MOST Analysis

Mission Statement

This workshop aims to empower organizations in manufacturing and commercializing Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) to excel in product development by implementing a robust Innovation Ecosystem and effective project management methodologies.

Innovation is a multidimensional concept that extends beyond new technologies. In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, manufacturing and CPG companies must reinvent themselves, bringing new products to market faster than ever. That is where an Innovation Ecosystem, comprising a dynamic network of individuals, organizations, and institutions, is the foundation for success.

This program focuses on building and balancing the Innovation Ecosystem, starting with clearly understanding the process and governance. Providing the necessary tools and insights enables organizations to optimize their new product development process, enhance operational efficiency, and achieve competitive advantages.

Embracing the Phase-Gate methodology, a proven project management approach, this workshop will guide organizations through the stages of product development, effective planning, risk management, and decision-making, helping break down projects into distinct phases and decision points. Also, being successful in that field means being willing to integrate other methodologies such as Agile Development, Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and Open Innovation to supplement the Phase-Gate framework, allowing flexibility and adaptability in addressing specific project needs.

They are positioning accountability as a critical cornerstone of success. By fostering a culture of trust, transparency, and ownership, we empower team members to take responsibility for their actions and decisions. With clear communication channels, well-defined roles and responsibilities, and regular progress monitoring, the vision is to ensure that each team member understands their contribution and the impact of their work on the project’s outcomes.

Understanding the importance of aligning the product development process with organizational goals and culture, it is also important to realize that this workshop will trigger a significant change in the organizational culture and that participants should be willing to put all their effort into achieving actual results. Creating a shared vocabulary and consistent application of the process across teams fosters collaboration, streamlining operations, and improving overall efficiency are only a few of the key domains that those changes will influence. Improving a process is only achieved in a period of time. Continuous improvement, seeking stakeholder feedback and subject matter experts, analyzing performance metrics, and making iterative changes to refine the process based on evolving business needs and market dynamics.

By embracing a robust Innovation Ecosystem and effective project management methodologies, organizations can experience significant benefits.

First and foremost, organizations will witness accelerated time-to-market for new products, allowing them to stay ahead of competitors and meet the ever-increasing consumer demand for innovation. This speed and agility in product development translate into increased market share and revenue growth.

Furthermore, implementing transparent processes, accountability, and cross-functional collaboration fosters a culture of efficiency, transparency, and ownership. This culture change empowers employees, improves teamwork, and enhances organizational performance. It drives employee engagement and satisfaction, leading to higher productivity and talent retention.

Through the Phase-Gate methodology, organizations will also experience improved decision-making, risk management, and resource allocation. With clear decision points and a structured approach, leaders can make informed choices, mitigate risks, and optimize resource allocation, resulting in cost savings and reduced project failures.

Additionally, the integration of methodologies such as Agile Development, Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and Open Innovation brings added value. Agile practices promote collaboration, adaptability, and continuous improvement, enhancing product quality and customer satisfaction. Lean Startup principles enable rapid experimentation, reducing the risk of investing in unviable products and increasing the success rate of product launches. Design Thinking ensures a deep understanding of customer needs, resulting in customer-centric products that resonate in the market. Open Innovation fosters external collaborations, leveraging diverse expertise and resources for innovative product development.

Overall, the impact of these changes is a transformative shift in organizational culture, improved speed-to-market, increased revenue and market share, enhanced employee engagement and productivity, optimized resource allocation, and reduced project risks and failures. By embracing these changes, organizations can position themselves as leaders in the CPG industry, driving innovation and delivering successful products that meet and exceed consumer expectations.

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Objectives

01. Establish a cross-functional team dedicated to implementing the Innovation Ecosystem with change and project management methodologies. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of the existing product development process and identify areas for improvement. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Define and document each team member’s roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority in the product development process. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Provide training and support to ensure all team members have the necessary skills and knowledge to implement the new methodologies effectively. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Foster a culture of accountability and ownership, ensuring that team members understand the importance of their roles and are committed to delivering results. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Develop and communicate clear goals and objectives for the product development process, aligning them with the organization’s overall strategy and mission. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Establish consistent communication channels and mechanisms to ensure effective collaboration and information sharing among team members and stakeholders. Time Allocated: 1 Month
08. Implement a phased approach to the product development process, incorporating the Phase-Gate methodology and other relevant methodologies as appropriate. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Continuously monitor and evaluate the performance of the new process, gathering feedback from stakeholders and using performance metrics to identify areas for further improvement. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Foster a supportive and adaptive organizational culture that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement, encouraging employees to embrace change. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Effective Launch and Market Entry: Develop a structured and well-executed product launch plan, including marketing campaigns, sales strategies, and distribution channels.Time Allocated: 1 Month

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Strategies

01. Establish a cross-functional team dedicated to implementing the Innovation Ecosystem with change and project management methodologies:

Strategies:

a. Form a dedicated project team comprising representatives from different departments and areas of expertise.

b. Foster a collaborative environment where team members clearly understand the project goals and their roles.

c. Facilitate regular communication and knowledge sharing among team members to progress the implementation process.

02. Develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of the existing product development process and identify areas for improvement:

Strategies:

a. Conduct a thorough process analysis and mapping exercise to gain insights into the current product development process.

b. Engage key stakeholders and subject matter experts to gather feedback and identify pain points, bottlenecks, and areas of inefficiency.

c. Analyze the findings to determine specific areas for improvement and create a roadmap for process enhancements.

03. Define and document each team member’s roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority in the product development process:

Strategies:

a. Facilitate workshops or meetings where team members collectively define and document their roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority.

b. Encourage open discussion and alignment among team members to ensure a clear understanding of each person’s contribution and accountability.

c. Document these roles and responsibilities in a centralized and accessible format for easy reference.

04. Provide training and support to ensure all team members have the necessary skills and knowledge to implement and follow the new methodologies effectively:

Strategies:

a. Develop a comprehensive training program tailored to the specific methodologies being implemented.

b. Provide training sessions, workshops, or online resources to equip team members with the required knowledge and skills.

c. Offer ongoing support, coaching, and mentoring to address any implementation challenges and ensure team members can confidently apply the new methodologies in their work.

05. Foster a culture of accountability and ownership, ensuring that team members understand the importance of their roles and are committed to delivering results:

Strategies:

a. Promote a culture of accountability and ownership by clearly communicating the project goals, expectations, and the impact of each team member’s contributions.

b. Encourage open communication and regular progress updates to foster a sense of responsibility.

c. Recognize and celebrate achievements and provide constructive feedback to drive continuous improvement and maintain high commitment among team members.

06. Develop and communicate clear goals and objectives for the product development process, aligning them with the organization’s overall strategy and mission:

Strategies:

a. Facilitate workshops or meetings to define and articulate clear goals and objectives for the product development process.

b. Ensure alignment with the organization’s overall strategy and mission.

c. Communicate these goals and objectives to all stakeholders, emphasizing their importance and how they contribute to the organization’s success.

d. Regularly revisit and communicate progress towards these goals to keep the team motivated and focused.

07. Establish consistent communication channels and mechanisms to ensure effective collaboration and information sharing among team members and stakeholders:

Strategies:

a. Implement regular communication channels such as team meetings, project management tools, and collaboration platforms to facilitate effective communication and information sharing.

b. Encourage open and transparent communication, ensuring team members can access the necessary information, provide feedback, share insights, and collaborate on project-related activities.

08. Implement a phased approach to the product development process, incorporating the Phase-Gate methodology and other relevant methodologies as appropriate:

Strategies:

a. Break down the product development process into distinct phases and gates based on the Phase-Gate methodology.

b. Clearly define the objectives, deliverables, and decision criteria for each phase.

c. Implement a structured review process at each gate to assess progress, make informed decisions, and ensure alignment with project goals.

d. Start with building a solid Business Case.

e. Analyse existing projects to integrate them within the structured review process.

f. Incorporate other relevant methodologies such as Agile or Lean practices where applicable to enhance efficiency and flexibility.

09. Continuously monitor and evaluate the performance of the new process, gathering feedback from stakeholders and using performance metrics to identify areas for further improvement:

Strategies:

a. Establish a feedback loop and performance measurement system to monitor the effectiveness of the new process.

b. Collect feedback from stakeholders, including team members, customers, and other relevant parties, through surveys, interviews, or regular check-ins.

c. Utilize performance metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess process performance and identify areas for further improvement.

d. Use this feedback and data to drive continuous improvement initiatives.

10. Foster a supportive and adaptive organizational culture that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement, encouraging employees to embrace change:

Strategies:

a. Create a supportive culture by promoting and rewarding innovation, mistakes and learnings, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

b. Encourage employees to share ideas, experiment, and learn from failures.

c. Provide resources for knowledge sharing, cross-functional collaboration, and learning opportunities.

d. Recognize and celebrate individuals and teams that embrace new methodologies and contribute to positive organizational change.

11. Effective Launch and Market Entry: Develop a structured and well-executed product launch plan, including marketing campaigns, sales strategies, and distribution channels:

Strategies:

a. Conduct market research and customer analysis to inform from the concept what is the consumer problem to be solved and develop a comprehensive product launch plan.

b. Define target markets, positioning, and messaging strategies to communicate the product’s value proposition effectively.

c. Develop sales strategies and distribution channels that align with the target audience and market dynamics.

d. Implement a monitoring and evaluation system to track the success of the product launch and make necessary adjustments based on market feedback.

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Tasks

01. Establish a cross-functional team dedicated to implementing the Innovation Ecosystem with change and project management methodologies:

Tasks

a. Identify key stakeholders from various departments and invite them to join the cross-functional team.

b. Schedule regular team meetings to discuss project goals, roles, and responsibilities.

c. Assign a project manager to oversee the implementation process and facilitate collaboration among team members.

02. Develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of the existing product development process and identify areas for improvement:

Tasks

a. Conduct interviews and workshops with relevant stakeholders to gain insights into the current process.

b. Document the process steps, inputs, outputs, and bottlenecks.

c. Analyze the process documentation to identify areas of inefficiency or improvement opportunities.

03. Define and document each team member’s roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority in the product development process:

Tasks

a. Clarify deliverables with workshops and interviews.

b. Facilitate a workshop or meeting to define roles and responsibilities for each team member collaboratively.

c. Document the agreed-upon roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority in a clear and accessible format, such as a RACI matrix or role descriptions.

04. Provide training and support to ensure all team members have the necessary skills and knowledge to implement the new methodologies effectively:

Tasks

a. Identify training needs for each team member based on their roles and responsibilities.

b. Develop a training plan that includes workshops, online courses, or external training resources.

c. Provide ongoing support and coaching to team members as they apply the new methodologies in their work.

05. Foster a culture of accountability and ownership, ensuring that team members understand the importance of their roles and are committed to delivering results:

Tasks

a. Communicate the project goals, expectations, and the importance of individual contributions to the overall success.

b. Encourage team members to set individual and team goals that align with the project objectives.

c. Regularly review progress and provide feedback to reinforce accountability and ownership.

06. Develop and communicate clear goals and objectives for the product development process, aligning them with the organization’s overall strategy and mission:

Tasks

a. Facilitate a workshop or meeting to define SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals for the product development process.

b. Communicate the goals and objectives to all stakeholders through presentations, emails, or a centralized project management system.

c. Regularly review and communicate progress towards the goals, providing updates and celebrating milestones.

07. Establish consistent communication channels and mechanisms to ensure effective collaboration and information sharing among team members and stakeholders:

Tasks

a. Set up a dedicated project communication channel, such as a collaboration platform or project management software, for team members to share updates, ask questions, and provide feedback.

b. Conduct regular team meetings to discuss project progress, address challenges, and share information.

c. Implement a system for documenting and sharing project-related information, such as meeting minutes, progress reports, or knowledge repositories.

08. Implement a phased approach to the product development process, incorporating the Phase-Gate methodology and other relevant methodologies as appropriate:

Tasks

a. Break down the product development process into distinct phases and define each phase’s objectives, deliverables, and decision criteria.

b. Develop templates or checklists to guide teams through each phase, ensuring adherence to the defined process.

c. Conduct gate reviews at the end of each phase to evaluate progress and determine whether to proceed to the next phase.

