategic planning and development, for exploring potential development paths,
and for ensuring that future goals are met. “Roadmapping” is the term
used to describe the process of developing a roadmap. Practitioners often assert
that the roadmapping “process” is at least as valuable, as the output,
the roadmap itself.
This tutorial provides the basic concepts used in technology roadmapping, including
descriptions of different types of technology roadmaps and approaches, as well as
a discussion of the costs and benefits of roadmapping."
"World Future Society News
" World Future Society
"Lists of Future Forecasts on a variety of topic areas."
"Creative
Tension: A Crucial Component of Creativity in the Workplace" Lori Reisenbichler
"Creativity is very positively valued in our society. It has meaningful application
for everyone, from the pre-schooler to the corporate executive. Increasingly, the
corporate world has focused on creativity as a way to respond to the rapid changes
in the global marketplace. In order to better understand how people can increase
their personal mastery of creativity, this paper will discuss many of the myths
about creativity in our society. The distinction between creating and problem solving
will be made. Much research supports the idea that one of the crucial components
of creativity is intrinsic motivation, so this paper will discuss how motivation
comes from the tension between a clear vision and a realistic perception of our
current situation. The social factors that contribute to creativity in the workplace
will be examined and support for the concept of creative tension is presented."
"Wally Bock's Blog" Wally Bock
"If you are a boss at any level, this blog will give you insight, information, and pointers to resources to do a better job and live a better life."
"Mind Tools!"
"A collection of articles that readers are currently voting for as the most helpful within the Mind Tools site. Mind Tools mission is to help people starting their careers understand the essential
skills and techniques which will help them to excel, whatever their chosen profession."
Innovation
"Doing it Right – Winning with New Products" Dr. Robert G. Cooper
"This paper examines the two ways to win at product innovation: doing projects right
and doing the right projects. Dr. Cooper explores the critical success factors that
make the difference between winning and losing at innovation. He outlines key components
of the authentic Stage-Gate® system and the four goals of successful portfolio
management."
"From Experience: The Invisible Success Factors in Product Innovation" Dr.
Robert G. Cooper
"Dr. Cooper lowers the microscope on the state of product innovation and examines
the common reasons for poor results. The critical success factors are noticeably
absent from the typical new product project. The article outlines how companies
can recognize one of the seven common innovation problems that Dr. Cooper refers
to as the new product development “Blockers” to avoid repeating the
same mistakes."
"NPD Practices: The dark side of time and time metrics in product innovation"
Dr. Robert G. Cooper & Dr. Scott J. Edgett
"Dr. Cooper and Dr. Edgett examine how time and time metrics are having a negative
impact on product innovation today. The effects of two manifestations of this problem
are examined in detail: too great an emphasis on measures of short-term profitability
and too sharp a reduction in time-to-market. This paper examines what can be done
to counteract these negative pressures and how to enhance the product innovation
process."
"The ClueTrain
Manifesto" Rick Levine
"Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that
have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed,
smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations."
"Product Development Process Design: Improving Development Response to Market, Technical
and Regulatory Risks" Darian Unger
"...Well designed Product Development Processes (PDPs) reduce development time,
create better products, generate profit and increase market share. In contrast,
poorly-designed PDPs can severely harm both product lines and the companies that
manufacture them. Many companies seek guidance in making important PDP design decisions.
This thesis introduces PDPs as a risk management framework and identifies several
PDP variations through the analysis of 10 case studies. It then proposes several
iterative and review based metrics by which PDPs can be more effectively identified
and compared."
"Optimizing the Stage-Gate® Process – Part 1" Dr. Robert G. Cooper,
Dr. Scott J. Edgett & Dr. Elko J. Kleinschmidt
Dr. Cooper, Dr. Edgett and Dr. Kleinschmidt report on their observations and experiences
working with a multitude of companies, and on the practices the companies have incorporated
into their product innovation processes. The following practices are explored in
the paper: the addition of a discovery stage at the front end of the innovation
process, harnessing fundamental research more effectively, and building in more
effective go/kill decision points to move towards portfolio management."