09. Continuously monitor and evaluate the performance of the new process, gathering feedback from stakeholders and using performance metrics to identify areas for further improvement:

Tasks

a. Establish a feedback mechanism, such as surveys or regular check-ins, to gather feedback from team members and stakeholders on the effectiveness of the new process.

b. Review and assess key performance metrics aligned with the project goals, such as cycle time, cost, quality, customer satisfaction, or innovation metrics.

c. Implement changes or adjustments based on the identified improvement areas, ensuring clear communication and training to support the transition.

10. Foster a supportive and adaptive organizational culture that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement, encouraging employees to embrace change:

Tasks

a. Conduct training sessions or workshops on innovation, teamwork, and change management to empower employees and foster a culture of learning and growth.

b. Recognize and reward employees who demonstrate innovative thinking, collaboration, and the willingness to embrace new methodologies.

c. Encourage leaders and managers to lead by example, embodying the desired cultural traits and promoting a supportive and adaptive environment.

11. Effective Launch and Market Entry: Develop a structured and well-executed product launch plan, including marketing campaigns, sales strategies, and distribution channels:

Tasks

a. Conduct market research and analysis to identify target markets, customer segments, and competitive landscape.

b. Develop a comprehensive messaging plan, positioning, pricing, and promotional strategies aligned with the target audience.

c. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs), such as sales revenue, market share, or customer satisfaction metrics, to track the success of the product launch.

d. Execute the launch plan by coordinating activities, monitoring progress, and adjusting based on market feedback and performance data.

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Introduction

Planning

Planning the Optimal Innovation Ecosystem

The optimal ecosystem for new product development involves creating a balanced and harmonious relationship between various components such as process, roadmap, portfolio, and strategy. This workshop will explore the critical elements of an optimal product development ecosystem and highlight the importance of shared vocabularies and concepts as a foundation for success.

To establish an optimal ecosystem, starting with a well-defined and streamlined process is crucial. Firstly, the team will delve into the importance of developing a clear product development process, including the stages, gates, and decision-making points. It will also discuss the adapted governance mechanisms to ensure adequate oversight, resource allocation, and risk management throughout the process.

Aligning the product development ecosystem with the organization’s overall business strategy is essential for long-term success. It emphasizes the connection of the product development roadmap and activities to strategic objectives. It will explore how a clear understanding of market trends, customer needs, and competitive landscape can inform the development of a robust product strategy that aligns with the company’s goals.

A key aspect of this workshop resides in defining and clarifying the roles and responsibilities of team members involved in the product development process. This section will discuss the importance of assigning clear ownership for tasks and deliverables, fostering collaboration between cross-functional teams, and ensuring effective communication and coordination throughout the project lifecycle.

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The cross-functional steering committee is instrumental in driving the optimal ecosystem. Highlight the benefits of a dedicated team comprised of representatives from various departments, and it will explore how the steering committee can provide strategic guidance, facilitate decision-making, and ensure alignment between different stakeholders involved in the product development process.

Managing complexity is central to product development: there are so many variables that evolve at the same time. The workshop will drive discussion about strategies and approaches to simplify and streamline processes, workflows, and decision-making. It will explore how organizations can leverage tools, technologies, and methodologies to eliminate unnecessary complexities, improve efficiency, and enhance the overall product development experience.

Putting the Customer at the Center of Product Development

In today’s highly competitive market, consumers are constantly bombarded with various product choices. To stand out from the crowd and succeed, businesses must shift their focus from a product-centric approach to a customer-centric one. Companies can gain a unique competitive advantage by understanding and catering to customers’ needs throughout the product development process. This approach entails placing the customer at the heart of decision-making and developing a deep understanding of their preferences, desires, and pain points.

A Shift from Product-centric to Customer-centric:

Traditionally, businesses have prioritized the features and capabilities of their products, assuming that customers will naturally be drawn to them. However, a product-centric approach no longer guarantees success. In contrast, a customer-centric approach acknowledges that consumers are the experts on their own needs. By shifting the focus from the product to the customer, companies can create solutions that truly resonate with their target audience.

Being consumer-focused is a step in the right direction, but true customer-centricity goes beyond simply considering customer feedback during development. It involves proactively involving customers in shaping the product and engaging in continuous dialogue. Businesses can create products that meet their specific needs and deliver superior value by treating customers as valued partners in the development journey.

Adopting a customer-centric approach brings a multitude of benefits. First and foremost, it leads to increased customer satisfaction, as products are tailored to address their unique requirements. This, in turn, fosters brand loyalty and advocacy, creating a positive cycle of customer retention and word-of-mouth recommendations. Furthermore, customer-centricity drives innovation as companies gain valuable insights that inspire new ideas and solutions.

Why New Products Succeed:

Successful new products align closely with customer needs and provide tangible benefits. Companies can develop products that deliver superior value, address pain points, and offer seamless experiences by understanding what drives customer purchasing decisions. This customer-centric focus enables businesses to differentiate themselves from competitors and capture a larger market share.

Transitioning to a customer-centric approach requires deliberate efforts. Companies must conduct extensive customer research, integrate customer feedback into the development process, and cultivate a culture that values customer-centricity. It is crucial to align internal processes, metrics, and goals with customer-centric objectives to ensure that the customer’s perspective guides every decision.

Open Conversations with Customers:

Open and continuous customer conversations are crucial to maintaining a customer-centric approach. Businesses can gain valuable insights into customer preferences and expectations by actively seeking feedback through surveys, focus groups, and usability tests. Leveraging social media and online communities allows for direct customer interaction, providing opportunities for co-creation and building lasting relationships.

Developing a Competitive Advantage:

Embracing customer-centricity allows companies to gain a distinct competitive advantage. Businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors by truly understanding customer needs and delivering products that meet those needs effectively. The ability to innovate, personalize experiences, and foster strong customer relationships positions organizations as leaders in their respective markets.

Putting the customer at the center of product development in a market saturated with choices is paramount. By shifting from a product-centric mindset to a customer-centric one, businesses can create products that resonate with consumers, drive customer satisfaction, and achieve long-term success. Through continuous engagement, open conversations, and a deep understanding of customer needs, companies can develop a unique competitive advantage that sets them apart in the dynamic and ever-evolving business landscape—a customer-centric culture and aligning internal processes and metrics with customer-centric goals.

Having emphasized the importance of consumer-centricity in the product development process, it is essential to complement this customer-focused approach with a structured methodology that ensures efficient decision-making, risk management, and traceability. This is where the Phase-Gate approach comes into play, offering a systematic framework that aligns with the principles of consumer centricity. By integrating these two strategies, organizations can navigate the complexities of new product development while profoundly understanding their customers’ needs and preferences. Let’s explore how the Phase-Gate approach enhances the consumer-centric mindset and provides a clear path to success in the dynamic world of innovation.

The Stage-Gate® Approach to New Product Development and its Role in the Innovation Ecosystem

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, organizations face immense pressure to bring innovative products to market efficiently and effectively. A structured and systematic approach to product development is essential to meet these demands. One such approach that has gained significant traction is the Stage-Gate® methodology, which combines project management principles with a standardized process to ensure transparent decision-making, role definition, and continuous improvement. This introduction will explore the Stage-Gate® approach and its pivotal role in establishing a new and improved Innovation Ecosystem.

The Stage-Gate® methodology can be viewed as a gatekeeper, ensuring that projects progress through distinct stages, or gates, with predefined criteria that serve as checkpoints for decision-making. Each stage represents a crucial phase in the product development process, and the gates act as milestones to evaluate progress, assess risks, and determine whether a project should advance to the next stage. This structured approach enhances traceability, promotes accountability, and provides a framework for effective project management.

By implementing the Stage-Gate® approach, organizations can establish a solid foundation for their Innovation Ecosystem. This ecosystem represents a dynamic network of individuals, teams, and processes collaborating to generate and develop innovative ideas, technologies, products, and services. At its core, the Innovation Ecosystem aims to foster creativity, enable efficient decision-making, and facilitate the successful commercialization of new products.

The Stage-Gate® methodology becomes the backbone of the Innovation Ecosystem by providing a standardized process that ensures consistency and traceability in decision-making. It enables organizations to align their innovation efforts with their overall business strategy and objectives. With each gate serving as a critical evaluation point, key stakeholders can assess the project’s alignment with strategic goals, customer needs, and market dynamics. This alignment reduces the risk of pursuing projects that do not align with the organization’s direction, optimizing resource allocation and maximizing the chances of success.

Role definition and continuous improvement

Furthermore, the Stage-Gate® approach facilitates clear role definition within the product development process. Organizations can streamline communication, enhance collaboration, and ensure accountability by assigning specific responsibilities and decision-making authority to individuals or teams at each stage. This clarity helps prevent bottlenecks, improves decision-making efficiency, and fosters cross-functional alignment.

Notably, the Stage-Gate® methodology also supports continuous improvement within the Innovation Ecosystem. As projects progress through the stages and gates, organizations can gather feedback, learn from successes and failures, and refine their processes and decision-making criteria. This iterative approach promotes a culture of learning and adaptability, allowing organizations to evolve and enhance their innovation capabilities over time.

While the Stage-Gate methodology provides a structured framework for progressing through distinct stages and gates, efficient decision-making is the driving force behind the advancement and success of each stage. Together, these elements create a powerful synergy, enabling organizations to navigate the complexities of product development, allocate resources effectively, mitigate risks, and foster a culture of accountability.

Effective Decision-Making in the Product Development Process

In the fast-paced and competitive landscape of product development, effective decision-making plays a pivotal role in determining the success or failure of a project. Once the work is clearly defined and the teams are aligned, taking control of spending, allocating resources, and mitigating risks through appropriate decision-making becomes crucial. Timing of these decisions becomes a critical factor, impacting the overall efficiency of the process and the level of engagement from the team.

Timing of Decision-Making:

Timing is everything when it comes to decision-making in product development. The ability to make timely and informed decisions can significantly impact project outcomes. Delaying decisions can lead to bottlenecks, wasted resources, and missed opportunities. Conversely, making decisions hastily without adequate information or analysis can result in costly mistakes. Finding the right balance and knowing when to make decisions is critical. Effective decision-making requires gathering relevant data, conducting a thorough analysis, and considering the input of key stakeholders to ensure informed choices are made at the right time.

Allocation of Resources:

The allocation of resources is a key aspect of decision-making in product development. Limited resources must be strategically allocated to different stages of the development process, considering the project’s priorities, potential risks, and expected returns. Decisions regarding resource allocation should be based on a thorough assessment of the project’s requirements, financial feasibility, and alignment with the organization’s overall goals. By making sound financial decisions, organizations can optimize resource utilization, minimize waste, and maximize the value generated from their investments.

Risk Management:

Decision-making in product development goes hand in hand with risk management. Identifying and mitigating risks is an ongoing process throughout the development journey. Effective decision-making involves evaluating potential risks and implementing appropriate strategies to minimize their impact. This requires a proactive approach involving cross-functional collaboration, rigorous analysis, and contingency planning. By addressing risks in a timely manner and making well-informed decisions, organizations can navigate uncertainties more effectively, enhance project outcomes, and safeguard against potential setbacks.

Engagement and Team Collaboration:

Effective decision-making also fosters a culture of engagement and collaboration within the product development team. When team members feel their input is valued and their expertise is sought, they are more likely to be actively engaged in decision-making. Inclusive decision-making practices encourage diverse perspectives, promote innovation, and harness the team’s collective intelligence. Engaged teams are more motivated, productive, and committed to achieving project success.

In the dynamic world of product development, effective decision-making is paramount. Timely and well-informed decisions drive efficiency, resource optimization, risk mitigation, and team engagement. By carefully considering the timing of decisions, strategically allocating financial resources, and actively managing risks, organizations can enhance their decision-making capabilities and increase the likelihood of successful project outcomes. Emphasizing a culture of engagement and collaboration further empowers teams to make informed decisions, driving innovation and the organization toward its goals. Effective decision-making is the foundation for successful product development in today’s competitive market landscape.

While decision-making drives the progression and outcomes of the project, governance provides the structure and oversight necessary to ensure clarity, accountability, and alignment within the development process. By linking these essential elements, organizations can establish a synergistic approach that maximizes the effectiveness and efficiency of their product development initiatives. The crucial connection between decision-making and governance highlights how they complement each other to drive informed choices, promote cross-functional collaboration, and enable effective project management in the dynamic context of product development.

Process Governance in Product Development

Process governance plays a pivotal role in the success of product development initiatives by providing clarity, structure, and accountability. It is a critical element that helps organizations effectively manage their projects, engage cross-functional team members, and streamline decision-making processes. By separating strategic and operational decision-making, process governance ensures that critical details are addressed, project updates are transparent, and risks are effectively mitigated.

Process governance defines who needs to be involved in the product development process at various stages. It outlines the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders, ensuring their active participation and contribution. By clearly identifying the relevant individuals or teams and establishing their involvement guidelines, process governance fosters collaboration, enhances communication, and promotes cross-functional alignment. This clarity of stakeholder involvement facilitates efficient decision-making and streamlines the overall product development journey.

Workstreams and Decision-Makers:

Within the process governance framework, workstreams are defined to address specific aspects of product development. These workstreams delineate the different areas or functions involved in the process, ensuring that each component is adequately managed. Simultaneously, decision-makers are identified, clarifying who holds the authority to make critical decisions at various stages. Defining workstreams and decision-makers helps streamline the decision-making process, ensuring that the right individuals are involved at the right time and that decisions are made promptly based on expertise and informed judgment.

Roles – RACI:

Process governance also encompasses role definition through a widely used framework known as RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed). RACI assigns specific responsibilities and decision-making authority to individuals or teams within the product development process. This framework clarifies who is responsible for executing tasks, who is accountable for the overall outcomes, who should be consulted for their expertise, and who should be kept informed of progress. By establishing clear roles and responsibilities, process governance eliminates ambiguity, minimizes duplication of efforts, and promotes accountability and ownership among team members.

Transparent Governance: A Critical Success Indicator:

Transparent governance is a critical success indicator of a well-designed product development process. It ensures that decision-making processes are transparent, well-documented, and accessible to all relevant stakeholders. Transparent governance enables effective communication, fosters trust, and enhances cross-functional collaboration. When team members have visibility into the decision-making processes and understand how their roles fit within the larger context, they are more engaged, empowered, and motivated to contribute their best efforts.

Within the product development realm, governance’s importance extends beyond ensuring effective decision-making and process management. Governance also plays a vital role in supporting the creation and refinement of powerful product concepts. By establishing transparent governance frameworks and fostering cross-functional collaboration, organizations create an environment where the exploration of consumer needs and the development of innovative solutions can thrive. The governance structure guides stakeholders, clarifies roles and responsibilities, and promotes accountability throughout the product concept development process.

This seamless integration of governance and the product concept journey sets the stage for unveiling the true power of understanding consumer needs and delivering impactful solutions. Let us now delve into the intricacies of developing a compelling product concept that resonates with consumers and drives market success.

Unveiling the Power of Product Concept in Addressing Consumer Needs:

Creating new products begins with identifying and translating a market opportunity into a compelling product concept that caters to consumer needs. However, this seemingly straightforward process entails various complexities and challenges. To navigate this path successfully, organizations can leverage multiple tools and methodologies designed to aid in developing a robust product concept. Nevertheless, the key to crafting an effective product concept lies in understanding the consumer before attempting to provide a solution. Consumers may not always be aware of their needs, but they possess valuable insights into their problems, motivations, and needs. Tools like the Value Proposition Canvas and Lean Canvas can offer guidance. Still, nothing can replace the power of genuine conversations with the target customer to comprehend their pain points truly. Instead of solely testing the product concept, it is more important to test the assumptions about the problem at hand and be open to pivoting the concept if necessary. It is crucial to remember that while you cannot change consumer habits, the goal is to make their lives easier and address their unmet needs.

Developing a successful product concept requires deeply understanding the consumer’s underlying challenges. Organizations gain invaluable insights that guide the development process by engaging in meaningful conversations and actively listening to their experiences. The consumer may not possess the expertise to articulate their needs explicitly, but by focusing on their problems and motivations, organizations can uncover opportunities to create innovative solutions. This customer-centric approach ensures that the product concept resonates with the target audience and offers a meaningful value proposition.

While tools like the Value Proposition Canvas and Lean Canvas can provide a structured framework for refining the product concept, they should be complemented by direct consumer interactions. Engaging in open conversations allows organizations to delve deeper into the consumer’s world, gaining nuanced insights that may not be captured by conventional market research methods alone. By testing assumptions about the problem rather than fixating on a predefined concept, organizations can remain agile and responsive to evolving consumer needs.

The iterative nature of product development necessitates a willingness to pivot the concept when new information emerges. By remaining adaptable and open to change, organizations can refine their understanding of the consumer’s problem and adjust their product concept accordingly. This flexibility enables them to align the solution with the true needs of the target audience, increasing the likelihood of market acceptance and success.

In summary, the power of the product concept lies in its ability to address consumer needs by understanding their problems and motivations. Tools and methodologies provide guidance, but genuine conversations with the target customer are invaluable in uncovering insights and refining the concept. Organizations can create innovative products that resonate with their audience and drive meaningful impact in the market by testing assumptions, pivoting when necessary, and ultimately making the consumer’s life easier.

Having explored the power of a well-defined product concept in addressing consumer needs, the following natural steps will be crucial to translating that concept into a compelling business case. The product concept is the foundation, driven by a deep understanding of consumer problems and motivations. It sparks innovation and ignites the creative process, laying the groundwork for a potential solution. However, to transform this concept into a viable commercial endeavour, organizations must transition from ideation to strategic planning, consolidating their findings into a comprehensive business case.

The business case represents the pivotal link that bridges the product concept with product development’s strategic and financial aspects. It transforms the insights gained from consumer-centric research into a tangible framework that aligns stakeholders and decision-makers. While the product concept emphasizes the “what” and “why” of the product, the business case delves into the “how” and “for whom” by presenting a holistic view of the market opportunity, financial implications, and strategic direction.

Unlocking the Potential of the Business Case in Product Development

In the dynamic landscape of product development, successful ventures require a careful balance of understanding the consumer, developing innovative solutions, and gaining alignment from decision-makers. As organizations embark on the journey of bringing a new product to market, the pivotal moment arises when efforts to comprehend consumer needs transition into creating a robust business case. The business case bridges the conceptual development phase, driven by extensive market research, and the subsequent stages involve prototyping and significant investment. By presenting a complete and concise business plan, decision-makers are equipped with the necessary information to evaluate the risks and rewards associated with the opportunity.

The business case represents a critical juncture in the product development process, where ideas and market insights coalesce into a tangible framework that guides subsequent actions. It encapsulates the product’s core value proposition, articulates the strategic direction, and outlines the financial implications of pursuing the opportunity. As decision-makers assess the business case, they gain vital visibility into the potential risks and rewards, enabling them to make informed choices and effectively control spending.

A robust business case rests upon a foundation of comprehensive market research, both secondary and primary, which offers a deep understanding of the target market, consumer preferences, and competitive landscape. This research-driven approach ensures that the business case is grounded in market realities and aligns with consumer needs and desires. By quantifying the market opportunity and assessing the potential return on investment, decision-makers can evaluate the product’s viability and make strategic choices regarding resource allocation.

The business case also serves as a communication tool, fostering alignment among stakeholders and creating a shared vision for the project. It provides a comprehensive overview of the project’s objectives, timelines, resource requirements, and potential risks, facilitating informed discussions and team collaboration. The transparency and clarity offered by the business case foster a sense of collective ownership and accountability, ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned with the project’s strategic goals.

Moreover, the business case acts as a risk management tool, allowing decision-makers to identify potential challenges and devise mitigation strategies proactively. Organizations can anticipate potential obstacles and develop contingency plans by conducting a thorough analysis of market dynamics, competitive landscape, and financial projections. This proactive approach minimizes uncertainties and enhances the project’s chances of success.

The business case represents a pivotal milestone in the product development process, marking the transition from understanding consumer needs to gaining alignment from decision-makers. It serves as a comprehensive framework that outlines the strategic direction, financial implications, and potential risks and rewards of pursuing a new product opportunity. By quantifying the market potential and fostering alignment among stakeholders, the business case empowers decision-makers to make informed choices and control spending while mitigating risks and fostering a collaborative and accountable environment.

Development

In the fast-paced and ever-evolving world of consumer-packaged goods (CPG) manufacturing, product development is a thrilling yet intricate journey. During this phase, a cross-functional team collaborates intensively to transform innovative ideas into tangible solutions that address the targeted consumer’s needs. From developing a compelling product concept to navigating the challenges of prototype development, testing, and manufacturing, the product development process requires careful consideration and alignment across various departments.

This workshop section will cover the challenges the team can meet once the product is developed. From evolving products and messaging to the challenge of production and commercialization, the workshop’s theme will follow the product project’s evolution.

With a well-defined product concept and a solid business case, the cross-functional team is now ready to embark on the exciting phase of turning ideas into reality—the actual development of the new product. This pivotal stage takes the team from conceptualization to the tangible world of prototyping, testing, and manufacturing. As they transition from planning to execution, the team must leverage their collective expertise, creativity, and technical skills to bring the product concept to life and ensure its successful realization in the marketplace. The development phase represents the bridge that connects the visionary aspirations of the concept with the practical implementation required to create a high-quality, market-ready product. Here, the team’s ability to translate ideas into functional designs, address technical challenges, and navigate the complexities of production becomes paramount. By seamlessly transitioning from the planning stage to the development phase, the team can unleash their innovative potential and embark on the journey that will shape the future success of the new product.

Navigating the Complexities of Product Development in the CPG Manufacturing Industry

In the fast-paced and ever-evolving world of consumer-packaged goods (CPG) manufacturing, product development is a thrilling yet intricate journey. During this phase, a cross-functional team collaborates intensively to transform innovative ideas into tangible solutions that address the targeted consumer’s needs. From developing a compelling product concept to navigating the challenges of prototype development, testing, and manufacturing, the product development process requires careful consideration and alignment across various departments.

The journey began with the innovation team’s mission to create a product concept that effectively resonates with the consumer and solves their problems. The ideal concept is crafted, encompassing key features and attributes that meet consumer expectations and market demands. However, as the development process progresses, the team must navigate the practical realities and constraints of cost, manufacturing feasibility, and efficiency.

Prototyping and creating a minimum viable product become crucial steps in the development process, where the product concept is translated into a tangible form. The team must carefully evaluate the process, materials, and design, ensuring that they align with the target cost and manufacturing capabilities. Concessions and trade-offs may need to be made to balance delivering a high-quality product and achieving the desired cost targets.

Simultaneously, the marketing and sales teams are essential in aligning messaging, forecasting, and client pitch. Clear communication and collaboration between these teams are vital to ensure the product’s value proposition is effectively communicated to the target market. The forecasting process helps the operational team prepare for production scale-up, providing adequate resources, materials, and equipment to meet market demand.

Throughout this multifaceted process, a rigorous focus on design for manufacturing and optimization becomes paramount. The team must optimize the product design, considering factors such as manufacturability, efficiency, and scalability. They can minimize costs, enhance quality, and streamline operations by fine-tuning the production process.

Successfully navigating the complexities of product development in the CPG manufacturing industry requires a synchronized effort, close collaboration, and alignment among all stakeholders. Each step must be carefully orchestrated, from ideation to manufacturing, to deliver a product that meets consumer expectations, achieves target cost, and can be efficiently produced at scale.

Product development in the CPG manufacturing industry is an exhilarating journey that demands careful consideration and coordination across various functions. From translating the product concept into prototypes to optimizing design for manufacturing and aligning marketing and sales efforts, every step plays a crucial role in successfully bringing a product to market. By fostering collaboration, embracing practical realities, and focusing on efficiency, companies can navigate the complexities of product development and deliver innovative and compelling solutions to meet the needs of their target consumers.

The culmination of extensive planning, strategic decision-making, and meticulous execution, the product launch represents the pivotal moment when the new product is unveiled to the market, creating a buzz among consumers and industry stakeholders alike. The transition from product development to product launch signifies a shift in gears, where the development team’s efforts seamlessly converge with the marketing team’s strategies to ensure a successful market entry and maximize the product’s potential.

With the product concept transformed into a tangible offering, the marketing team takes center stage, solidifying their launch strategies, refining the messaging, and positioning the product as a compelling solution that addresses consumer needs and sets it apart from competitors. The product launch becomes the gateway to connect the innovative vision of the development phase with the reality of engaging with consumers, creating brand awareness, and establishing a solid market presence.

Product Launch in the CPG Manufacturing Industry

In the dynamic landscape of the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) manufacturing industry, the ultimate goal of product development is to create another item on the shelf and deliver a compelling solution that resonates with consumers and captures their attention. The product launch phase represents the culmination of extensive planning, strategic decision-making, and meticulous execution to successfully introduce the new product to the market. As the development team breathes life into the product concept, the marketing team takes the reins to solidify launch strategies that will propel the product toward commercial triumph.