"Optimizing the Stage-Gate Process – Part 2" Dr. Robert G. Cooper, Dr.
Scott J. Edgett & Dr. Elko J. Kleinschmidt
"Dr. Cooper, Dr. Edgett and Dr. Kleinschmidt focus on the methods and techniques
that help companies achieve better project selection and prioritization. The paper
examines how to build more effective go/kill decisions points – tough gates
– and to move towards successful portfolio management."
NPD Tools
"Concept Generation & Selection Lecture" Thomas Chase
"Generating ideas and selecting among competing ideas are two of the most important
determinants of successful design. Neither good detail design nor good marketing
nor tons of venture capital will rescue a poor concept. This lecture is concerned
with how you generate ideas and then how you choose which is the best idea to pursue."
"Concept Generation, Evaluation & Selection Dr. Rick Edgeman
"Concept selection is a group/team process that facilitates the selection of a winning concept, helps build team
consensus, and creates a record of the decision-making process."
"Function Analysis
and Decomposition using Function Analysis Systems Technique" Jim Wixson
"This paper shows how the FAST Methodology from Value Engineering can be used to
identify key functions. It also discusses the parallel between VE and SE and how
VE can be used to enhance SE."
"Rule
#3: Leadership Is Confusing as Hell" Tom Peters
"List of leadership qualities: 50 ways of being a leader in freaked-out times."
"Strengthening
Values Centered Leadership: What, Why and How?"Charles D. Kerns, Ph.D.
"Business leaders who want to create an ethical work environment should first identify
their own core values and commit to practicing them. This article discusses why
it is important for business leaders to be concerned about strengthening their value
systems and how this can be done. "
"The Most Important
People of the Year" Time Magazine
"100 remarkable people. TIME has profiled those individuals who — for
better or worse — most influenced the last year. They are considered in five
fields of endeavor, culminating with Person of the Year... "
"Using
Conflict to Your Advantage - Butting Heads is not Always Bad " Teri C. Tompkins,
Ph.D. & Kathryn S. Rogers, Ph.D.
"Embracing conflict in groups is necessary for effective team dynamics and improved
performance. While conflict is endemic in organizational life, it need not always
be negative. Those working together must understand the basic principles of how
to use conflict to facilitate becoming a learning team that increases its capacity
to take effective action through diffusion of knowledge and skills."
"What Makes
Teams Work? "Regina Fazio Maruca
"What's the secret to a great team?"
"10 Ways to Make Better Portfolio and Project Selection Decisions" Dr. Robert
G. Cooper & Dr. Scott J. Edgett
"Good portfolio management (PM) is a key to success in New Product Development (NPD).
But good PM still frequently eludes even the biggest brightest corporations. In
this article, Bob Cooper and Scott Edgett outline ten ways to make better portfolio
and project selection decisions. "
"Portfolio Management for New Products: Picking the Winners" Dr. Robert G.
Cooper & Dr. Scott J. Edgett
"New product portfolio management is about how you invest your business’s
product development resources – project prioritization and resource allocation
across development projects. This paper addresses the four goals of portfolio management
and the importance of having an established, high quality Stage-Gate® system
in place. "
"Portfolio Management: Fundamental to New Product Success" Dr. Robert G. Cooper,
Dr. Scott J. Edgett & Dr. Elko J. Kleinschmidt
"This article reports result from an on-going, large sample research study into
portfolio management best practices. The goals of the research are to study industry
current and best practices in portfolio management, and to gain insights to guide
in the design and implementation of superior portfolio management methods. The article
outlines new managerial problems faced in portfolio management. It details how various
portfolio tools and models are employed by managers to make Go/Kill decisions and
to help prioritize projects. "
" Portfolio Management for New Product Development: Results of an Industry Practices
Study" Dr. Robert G. Cooper, Dr. Scott J. Edgett & Dr. Elko J. Kleinschmidt
"This paper reports the results of a survey questionnaire sent to IRI member companies
participating in an ongoing best practices study (results as of October 2001). Dr.