At the core of a successful product launch is a deep understanding of consumer motivations, shopping habits, and the unique value proposition the product concept offers. The marketing team must carefully analyze and cross-reference these insights, ensuring the launch strategies align seamlessly with consumer needs and aspirations. The market continues evolving while the development process unfolds, presenting opportunities and risks. The team must remain vigilant, constantly monitoring market dynamics and adapting their strategies to seize the right moment for a timely and impactful product launch.

The essence of a successful product launch lies in the compelling messaging and value proposition that resonate with the target audience. It is not merely about introducing a new product but about showcasing a solution that addresses consumer pain points and offers a differentiated value. The marketing team must craft captivating messages communicating the product’s unique selling points, positioning it as the go-to solution for consumers’ needs. Different strategies, such as pre-launch activities, the ATAR model (Awareness-Trial-Availability-Repeat), geographic targeting, or strategic partnerships, can be employed to mitigate risks and gauge market response.

Timing is of the essence in product launches. It requires a careful balance of anticipation, readiness, and seizing the market opportunity at the right moment. By orchestrating a well-coordinated launch, the team maximizes visibility, generates buzz, and creates a solid initial market presence. The product launch becomes an event that captures the attention of both consumers and industry stakeholders, laying the foundation for sustained growth and market success.

The product launch phase represents a crucial milestone in bringing a new product to market. It requires a strategic approach that leverages consumer insights, compelling messaging, and impeccable timing. By aligning marketing strategies with the consumer value proposition, employing innovative tactics, and embracing market dynamics, companies can unlock the potential for a successful product launch that resonates with consumers, drives brand awareness, and sets the stage for long-term success in a competitive marketplace.

The successful launch of a product hinges on its ability to communicate effectively and deliver value to the target consumers. This is where the power of the Value Proposition comes into play. As the product development process progresses, it is essential to transition from an internal development focus to a customer-centric approach. The Value Proposition bridges these two phases, allowing the team to align their understanding of consumer needs and desires with the strategies and messaging necessary for a compelling product launch.

While the product development team works diligently to bring the concept to life, the marketing team must solidify the launch strategies concurrently. Understanding the customer’s perspective becomes paramount, and the Value Proposition provides a framework to gain that understanding. The team can challenge assumptions, validate their understanding of the consumer, and pivot the product concept if required by employing tools such as the Value Proposition Canvas. This allows the conversation to focus on the consumer’s needs rather than prematurely diving into solutions and features.

As the Value Proposition evolves and becomes more refined, it helps the team define their market segments or personas more precisely. This shift in focus enables the team to develop targeted research and refine their solution to address specific consumer problems. The Value Proposition allows them to articulate their value proposition in a way that directly resonates with the identified target audience.

The team can effectively communicate their product’s unique value by integrating the insights gained from the Value Proposition into the product launch strategies. The Value Proposition helps craft compelling messaging, refine marketing campaigns, and align sales strategies with the consumers’ needs and desires. This customer-centric approach positions the product for success in the market, as it caters to the specific problems and motivations of the target audience.

Developing a unique value proposition

Understanding and meeting consumer needs is the difference between a novelty and a product that generates repurchases for any product or service. To ensure that the development efforts are aligned with consumer demands from the beginning, it is essential to employ a powerful tool known as the Value Proposition. The Value Proposition serves as a compass that guides the product development team, enabling them to understand the target consumers deeply and tailor their offerings to address their specific needs effectively.

The Value Proposition canvas is a foundation for this process, allowing the team to challenge assumptions and validate their understanding of consumer preferences. By building a set of assumptions about the consumers, the canvas provides a starting point for further validation through surveys, focus groups, or direct interactions. This approach ensures that the team invests time and resources in developing something that resonates with the consumers, avoiding the risk of developing a product that fails to capture their interest.

As the understanding of the consumer evolves, the Value Proposition canvas enables the team to formulate a clear path to success in meeting the consumers’ needs. It shifts the focus from merely developing a solution to defining the market segment or persona that the product will serve. By zeroing in on the consumer’s problems and pain points, the canvas facilitates targeted research and exploration of potential solutions. It empowers the team to articulate their solution in a way that directly addresses a specific problem, enhancing the product’s relevance and value proposition in the market.

The team can maintain a consumer-centric approach throughout development by leveraging the Value Proposition canvas. It ensures that the conversation revolves around the consumers’ needs and desires rather than jumping too quickly into developing solutions and features. This focus on the consumer helps the team make informed decisions, validate assumptions, and pivot the product concept if necessary, resulting in a more refined and tailored offering that resonates with the target audience.

The product manager is a key figure responsible for shaping the value proposition and effectively communicating the product’s value to the market. Product managers are crucial in translating customer needs, market insights, and the value proposition into actionable strategies and plans. They act as the bridge between the cross-functional teams and stakeholders, ensuring that the product vision is understood and executed effectively.

Product Manager

As the voice of the customer, the product manager uses the insights gathered from the value proposition development process to guide product development and drive decision-making. They work closely with the marketing team to craft compelling messaging communicating the product’s unique value to the target audience. The product manager understands the market dynamics, competitive landscape, and customer preferences, enabling them to develop messaging that resonates with the target market and positions the product effectively.

In addition to developing the messaging strategy, product managers also oversee the execution of the product roadmap, working closely with engineering, design, and other teams to deliver high-quality products on time and within budget. They prioritize features, manage trade-offs, and make data-driven decisions to ensure that the product meets customer expectations and achieves business objectives.

Furthermore, product managers continuously monitor the market, competitive landscape, and customer feedback to identify opportunities for product enhancements and identify potential gaps. They collaborate with cross-functional teams to address customer needs and drive innovation, ensuring the product remains competitive and meets evolving market demands.

Product management is a critical function within organizations that ensures the successful development, launch, and management of products in the market. It is the driving force behind an optimal innovation ecosystem, enabling companies to stay competitive and effectively meet customer needs. By implementing best practices in product management, organizations can navigate the complex landscape of product development and ensure that their product line remains relevant and profitable.

Product management’s core is the product lifecycle, which encompasses the various stages of a product’s existence from inception to retirement. The product manager plays a crucial role in defining the product platform and managing its lifecycle, aligning the product strategy with the overall business objectives. They develop a product vision that guides the innovation efforts, identifies opportunities to win market share, and ensures that resources are allocated efficiently.

Product managers are the central hub for cross-functional collaboration, working closely with marketing, engineering, sales, and operations teams. They facilitate communication and ensure all stakeholders align on the product vision, features, and market positioning. This collaboration is crucial in translating customer insights into actionable product requirements, guiding the development process, and delivering products that resonate with the target market.

Product management is a multidimensional discipline encompassing the strategic planning, development, and management of products throughout their lifecycle. It involves defining the product platform, establishing a product vision, and leveraging market insights to drive innovation and market success. By implementing best practices in product management, organizations can optimize their innovation ecosystem, deliver value to customers, and achieve sustainable growth in a competitive marketplace.

As the product manager is responsible for defining the product platform and managing the product lifecycle, they play a crucial role in shaping the organization’s product development strategy. However, their efforts cannot exist in isolation. To effectively execute the product vision and deliver successfully, each product or initiative’s key milestones, deliverables, and timelines align their plans with the broader goals and priorities of the organization.

This is where the concept of the product roadmap and portfolio prioritization becomes essential. Armed with their deep understanding of the market, customer needs, and competitive landscape, the product manager must translate their insights into a strategic roadmap that guides the development and launch of new products. The roadmap visualizes the product manager’s vision and outlines the key milestones, timelines, and dependencies that will shape the product’s journey from concept to market.

Product Roadmap and Portfolio prioritization

However, developing a roadmap is not enough. With limited resources and competing demands, it is crucial to prioritize which projects receive the necessary attention and resources. This is where portfolio prioritization comes into play. By evaluating and ranking different product development initiatives based on strategic importance, market potential, and resource requirements, the organization can make informed decisions about where to allocate its finite resources.

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The product manager’s role extends beyond individual products to overseeing the entire portfolio. They must assess the strategic significance of each initiative, weigh the potential market impact, and consider the organization’s overall objectives. Through a rigorous prioritization process, the product manager ensures that resources are allocated to the projects that offer the highest value and align with the company’s long-term vision.

In this way, the product manager acts as a bridge between strategic planning and operational execution, combining their expertise in product management and market understanding to shape the product roadmap and prioritize the portfolio. By effectively managing the product roadmap and making informed portfolio decisions, organizations can optimize their product development efforts, stay ahead of the competition, and deliver successful products that meet customer needs and drive business growth.

A product roadmap provides a high-level overview of the product development plan, outlining each product or initiative’s key milestones, deliverables, and timelines. It is a strategic guide that aligns the product vision, business objectives, and customer needs. The roadmap helps ensure that resources and efforts are allocated effectively, enabling the organization to deliver a cohesive and well-executed product portfolio.

On the other hand, portfolio prioritization evaluates and ranks different product development projects or initiatives based on their strategic alignment, potential value, and resource requirements. It helps decision-makers determine which projects should receive priority regarding investment, resources, and attention.

To prioritize the portfolio, organizations often use various methodologies and criteria. This includes considering the strategic significance of each project, the potential market impact, the alignment with the company’s goals and objectives, and the estimated return on investment. By applying a scoring model or weighted average criteria, decision-makers can objectively evaluate and compare different projects, reducing the influence of subjective factors and emotional biases.

One important aspect of portfolio prioritization is the need for documented decision-making. It ensures transparency, accountability, and consistent evaluation of projects. By documenting the rationale behind project selection and resource allocation, organizations can foster a culture of data-driven decision-making and enable continuous improvement in their product development efforts.

Product roadmap and portfolio prioritization aim to optimize resource allocation, minimize risks, and maximize the value delivered by the product portfolio. By focusing on the most strategically important and high-value projects, organizations can effectively manage their product lifecycle, balance new product development with existing product renovation, and make informed decisions that support the long-term growth and success of the company.

Implementation

In the implementation section of the workshop, the topics will address practical skills that the team needs to develop to ensure the successful implementation of the Innovation Ecosystem components. It has already been mentioned that it is a significant change in the company culture, and to ensure long-term implementation, it is essential that the team involved, as well as their leader, develop some specific skills.

Executive Decision-ready presentation

In the fast-paced business world, executives constantly face numerous decisions that can potentially shape their organizations’ future. When seeking decisions from these key decision-makers, it is crucial to have a well-crafted executive presentation that effectively conveys the key messages and tells a compelling story. The presentation should be concise, impactful, and designed to capture the attention and engagement of the executives.

An executive presentation serves as a platform to communicate critical information, present insights, and make recommendations that will influence strategic decisions. To ensure a positive response and garner support, the presenters must be well-prepared and equipped with a presentation that clearly articulates the objective, storyline, and recommendations. The presentation should start with an executive summary that provides a high-level overview of the critical points and sets the stage for the following discussion.

When crafting the presentation, it is essential to have a clear pitch and be well-versed in the compelling arguments that support the recommendations. Using effective titles and subtitles helps the executives through the presentation and lets them grasp the main points quickly. Rather than overwhelming the audience with excessive data, the focus should be on sharing relevant information and insightful analysis that drives the key messages home.

Graphics are powerful tools in an executive presentation. They have the ability to simplify complex data and make it more digestible for the audience. Choosing the right visuals, such as charts, graphs, and diagrams, can enhance the understanding and impact of the presented information.

A well-structured executive presentation should begin with hard data and factual evidence to establish credibility and build a foundation of understanding. As the presentation progresses, it is essential to transition into softer arguments, incorporating storytelling and persuasive narratives that resonate with the executives on a deeper level.

Rehearsal is a critical step in delivering a successful executive presentation. Practicing the delivery, refining the messaging, and anticipating potential questions or objections can significantly enhance the effectiveness of the presentation. Additionally, having a support team to assist with technical aspects, visuals, and logistics can ensure a smooth and seamless presentation experience.

By following these best practices and implementing a thoughtful approach to executive presentations, organizations can effectively engage decision-makers, drive meaningful discussions, and ultimately secure the support needed to move strategic initiatives forward.

Team Management

Innovation success relies heavily on effective team management, particularly when it comes to leading cross-functional teams composed of individuals with different expertise and timelines. Keeping these matrix teams engaged, motivated, and aligned is essential for driving innovation and achieving desired outcomes. However, managing a diverse team can come with its fair share of challenges, including personal and task conflicts that must be addressed and expectations that must be communicated.

One key aspect of team management is role definition. Clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of each team member helps establish clarity, accountability, and alignment within the team. This ensures that everyone understands their specific tasks and how their contributions fit the broader project objectives. By establishing a clear framework of roles, the team can operate more efficiently and effectively, leveraging each member’s unique skills and expertise.

Conflicts can arise within a team at a personal and task level. Personal conflicts, such as differences in working styles or communication preferences, can hinder collaboration and teamwork. On the other hand, task conflicts may arise from differences in opinions or approaches to solving problems. Effective team management involves constructively addressing and managing these conflicts, fostering open communication, and promoting a collaborative environment.

The team should establish a clear RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrix to facilitate effective collaboration. This matrix defines the roles and responsibilities of team members regarding specific tasks and decisions, ensuring that everyone understands their level of involvement and accountability.

Subject matter experts (SMEs) are crucial in team management, providing specialized knowledge and insights that contributing to the project’s success. Leveraging the expertise of SMEs enhances decision-making and problem-solving capabilities within the team.

Project management tools, such as Gantt Charts and critical path analysis, are valuable resources for team management. Gantt Charts visually represent project timelines, tasks, and dependencies, enabling the team to plan and track progress effectively. Identifying the critical path helps prioritize tasks and ensure the project stays on track.

Communication and regular touchpoints are vital for team management. Regular team meetings, status updates, and clear channels of communication foster transparency, alignment, and accountability. Providing a platform for open and honest communication encourages collaboration and allows team members to share ideas, address challenges, and celebrate successes.

Lastly, utilizing appropriate tools and technologies can streamline team management processes. These tools can include project management software, collaboration platforms, and communication tools that facilitate efficient information sharing, document collaboration, and real-time collaboration among team members.

Organizations can optimize team performance and drive successful innovation outcomes by effectively managing teams, clarifying roles, addressing conflicts, leveraging subject matter expertise, utilizing project management tools, fostering communication, and embracing appropriate technologies.

While team management focuses on ensuring smooth collaboration and task execution, innovation leadership requires a broader perspective that encompasses driving change, inspiring creativity, and fostering a culture of innovation within the organization. The role of an innovation leader goes beyond managing individual teams; it involves guiding the entire organization toward embracing a mindset of continuous improvement and forward-thinking. Let’s explore the key attributes and strategies that define effective innovation leadership.

Leadership in the Context of Innovation

The leader’s role extends beyond simply casting a vision; they must navigate through complex dynamics, manage expectations, and address various project interpretations. As such, effectively managing influence becomes essential for leaders in this domain.

Product development and innovation leaders focus on finding solutions rather than solely emphasizing the vision. They understand that innovation is not just about generating ideas but also about successfully implementing those ideas into tangible outcomes. This requires a leader who can guide the team through the entire innovation journey, from conceptualization to execution.

Navigating the intricacies of politics, expectations, and interpretations is essential for a leader in this context. They must be adept at managing diverse stakeholders, aligning their interests, and ensuring the project stays on track. This involves effective communication, negotiation, and relationship-building skills to foster collaboration and garner support for innovation initiatives.

One crucial success factor in that context is having a strong sponsor for innovation that can speak up for innovation at the executive table. A sponsor acts as a champion for the project, providing support, resources, and guidance. Their involvement ensures that the innovation efforts are aligned with the organization’s strategic objectives and receive the necessary backing to overcome challenges and drive successful outcomes.

Continuous improvement is another vital aspect of leadership in product development and innovation. Each project is unique, with its own set of circumstances, constraints, and opportunities. Effective leaders embrace the idea that no two projects are alike and actively seek ongoing improvement. They encourage a learning, experimentation, and adaptation culture, constantly refining processes and approaches to enhance innovation outcomes.

Product development and innovation leadership require a forward-thinking mindset in this fast-paced and competitive landscape. Leaders must be agile and adaptable, capable of navigating uncertainty and embracing change. They foster a culture of creativity and risk-taking, empowering team members to explore new ideas, challenge the status quo, and push the boundaries of innovation.

Leadership in innovation sets the strategic vision, manages expectations, and navigates the complexities of innovation. It comes hand in hand with project management, which provides the practical framework to execute that vision and deliver tangible results. These two disciplines work hand in hand, with leadership inspiring and guiding the project manager and the project manager, translating that vision into a well-defined plan, managing resources, and driving the project toward its objectives. Together, they form a powerful combination that ensures the alignment of strategic goals, efficient execution, and the realization of innovative products that meet customer needs and drive business growth. By bridging the gap between vision and implementation, leadership and project management creates a harmonious synergy that propels organizations to thrive in the competitive landscape of new product development.

Innovation Project Management

Project management is crucial in ensuring successful outcomes in the fast-paced and dynamic landscape of new product development. An innovation project is inherently complex, involving multiple stakeholders, shifting requirements, and evolving market dynamics. It requires a systematic approach to manage resources, mitigate risks, and keep the project on track. Effective project management becomes the compass that guides the team through the uncertainties and challenges of bringing a new product to life.

The unique nature of innovation projects sets them apart from traditional projects. Unlike well-defined projects with clear deliverables and predetermined timelines, innovation projects often involve exploration, experimentation, and iteration. The path to success is not always linear, and the project manager must be adept at navigating ambiguity and embracing change.

The ability to pivot and adapt is at the core of project management in new product development. As new insights emerge, the project manager must be willing to challenge assumptions, adjust the project plan, and explore alternative paths. Flexibility and agility become essential as the project evolves and uncovers new possibilities.

To effectively manage an innovation project, the project manager must be skilled in developing comprehensive project plans that capture the various interconnected tasks and dependencies. The Gantt Chart becomes a valuable tool for visualizing the project timeline, identifying critical paths, and allocating resources efficiently. By mastering the critical path and optimizing resource allocation, the project manager can keep the project on schedule and within budget.

In addition to meticulous planning, effective communication is vital in project management. The project manager must establish clear lines of communication, foster collaboration among team members, and ensure that information flows seamlessly. An efficient dashboard can provide real-time visibility into project progress, enabling stakeholders to stay informed and make informed decisions.

Ultimately, project management in new product development is about orchestrating the project’s diverse elements, aligning stakeholders’ interests, and driving the project toward its goals. A skilled project manager will navigate the complexities, leverage available resources, and inspire the team to deliver the expected product precisely and efficiently.

Post-mortem

As project management provides the structure and guidance for successful product development, the post-mortem bridges project completion and process improvement. Once a project has been executed, the post-mortem meeting becomes the ideal platform to reflect on the project’s outcomes, evaluate the effectiveness of the project management approach, and identify areas for refinement. By conducting a thorough post-mortem analysis, the project team can gather valuable insights and feedback, allowing them to make informed decisions and adjustments to the project management process. The post-mortem is a natural extension of project management, where the focus shifts from executing tasks to assessing the overall project performance and capturing lessons learned. It provides a valuable opportunity for the team to celebrate achievements, acknowledge challenges, and collaborate on actionable recommendations for future projects. Through this seamless transition from project management to the post-mortem, the team can harness the knowledge gained and channel it into continuously improving their product development process. By recognizing the importance of effective project management and post-mortem analysis, organizations can foster a culture of learning, innovation, and growth, ultimately driving their success in the ever-evolving landscape of product development.

In the dynamic world of product development, continuous improvement is a crucial principle for success. The post-mortem, or project retrospective, is essential in this ongoing improvement journey. It is an opportunity for the project team to reflect, evaluate, and learn from their experiences, both successes and challenges, to enhance future projects. The post-mortem goes beyond simply celebrating achievements; it delves into the underlying process, seeking to identify areas for improvement and innovation. By distinguishing the specific project from the broader process, the team can objectively assess what worked well, what could have been done differently, and what lessons can be applied moving forward. Through this reflection and analysis, the team can iterate and refine the process, ensuring continuous growth and enhanced performance. The post-mortem meeting is not about dwelling on past mistakes or assigning blame but rather about fostering a learning culture and driving positive change. By embracing a mindset of regular improvement, the team can adapt and optimize its approach, building on previous successes and transforming challenges into valuable opportunities for growth. The post-mortem catalyzes innovation, allowing the team to refine their processes, streamline operations, and foster a culture of excellence in product development.

In conclusion, the product development journey is a complex and dynamic process that requires a holistic approach and the integration of various vital elements. Throughout this section, we have explored essential topics and concepts that contribute to the success of product development in a CPG manufacturing company. From understanding the importance of consumer-centricity and value proposition to effective decision-making, process governance, and the product manager role, each component plays a crucial role in driving innovation and delivering successful products to the market.

We have delved into the significance of strategic planning, portfolio prioritization, and the role of the executive presentation in gaining support and resources for product development initiatives. We have emphasized the value of team management, leadership, and project management in driving collaboration, managing conflicts, and ensuring the efficient execution of projects. Lastly, we have highlighted the importance of post-mortem analysis in assessing project outcomes, identifying areas for improvement, and fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth.

By incorporating these principles and practices into the product development process, organizations can enhance their ability to meet consumer needs, stay ahead of the competition, and achieve sustainable growth. It is crucial to recognize that product development is not a linear path but rather an iterative and adaptive journey where agility, flexibility, and continuous improvement are essential.

As companies navigate the ever-changing landscape of innovation and consumer demands, the insights and strategies presented in this section provide a foundation for success. By embracing a consumer-centric approach, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and implementing effective processes and methodologies, organizations can elevate their product development capabilities and create innovative solutions that resonate with their target market.

In conclusion, by leveraging the knowledge and best practices shared in this section, companies can position themselves for success in the competitive world of CPG manufacturing and drive meaningful innovation that delights customers, captures market share, and fuels long-term growth.

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Executive Summary

Innovation Ecosystem

Today’s consumers are exposed to tons of new products. According to a Nielsen study, around 57% of recent survey participants stated that they had bought new products during their last trip to a simple grocery store. That is only in one segment. What about the whole CPG industry? How can you stand out with recurring launches of relevant new products? You need to stay top of mind for your customer through a sustainable new product roadmap.

That is easier said than done, and the pressure of recurring new product launches makes more than one team break. Leaders are overwhelmed by the complexity of aligning all the variables required for:

● Finding the golden ideas;

● Building a solid product concept;

● Developing a product that meets the cost and the production requirement while being appealing to the customer;

● Launching the product on a limited budget but still reaching the required awareness.

This entire program is known to reduce time-to-market by 20-25%, improve internal alignment and structure resources to ensure a sustainable pipeline of new products.

This program can help you build a structured new product development ecosystem that will support the short-term requirements while allocating resources to big ideas that will drive more incremental sales and make your competitors jealous.

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Solid Foundation

The program starts by building a solid foundation for the overall ecosystem. A straightforward process maps the directions and the steps that the team needs to go through. It clarifies who needs to be involved to avoid conflict and prevent rushing ahead too quickly toward execution. Decision-makers need visibility of the concept and control over when spending will happen and when new resources should be invested. Return on investment versus risk is an essential aspect of the process that supports healthy cash flow planning while simultaneously developing new products. This program will accompany the definition of governance, the decisions required, and the information needed to support them.

Building a solid foundation with a phase-gate process also supports the consumer-centricity of new products. It has been proven that a new product developed around a consumer need instead of a white space in the company’s product portfolio has a significantly more chance of success, achieving the targeted sales volume. If the product solves a real consumer problem, the consumer will adopt the new product and most likely repurchase it. The innovation team should focus on making life easier for the consumer. The customer is the expert in his reality, but the innovation team is the expert in designing solutions. Developing a relationship with the consumer and asking questions about their needs are much more significant indicators of success than having the customer test the product prototype again and again. This Innovation Ecosystem program will provide tools to support consumer-centric product development with a transparent step-by-step methodology.

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Incremental Sales

Launching new products that will drive incremental sales is exciting but renovating and updating the existing product range is also part of the innovation ecosystem. Refreshing the recipe/formula, optimizing costs, and opting for more sustainable packaging are all excellent reasons to work on your existing products. The workload of the innovation team needs to be efficiently divided between renovating existing products, looking for ways to enhance the product offer, and generating breakthrough ideas. The balance of the new product portfolio, strategy and development roadmap is another critical aspect that will be addressed in this program.