Cooper, Dr. Edgett and Dr. Kleinschmidt examine the consequences of poor portfolio
management practices. They outline the results of the study including the role of
portfolio management at the participating companies and why industry considers it
to be so important. The article then examines popular tools, methods and models
employed by these companies to make go/kill decisions and to help prioritize projects.
"
"Your NPD Portfolio may be harmful to your business’s health" Dr. Robert
G. Cooper
"Recent NPD studies contain a number of surprises: Most shocking is that the impact
of new product development (NPD) on the sales and profits of many corporations is
down, when looked at in terms of contribution to total sales and profits. How has
this happened, and why? In this article, Dr. Robert Cooper takes a hard look at
the facts and examines a number of possible reasons for this trend. He also provides
recommendations on how companies can rebalance their NPD portfolios to become more
profitable. "
"Lessons to be Learned from an Old Simple Product" Marc H. Meyer, Alvin Lehnerd
"If you build a better mousetrap in your home in the woods, the world will beat
a path to your door..."
"How New Product Strategies Impact on Performance" Dr. Robert G. Cooper
" What is involved in a successful new product program? Is it high spending on risky
R&D? Is it close contact with customers? Is it the overall competitive strength
of the firm? Well, it might be any of these things, and more according to Robert
G. Cooper, depending on your definition of success. In an exhaustive examination
of the new product strategies and performances of 122 industrial products firms,
Cooper found that the strategy that a firm elects for its new product program is
closely linked to the performance results that firm achieves. But what’s performance?"
"A Lexicon of Decision Making" Tom Spradlin
"This short narrative is intended to provide, in non-technical terms and in a readable
way, definitions of the words most commonly used in a decision making context."
"Twelve Systems Engineering Roles" Sarah A. Sheard
"Twelve roles are described which are occasionally or frequently assumed to constitute
the practice of systems engineering. Some roles fit naturally as life-cycle roles,
others fit the Program Management set of roles, while still others are not normally
thought of in either group. Interactions between the roles are discussed, and the
systems engineering roles are compared."
A Collection of Articles on Requirements including "What Is A Requirement?" by Richard Harwell, Erik Aslaksen, et al.
"Anyone involved in the transition of vision into product, has his or her own definition
of a requirement. With the rare exception, all are applicable and meaningful - but
most are forgotten or ignored in the crunch to produce an effective requirements
document under constrained schedule and funding environments. Yet, the need for
effective requirements generation is probably the number one priority today in product
development needs. Rather than approaching this problem from the theoretical or
a priori standpoint, this paper examines the nature of a requirement through a process
of identifying key characteristics and relationships from the viewpoint of the requirements
manager/analyst and the requirements user (design team). It also discusses the importance
of determining that requirements convey a need (as opposed to a directed solution),
and ascertaining quality in terms of contextual adequacy."
"Writing Good Requirements"
Ivy Hooks
"The primary reason that people write poor requirements is that they have had no
training or experience in writing good requirements. This paper will address what
makes a good requirement. It will cover some of the most common problems that are
encountered in writing requirements and then describe how to avoid them. It also
includes examples of problem requirements and how to correct them."
"10 Steps to Better Requirements" Larry A. Fellows
"Why do so many organizations struggle with requirements? There seem to
be two paths that organizations follow for requirement definition and
management. Some organizations rush through the requirement phase to
get to design and implementation while others have invested in the panacea
of requirement tools and processes. Yet many of these organizations
appear to be doomed to the schedule slips and budget overruns caused by
the iterative rework cycles of poor and incomplete requirement sets.
But all organizations do not have these requirement problems. Some
projects go smoothly and provide the customer what they want, when they
want it, with the desired quality. We call that delivering a winning product.
What is it that differentiates organizations that produce winning products
from those that struggle with requirements?"
"What
is Requirements Management?" Richard Stevens, James Martin
"Requirements management models the system, in order to improve the end product.
A project that meets requirements is by definition a success. Requirements management
starts with the definition of requirements and continues through the project, culminating
in the acceptance of the product against requirements. By examining all the tasks
to be performed with requirements, we can see the role of requirements management."
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