Once the planning is completed, it is time to tackle the new product concept and channel the team’s efforts through a structured framework to focus on the consumer. Testing assumptions, validating the market, understanding where the competition plays and building a unique value proposition are where the innovation team will start the actual work. With a solid new product concept on the table and a compelling business case, the strategy and the financial analysis will be presented to decision-makers before moving to product development, involving the cross-functional team or spending more dollars and allocating more resources. The business case represents the pivotal point between the theoretical product concept and the reality of its fabrication. It is also the transition between spending money on market studies and capital assets. Since it is critical to have endorsement from the executive before those investments, the business case needs to be thought through, concise with key messages, solid financial analysis, and rehearsed! As decision-makers face many presentations in a week, they must understand what is expected of them, avoid drowning themselves in tons of data and focus on the relevant information. Executive presentations are not commercial presentations, some principles need to be followed, and this program will support your team in developing the required skills for a solid Business case presentation.

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Team effort

In most companies, the challenge of too many projects and insufficient resources are recurring. This program will provide prioritization tools to communicate the most critical opportunities for the business. Decision-makers must decide when it is time to outsource, get more people on board or postpone less lucrative opportunities. Having a rationale behind the business priority also helps manage pet projects and not-so-urgent requests from sales.

This program will also address the challenge product concepts face when the manufacturing and transformation reality hits. That critical step coincides with the project’s leadership transfer from the conceptualization team to the operation team. Communication challenges may occur between the must-have to fulfill the consumer needs versus the nice-to-have that might be left off. But it also raised more opportunities to improve the product concept. The cross-functional team must meet a target timeline and negotiate to achieve the expected cost and margin.

While all efforts are invested in making the winning product concept a reality, the marketing team needs to ensure the consumer will notice it. Some companies have millions to invest into supporting a launch, others a few thousand. Start-ups are the best example of success on a tight budget: they have a refined message, clear persona, and creative way to reach it. This is what will be covered in this program: The launch strategies, objectives, and tactics, as well as key metrics, will be clearly defined to reach the largest audience.

With the established foundation, it will be time to build an innovation strategy and understand the innovation capacity versus actual needs to achieve your company’s growth goal. You were cropping numbers to understand the reality of past launches versus expectations toward future launches. Review the allocation of resources and optimize them to accelerate the development of more incremental products. After crunching the numbers, the next question is where the business wants to grow, what will be the pillars of the future roadmap for new products and what resource allocation to win at understanding your consumer. This program will dive deeply into your business capacity, expectation, and exciting future.

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Essential Skillset

Innovation in the context of manufacturing and CPG is overlooked in many aspects in the available literature or training: The IT sector captures a significant amount of attention in the subject. Beyond this entire ecosystem, some key competencies are essential to address in this program: Innovation leadership, cross-functional team management, and innovation project management. With over 20 years of experience in the industry, I will be happy to share my thoughts and wisdom to sharpen these skills and provide context to the underlying challenges that accompany innovation and manufacturing.

Finally, this program closes with the post-mortem. Like any sustainable process, it is essential to challenge what should be done to improve it and enable future projects to be tackled with an improved and adapted system. The market fluctuates, the business evolves, and the process needs to improve to represent this reality. By having a mapped, understood, experimented, and communicated process, any changes would be easier to implement.

That whole program reduces the time to market by 20%-25%, improving internal alignment and structuring resources to ensure a sustainable pipeline of new products.

If you play to win, this program will make sure you do!

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Curriculum

Innovation Ecosystem – Workshop 1 – Innovation Ecosystem – Planning

Optimal Ecosystem

Optimal new product development is a balanced ecosystem between multiple components – process, roadmap, portfolio, and strategy, to name a few. It’s a balanced ecosystem where the whole equilibrium collapses if you invest too much in one aspect and neglect another. Before starting our journey into the optimal Product development Ecosystem, it is necessary to build shared vocabularies and concepts that will be able to build on:

a. Start with Process and Governance;
b. Link to Business Strategy;
c. Clarify teams’ roles;
d. Cross-functional steering committee;
e. Lead complexity to simplicity;
f. Test;
g. Manage passion.

Customer-centric

Consumers are the experts on their own needs. Your team is the expert on your product and market. While developing a new product, it is vital to put the customer at the center of our development and decision-making. Today’s consumers are solicited by hundreds of new products every month. Understanding what will make them purchase your product is critical. By targeting surveys and other research toward the target consumer, the innovation team will develop a unique competitive advantage:

a. Product centric vs customer-centric;
b. Consumer-centric vs consumer focus;
c. Benefits;
d. Why new product win;
e. How to migrate to customer-centric;
f. Open conversation with your consumers;
g. Develop a competitive advantage.

Phase Gate

The new product development process is known as a Stage-Gate®: the adaptation of project management applied to a standard process to ensure traceability of the decision-making, clear role definition and allow improvement. It will become the base of your new and improved Innovation Ecosystem:

a. Stage-Gate ® from Bob Cooper;
b. Separate strategic vs operation;
c. Differentiate decision-making from execution;
d. Process management vs project management.

Decision making

Once the work is clearly defined, it is time to take control of the spending and mitigate the risk through appropriate decision-making with the relevant decision-makers at the right time. Timing of the decision-making makes a considerable difference in the efficiency of the process and the engagement of the team:

a. When to make a decision;
b. How deciding is better than not making a decision;
c. Allocate $ and resources;
d. Expenses management;
e. Risk management.

Governance

Clarifying everyone’s roles is a critical element in engaging cross-functional team members. It is essential to separate the decision-making on crucial details from the project update and risk mitigation. Transparent governance is a critical success indicator of the freshly designed process:

a. Who needs to be involved when;
b. Workstreams and decision makers;
c. Roles – RACI.

Product Concept

New products start with a market opportunity that will evolve into a product concept that fulfills consumer needs. Easier said than done. Multiple tools exist in the market to assist you in developing your concept. Once again, it is crucial to understand your consumer before developing a solution. Consumers don’t know what they need, but they can inform you of what their problems, motivations and needs are:

a. Value proposition Canvas;
b. Lean Canvas;
c. Talk with consumers;
d. The consumer doesn’t know what they need; they know their problems;
e. Don’t test the concept; test your assumptions;
f. Pivot your concept;
g. You will not change consumer habits;
h. You need to make their life easier.

Business case

Once invested, efforts into understanding your consumer conducted the development of a solution. It is time to gain alignment from decision makers and present the project through a complete but concise Business Plan. The business case is the pivot point between the conceptual development, supported by secondary and primary market research, and the actual prototyping development and spending a more significant amount of money. It also allows the decision makers to control the spending by gaining visibility of the risks/rewards the opportunity represents:

a. Needs to attach an idea to business needs and strategy;
b. Ensure you are contributing to the company’s building blocks;
c. Understanding the market – trends;
d. Position competition on a map – 2×2 or Bubble graph;
e. Who is your consumer, your persona? ;
f. What is your concept, and how will it fulfill your consumer needs;
g. Will this bring enough money? ROI, Break-even point;
h. What are the conditions for success and critical path?

Product development

The exciting yet complex phase of the product development process occurs when the cross-functional team works together to deliver a solution to the targeted consumer’s problem successfully. The innovation team develops a product concept that hits all the ideal cases. Still, the development of a prototype, minimum viable product, testing, and manufacturing process are where reality meets the perfect concept. Concessions need to be made to be able to hit the cost target:

a. Prototyping and testing;
b. Process, material, design;
c. Patent;
d. Messaging;
e. DFM and optimization;
f. Forecasting sells vs forecasting supply;
g. Golden samples;
h. Ramp-up vs Mass production;
i. Client presentation pitch.

Launch Strategies

Commercialization regroups many aspects, from the marketing 4Ps to many tactical details that will make the new product successful in the market. While the development team works on bringing the product concept to life, the marketing team must solidify the launch strategies. Once again, it is essential to revert to the consumer motivation and shopping habits and cross-reference it with the unique value proposition of the product concept:

a. Risk evaluation;
b. Perfect timing;
c. Messaging development and UVP;
d. Value of pre-launch;
e. ATAR – Awareness – Trial – Availability – Repeat;
f. Geography or privileged partners;
g. Price positioning and price strategy;
h. Metrics.

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Innovation Ecosystem – Workshop 1 – Innovation Ecosystem – Development

Value Proposition Canvas

Essential tools to make sure your team understands your consumer from the beginning. Before spending too much time developing something, the customer doesn’t care. It is essential to understand their needs and their triggers. A canvas to challenge your assumptions and pivot your product concept if required:

Offer a framework to address the ideation or inspiration alignment with what the consumer cares about. I use that tools to start building assumptions about our consumers that will later be validated with surveys, focus groups or face-to-face meetings. It also allows the conversation to remain on the consumers’ needs before moving too quickly to the solutions and features.

Once that triangulation is evolving enough, the Value Proposition Caneva allows you to formulate how to succeed at helping your consumer.

a. Help to focus on your consumer;
b. Define your market segment/persona;
c. Understand their problem;
d. Define what works and what doesn’t work for them;
e. Research solution;
f. Tests assumptions.

Value of messaging and the product itself

Few key innovators are not innovators… They took someone else’s invention and packaged it to deliver something appealing to the consumer. What may differentiate your product from the competition is how you provide it to the market, which demonstrates that the importance of the messaging is often underestimated:

a. Make sure you understand the problem you are trying to solve;
b. Understand your persona;
c. Make sure you are not talking to a niche;
d. Master your competition landscape: their UVP and vocabularies;
e. Explain the benefits;
f. Use your consumer vocabulary.

Product Management

To ensure an optimal innovation Ecosystem, it is essential to implement Best Practices in terms of Product Management. Your product lifecycle is key to managing resources and keeping your product line relevant in the market:

a. Define product platform;
b. Product lifecycle;
c. Type of product vs type of project;
d. Variety of projects: Renovation, Incremental, differential, breakthrough;
e. Product Manager role;
f. Close to strategic orientation;
g. Support Product management;
h. Product Management vs Brand Management.

Product roadmap

Once the product analysis is done, it is time to look at the product launch cycle, the best timing to launch a new product, and the capacity (dollars and resources) to develop your new product and renovate existing products:

a. Understand the vision of the new product launch;
b. Plan for lifecycle management and product renovation;
c. Prioritized launch and prioritized budget;
d. Manage resource availability for different product dev phases.

Portfolio Prioritisation

In any organization, the challenge around new product development projects is allocating appropriate resources. The decision-makers tend to approve every new product presented, as the team that pitches them is convinced of the opportunity. Unfortunately, there need to be more resources (human and financial) to be able to deliver all of them. That is where a realistic priority, based on rational criteria, helps to identify the real opportunity for the companies:

a. Strategic bucket;
b. Scoring model: Weighted average criteria;
c. A score doesn’t worth anything if not in a context;
d. documented decision-making, not emotional;
e. Allocate resources to the most crucial project for the company.

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Innovation Ecosystem – Workshop 1 – Innovation Ecosystem – Implementation

Executive Presentation

The executive in a company makes hundreds of decisions every week, if not every day. When it’s time to get alignment from the decision-makers, it is essential to have a solid presentation highlighting the key messages while telling a story. To achieve a positive response, the presentation and the presenters need to be well prepared with a concise presentation that highlights the critical information to entertain the conversation around the strategic elements actively:

a. Start with an exec summary;
b. Clearly state your objective, your storyline and your recommendation;
c. Have a clear pitch, know your compelling arguments;
d. Use title and subtitle;
e. Share information and insight, not data;
f. Leverage graphics, not tables with numbers;
g. Which graphics to make the data speak;
h. Start with hard data and finish with softer arguments;
i. Rehearsal and support.

Innovation Strategies

Short-term opportunities can fuel your innovation pipeline for a while. Still, building a long-term vision of your product development is essential, starting with assessing the company’s innovation capacity vs the innovation ambition. Embed in the innovation strategy is the Product strategy, Commercialisation timing and so on:

a. Growth objectives: organics vs innovation;
b. Capacity: Innovation Throughput;
c. Capacity: New launches vs renovation and extension;
d. New product launch timing/requirement;
e. Product Strategy;
f. Product lifecycle.

Team Management

A key element to succeed in innovation is the ability to work and lead a cross-functional team, where each player has their constraints and timeline as part of their daily metrics. Keeping the matrix team engaged is critical, but that doesn’t happen without some personal and task conflict that needs to be managed, and expectation that also needs to be clearly communicated:

a. Role definition;
b. Task vs personal conflict;
c. RACI;
d. SME;
e. the value of the Gantt Chart and critical path;
f. Communication and touch point;
g. Tools.

Innovation Leadership

Being an innovation leader requires a unique skill set. Building a team around a solution instead of a vision makes a real difference in the conversation. Having the ability to translate one needs into another’s reality is a challenge. Complex situations, multiple variables and tough decisions are in the path of the Innovation Leader:

a. Focus on the solution, not on the vision;
b. Lots of politics, expectations, and interpretations;
c. Influence: understand who your allies are;
d. Being data ;
e. Having a good sponsor;
f. Who is the Innovation leader? ;
g. It might evolve along the process lifecycle.

Innovation Project Management

Another key role in succeeding in new product development is the Project leader. An innovation project is far from being unidirectional. Pivoting a concept may end up influencing the whole business model. The deliverables are unclear from the get-go, and many grey zones and undefined timing need to be reflected in the Gantt Chart. Mastering the critical path and communicating through an efficient dashboard are a few of the skills your Project manager will need to stay within target timing – budget – resources to deliver the expected product:

a. Agile, sprint;
b. Live in the grey area;
c. Not linear;
d. Active and regular communication;
e. Managing risk;
f. Focus on the solution, not the tasks;
g. Deliverables and engagement.

Post-Mortem

Like any efficient process, adjusting as we go, celebrating success and assessing what can be improved in the next round is essential. Not all new product projects are the same, but the bones that support them must be clear to all contributors. Distinguishing the project specifically from the process is the first challenge in the Post-Mortem meeting. But no process is perfect; what is essential to do is to improve it regularly instead of storing it and improvising:

a. Pizza size team;
b. Different timeline;
c. Key success indicators;
d. Process: ongoing improvement;
e. Technical: develop tools;
f. People: develop skills;
g. Product sells through, cost, revenue vs expectations.

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Distance Learning

Introduction

Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling on the Innovation Ecosystem corporate training program. You will be learning through our unique facilitation via distance-learning method, which will enable you to practically implement everything that you learn academically. The methods and materials used in your program have been designed and developed to ensure that you derive the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible. We hope that you find the program challenging and fun to do. However, if you have never been a distance-learner before, you may be experiencing some trepidation at the task before you. So we will get you started by giving you some basic information and guidance on how you can make the best use of the modules, how you should manage the materials and what you should be doing as you work through them. This guide is designed to point you in the right direction and help you to become an effective distance-learner. Take a few hours or so to study this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students, while making notes, before you start to study in earnest.

Study environment

You will need to locate a quiet and private place to study, preferably a room where you can easily be isolated from external disturbances or distractions. Make sure the room is well-lit and incorporates a relaxed, pleasant feel. If you can spoil yourself within your study environment, you will have much more of a chance to ensure that you are always in the right frame of mind when you do devote time to study. For example, a nice fire, the ability to play soft soothing background music, soft but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if possible and a good size desk with a comfortable chair. Make sure that your family know when you are studying and understand your study rules. Your study environment is very important. The ideal situation, if at all possible, is to have a separate study, which can be devoted to you. If this is not possible then you will need to pay a lot more attention to developing and managing your study schedule, because it will affect other people as well as yourself. The better your study environment, the more productive you will be.

Study tools & rules

Try and make sure that your study tools are sufficient and in good working order. You will need to have access to a computer, scanner and printer, with access to the internet. You will need a very comfortable chair, which supports your lower back, and you will need a good filing system. It can be very frustrating if you are spending valuable study time trying to fix study tools that are unreliable, or unsuitable for the task. Make sure that your study tools are up to date. You will also need to consider some study rules. Some of these rules will apply to you and will be intended to help you to be more disciplined about when and how you study. This distance-learning guide will help you and after you have read it you can put some thought into what your study rules should be. You will also need to negotiate some study rules for your family, friends or anyone who lives with you. They too will need to be disciplined in order to ensure that they can support you while you study. It is important to ensure that your family and friends are an integral part of your study team. Having their support and encouragement can prove to be a crucial contribution to your successful completion of the program. Involve them in as much as you can.

Successful distance-learning

Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes or workshops, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. But unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s responsibility, with a distance-learning program, to ensure that they manage their own study contribution. This requires strong self-discipline and self-motivation skills and there must be a clear will to succeed. Those students who are used to managing themselves, are good at managing others and who enjoy working in isolation, are more likely to be good distance-learners. It is also important to be aware of the main reasons why you are studying and of the main objectives that you are hoping to achieve as a result. You will need to remind yourself of these objectives at times when you need to motivate yourself. Never lose sight of your long-term goals and your short-term objectives. There is nobody available here to pamper you, or to look after you, or to spoon-feed you with information, so you will need to find ways to encourage and appreciate yourself while you are studying. Make sure that you chart your study progress, so that you can be sure of your achievements and re-evaluate your goals and objectives regularly.

Self-assessment

Appleton Greene training programs are in all cases post-graduate programs. Consequently, you should already have obtained a business-related degree and be an experienced learner. You should therefore already be aware of your study strengths and weaknesses. For example, which time of the day are you at your most productive? Are you a lark or an owl? What study methods do you respond to the most? Are you a consistent learner? How do you discipline yourself? How do you ensure that you enjoy yourself while studying? It is important to understand yourself as a learner and so some self-assessment early on will be necessary if you are to apply yourself correctly. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself as a student. List your internal strengths and weaknesses as a student and your external opportunities and threats. This will help you later on when you are creating a study plan. You can then incorporate features within your study plan that can ensure that you are playing to your strengths, while compensating for your weaknesses. You can also ensure that you make the most of your opportunities, while avoiding the potential threats to your success.

Accepting responsibility as a student

Training programs invariably require a significant investment, both in terms of what they cost and in the time that you need to contribute to study and the responsibility for successful completion of training programs rests entirely with the student. This is never more apparent than when a student is learning via distance-learning. Accepting responsibility as a student is an important step towards ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program. It is easy to instantly blame other people or factors when things go wrong. But the fact of the matter is that if a failure is your failure, then you have the power to do something about it, it is entirely in your own hands. If it is always someone else’s failure, then you are powerless to do anything about it. All students study in entirely different ways, this is because we are all individuals and what is right for one student, is not necessarily right for another. In order to succeed, you will have to accept personal responsibility for finding a way to plan, implement and manage a personal study plan that works for you. If you do not succeed, you only have yourself to blame.

Planning

By far the most critical contribution to stress, is the feeling of not being in control. In the absence of planning we tend to be reactive and can stumble from pillar to post in the hope that things will turn out fine in the end. Invariably they don’t! In order to be in control, we need to have firm ideas about how and when we want to do things. We also need to consider as many possible eventualities as we can, so that we are prepared for them when they happen. Prescriptive Change, is far easier to manage and control, than Emergent Change. The same is true with distance-learning. It is much easier and much more enjoyable, if you feel that you are in control and that things are going to plan. Even when things do go wrong, you are prepared for them and can act accordingly without any unnecessary stress. It is important therefore that you do take time to plan your studies properly.

Management

Once you have developed a clear study plan, it is of equal importance to ensure that you manage the implementation of it. Most of us usually enjoy planning, but it is usually during implementation when things go wrong. Targets are not met and we do not understand why. Sometimes we do not even know if targets are being met. It is not enough for us to conclude that the study plan just failed. If it is failing, you will need to understand what you can do about it. Similarly if your study plan is succeeding, it is still important to understand why, so that you can improve upon your success. You therefore need to have guidelines for self-assessment so that you can be consistent with performance improvement throughout the program. If you manage things correctly, then your performance should constantly improve throughout the program.

Study objectives & tasks

The first place to start is developing your program objectives. These should feature your reasons for undertaking the training program in order of priority. Keep them succinct and to the point in order to avoid confusion. Do not just write the first things that come into your head because they are likely to be too similar to each other. Make a list of possible departmental headings, such as: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing and Production. Then brainstorm for ideas by listing as many things that you want to achieve under each heading and later re-arrange these things in order of priority. Finally, select the top item from each department heading and choose these as your program objectives. Try and restrict yourself to five because it will enable you to focus clearly. It is likely that the other things that you listed will be achieved if each of the top objectives are achieved. If this does not prove to be the case, then simply work through the process again.

Study forecast

As a guide, the Appleton Greene Innovation Ecosystem corporate training program should take 12-18 months to complete, depending upon your availability and current commitments. The reason why there is such a variance in time estimates is because every student is an individual, with differing productivity levels and different commitments. These differentiations are then exaggerated by the fact that this is a distance-learning program, which incorporates the practical integration of academic theory as an as a part of the training program. Consequently all of the project studies are real, which means that important decisions and compromises need to be made. You will want to get things right and will need to be patient with your expectations in order to ensure that they are. We would always recommend that you are prudent with your own task and time forecasts, but you still need to develop them and have a clear indication of what are realistic expectations in your case. With reference to your time planning: consider the time that you can realistically dedicate towards study with the program every week; calculate how long it should take you to complete the program, using the guidelines featured here; then break the program down into logical modules and allocate a suitable proportion of time to each of them, these will be your milestones; you can create a time plan by using a spreadsheet on your computer, or a personal organizer such as MS Outlook, you could also use a financial forecasting software; break your time forecasts down into manageable chunks of time, the more specific you can be, the more productive and accurate your time management will be; finally, use formulas where possible to do your time calculations for you, because this will help later on when your forecasts need to change in line with actual performance. With reference to your task planning: refer to your list of tasks that need to be undertaken in order to achieve your program objectives; with reference to your time plan, calculate when each task should be implemented; remember that you are not estimating when your objectives will be achieved, but when you will need to focus upon implementing the corresponding tasks; you also need to ensure that each task is implemented in conjunction with the associated training modules which are relevant; then break each single task down into a list of specific to do’s, say approximately ten to do’s for each task and enter these into your study plan; once again you could use MS Outlook to incorporate both your time and task planning and this could constitute your study plan; you could also use a project management software like MS Project. You should now have a clear and realistic forecast detailing when you can expect to be able to do something about undertaking the tasks to achieve your program objectives.

Performance management

It is one thing to develop your study forecast, it is quite another to monitor your progress. Ultimately it is less important whether you achieve your original study forecast and more important that you update it so that it constantly remains realistic in line with your performance. As you begin to work through the program, you will begin to have more of an idea about your own personal performance and productivity levels as a distance-learner. Once you have completed your first study module, you should re-evaluate your study forecast for both time and tasks, so that they reflect your actual performance level achieved. In order to achieve this you must first time yourself while training by using an alarm clock. Set the alarm for hourly intervals and make a note of how far you have come within that time. You can then make a note of your actual performance on your study plan and then compare your performance against your forecast. Then consider the reasons that have contributed towards your performance level, whether they are positive or negative and make a considered adjustment to your future forecasts as a result. Given time, you should start achieving your forecasts regularly.

With reference to time management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual time taken in your study plan; consider your successes with time-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; consider your failures with time-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to time planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your time expectations. You need to be consistent with your time management, otherwise you will never complete your studies. This will either be because you are not contributing enough time to your studies, or you will become less efficient with the time that you do allocate to your studies. Remember, if you are not in control of your studies, they can just become yet another cause of stress for you.

With reference to your task management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan; consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to task planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your task expectations. You need to be consistent with your task management, otherwise you will never know whether you are achieving your program objectives or not.

Keeping in touch

You will have access to qualified and experienced professors and tutors who are responsible for providing tutorial support for your particular training program. So don’t be shy about letting them know how you are getting on. We keep electronic records of all tutorial support emails so that professors and tutors can review previous correspondence before considering an individual response. It also means that there is a record of all communications between you and your professors and tutors and this helps to avoid any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. If you have a problem relating to the program, share it with them via email. It is likely that they have come across the same problem before and are usually able to make helpful suggestions and steer you in the right direction. To learn more about when and how to use tutorial support, please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide. This will help you to ensure that you are making the most of tutorial support that is available to you and will ultimately contribute towards your success and enjoyment with your training program.

Work colleagues and family

You should certainly discuss your program study progress with your colleagues, friends and your family. Appleton Greene training programs are very practical. They require you to seek information from other people, to plan, develop and implement processes with other people and to achieve feedback from other people in relation to viability and productivity. You will therefore have plenty of opportunities to test your ideas and enlist the views of others. People tend to be sympathetic towards distance-learners, so don’t bottle it all up in yourself. Get out there and share it! It is also likely that your family and colleagues are going to benefit from your labors with the program, so they are likely to be much more interested in being involved than you might think. Be bold about delegating work to those who might benefit themselves. This is a great way to achieve understanding and commitment from people who you may later rely upon for process implementation. Share your experiences with your friends and family.

Making it relevant

The key to successful learning is to make it relevant to your own individual circumstances. At all times you should be trying to make bridges between the content of the program and your own situation. Whether you achieve this through quiet reflection or through interactive discussion with your colleagues, client partners or your family, remember that it is the most important and rewarding aspect of translating your studies into real self-improvement. You should be clear about how you want the program to benefit you. This involves setting clear study objectives in relation to the content of the course in terms of understanding, concepts, completing research or reviewing activities and relating the content of the modules to your own situation. Your objectives may understandably change as you work through the program, in which case you should enter the revised objectives on your study plan so that you have a permanent reminder of what you are trying to achieve, when and why.

Distance-learning check-list

Prepare your study environment, your study tools and rules.
Undertake detailed self-assessment in terms of your ability as a learner.
Create a format for your study plan.
Consider your study objectives and tasks.
Create a study forecast.
Assess your study performance.
Re-evaluate your study forecast.
Be consistent when managing your study plan.
Use your Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) for tutorial support.
Make sure you keep in touch with those around you.

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Tutorial Support

Programs

Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.

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Support available

You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.

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Support Process

Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.

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Time Management

It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Innovation Ecosystem corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Innovation Ecosystem program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.

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Distance Learning Guide

The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.

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How To Study

The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).

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Tutorial Support

Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Innovation Ecosystem corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.

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Tutorial Support Tips

Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.

Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails

Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.

Think about the impression that you want to create

Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.

Remember that quality is preferred to quantity

Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.

Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers

Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.

Keep a record of your tutorial support emails

It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.

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Individual training workshops or telephone support

Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.

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Tutorial Support Email Format

You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.

Subject line of your email

Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.

Main body of your email

Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)

Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.

Question 1

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 3

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 4

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 5

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.

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Procedure

* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.

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How To Study

Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.

Planning your study environment

Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.

Planning your program objectives

It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.

Planning how and when to study

Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.

Planning your study tasks

You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.

Planning your time

You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.

Keeping in touch

Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.

Charting your progress

Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.

Making it work

To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.

Reading methods

Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.

Speed reading

When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.

Content reading

Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.

Making structured notes on the course manuals

When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.

Organizing structured notes separately

You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.

Question your understanding

Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.

Clarifying your understanding

If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.

Question your interpretation

Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.

Clarifying your interpretation

If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.

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Qualification Requirements

The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Innovation Ecosystem corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Innovation Ecosystem Specialist (APTS). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.

Innovation Ecosystem – Grading Contribution

Project Study – Grading Contribution

Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%

Qualification grades

A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.

When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:

Pass with merit

A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory

Pass with distinction

An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory

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Preliminary Analysis

In the dynamic landscape of consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries, a company’s success is often intertwined with its ability to innovate and bring new products to market efficiently. Recognizing the pivotal role of the new product development (NPD) process, we embark on a journey to enhance and streamline this crucial facet of your organization.

Before delving into the workshop, it is imperative to undertake a comprehensive preliminary analysis. This analysis serves as the foundational step, enabling us to gain a profound understanding of the current state of your NPD process, identify existing challenges, and define the success criteria that align with your strategic objectives.

1. Current State Assessment:

In the initial stages of our preliminary analysis, participants are encouraged to actively engage with their cross-functional teams involved in the new product development (NPD) process. Through one-to-one interviews, leaders should gather firsthand insights from team members. This collaborative approach aims to capture the collective wisdom and frontline experiences of the individuals steering the NPD process within your organization. By delving into their daily activities and challenges, this process seeks to reveal valuable insights that may not be immediately apparent from documentation alone. Participants are urged to explore team perspectives on collaboration, communication, and resource allocation, forming a comprehensive view of the existing process. The gathered insights will be instrumental in shaping subsequent process improvement initiatives, ensuring that proposed enhancements are strategically aligned and rooted in the practical realities faced by dedicated NPD teams. This emphasis on team-driven feedback will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the current state of the NPD process and pave the way for collaborative improvements during the workshop.

Documentation

This involves thoroughly reviewing the documented workflow procedures followed by your respective team to provide the theoretical foundation for day-to-day operations. By scrutinizing these documents, the aim is to uncover any disparities or gaps between the prescribed processes and the actual practices within the organization. This assessment extends beyond the clarity of the documentation to evaluate its accessibility to relevant stakeholders. Are these documents readily available when needed, and do they contribute effectively to a shared understanding among team members? Examining the alignment between documented processes and the realities of daily operations forms a crucial step in identifying areas for potential refinement and enhancement as we work towards optimizing the new product development process.

Workflow Bottlenecks

A pivotal aspect under consideration is the identification and analysis of workflow bottlenecks. These represent critical points in the process where delays or impediments occur, potentially impacting the efficiency and timeliness of product development. Examining each stage of the workflow aims to pinpoint specific areas where challenges arise, potentially hindering the seamless progression of the NPD process. Such bottlenecks may stem from resource constraints, communication breakdowns, or ambiguities in roles and responsibilities. Understanding the root causes of these bottlenecks is instrumental in formulating targeted strategies to alleviate them, ultimately streamlining the NPD workflow. This in-depth analysis not only facilitates a more efficient process but also lays the groundwork for tailored solutions that address the unique challenges faced by the organization in its pursuit of innovative product development.

Communication Challenges:

Communication challenges within product development teams stand out as pervasive and often frustrating obstacles that impede the smooth progression of projects. In the realm of new product development (NPD), where collaboration and information exchange are paramount, navigating these challenges becomes particularly critical. Whether arising from siloed information, unclear communication protocols, or inadequacies in collaboration tools, these hurdles significantly impact the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire process. The frustration stemming from miscommunication can lead to delays, misunderstandings, and, in some cases, compromise the overall quality of the product. Recognizing that communication breakdowns are a common and substantial issue faced by product development teams, our focus in the preliminary analysis is to delve into these complexities. By understanding the intricacies of communication challenges, we aim to unearth underlying issues and propose targeted solutions that foster a more seamless and collaborative environment within the NPD teams.

Resources Allocation

Resource allocation issues represent a crucial dimension in the preliminary analysis of the new product development (NPD) process, underscoring the significance of effectively managing human, financial, and technological resources. In pursuing innovation, it is common for organizations to grapple with challenges related to the distribution and utilization of resources across different stages of the NPD life cycle. This issue, while widespread, can manifest in various forms, including disparities in workforce allocation, inadequate budgetary provisions, or imbalances in the deployment of technology and tools. By closely examining these resource allocation dynamics, our aim is to identify areas where inefficiencies may be prevalent and subsequently propose strategies for optimization. This analysis goes beyond mere quantitative assessments, delving into the qualitative aspects of how resources are leveraged to support innovation. The goal is to ensure that the allocation aligns strategically with project demands, promoting a more agile and resource-efficient NPD process. The focus remains on uncovering nuanced insights to inform targeted recommendations during the workshop, facilitating a more streamlined and resource-effective new product development journey.

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2. Define Clear Objectives:

Following an in-depth assessment of the current state of the new product development (NPD) process, the subsequent imperative is to define clear objectives collaboratively. This entails engaging with leadership and relevant stakeholders to establish goals targeting the identified challenges, aiming to streamline workflows, improve communication, and optimize resource allocation. Informed by insights gathered during the current situation assessment, these objectives serve as a strategic roadmap for refining the NPD process. The focus is on aligning these objectives with the broader organizational mission and market demands, setting the stage for focused discussions in the upcoming workshop. By fostering alignment among participants on key areas of improvement, we ensure that the workshop becomes a platform for collectively addressing challenges, generating innovative solutions, and steering the NPD process toward enhanced efficiency and effectiveness.

Strategic Focus:

Clear objectives provide a strategic focus for the NPD process improvement efforts. By outlining specific goals, teams can prioritize their efforts and resources toward addressing critical pain points identified during the current situation assessment. This strategic alignment ensures that the organization’s energy is directed towards areas significantly improving the overall NPD process.

Common Vision and Alignment:

Defining objectives fosters a common vision and alignment among participants. When leadership and stakeholders collaboratively set goals, it creates a shared understanding of the desired outcomes. This shared vision promotes alignment among cross-functional teams, ensuring that everyone is moving in the same direction. The workshop becomes a forum for discussing and reinforcing this common understanding, encouraging a unified approach to overcoming challenges.

Guiding Decision-Making:

Clear objectives serve as a guide for decision-making throughout the NPD process. When faced with choices on resource allocation, project prioritization, or process adjustments, teams can refer back to the established objectives to inform their decisions. This ensures that decisions are aligned with the overarching goals and contribute to the broader objectives of improving efficiency, communication, and overall effectiveness in new product development.

Enhanced Workshop Relevance

Well-defined objectives make the workshop more relevant and purposeful. Participants enter the workshop with a clear understanding of the key areas that need attention and improvement. This focus ensures that discussions, activities, and collaborative efforts during the workshop are directly aligned with the defined objectives. As a result, the workshop becomes a dynamic platform for generating actionable strategies and solutions that directly contribute to achieving the established goals for NPD process enhancement.

Key Success Criteria

The definition of success criteria and alignment is a pivotal aspect of our workshop approach, ensuring participants and their respective teams can clearly gauge the impact and effectiveness of the improvement initiatives. In collaboration with the team and following previous conversations about the objective, key players aim to establish measurable and strategic success criteria that directly align with the objectives set during the preliminary analysis. These success criteria act as benchmarks, offering participants a tangible way to measure progress and evaluate the workshop’s impact on their NPD processes. By involving teams in this process, we ensure that success is not only defined from a top-down perspective but also incorporates the valuable insights and expectations of those directly involved in the day-to-day execution of the NPD process. This alignment fosters a shared understanding of what success looks like, empowering teams to actively contribute towards achieving these benchmarks during and beyond the workshop. Through this collaborative approach, participants gain a sense of ownership over the success criteria, enhancing their commitment and engagement in the overall NPD process improvement journey.

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3. Review Technology and Tools

This part of the preparation thoroughly examines the existing technological infrastructure to determine its efficacy in supporting collaboration, data management, and decision-making. We aim to understand how these tools facilitate seamless communication among cross-functional teams, streamline data management processes, and contribute to informed decision-making throughout the NPD life cycle. The assessment spans beyond the mere presence of technology to examine its impact on efficiency and overall process effectiveness. By actively involving participants in this evaluation, we seek to gather insights into their firsthand experiences with the current technological landscape. This collaborative approach ensures that the workshop discussions are grounded in the teams’ practical realities, allowing us to tailor recommendations for optimizing or integrating technology to enhance the NPD process. The goal is to leverage technology as an enabler, aligning it strategically with the organization’s objectives and fostering a more agile, collaborative, and technologically empowered approach to new product development.

Operational Efficiency Insight:

The technology assessment serves as a lens through which participants gain insight into how current tools operate within the NPD process. It encourages a deeper understanding of how technology facilitates day-to-day operations, collaboration, and decision-making. By examining these aspects, participants can pinpoint specific pain points within the existing technological infrastructure that may hinder operational efficiency.

User-Centric Experiences:

Actively involving participants in the assessment places a strong emphasis on understanding user experiences and feedback. This approach ensures that participants delve into how team members interact with the technology daily. By exploring the user-centric aspects, participants can identify pain points, challenges, and preferences, allowing for a more targeted discussion on optimizing tools to enhance communication and streamline processes.

Strategic Technology Alignment:

The assessment emphasizes the importance of aligning technology with strategic objectives. Participants delve into understanding not just the presence of technology but its actual impact on achieving NPD goals. By scrutinizing this alignment, participants can identify pain points where the technology may fall short in supporting strategic objectives, paving the way for targeted improvements and enhancements.

Exploration of Integration Opportunities:

The assessment encourages participants to explore opportunities for integrating new technologies or upgrading existing tools. It highlights how technology can be leveraged to alleviate pain points and enhance communication within the NPD process. This exploration is a proactive step, enabling participants to identify and address specific pain points by considering technological innovations seamlessly integrating with their workflow.

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4. Risk Assessment:

In the lead-up to our workshop, a critical aspect involves examining risk at the organizational and team levels within the context of new product development (NPD). Assessing risks is paramount as it provides a proactive approach to identifying potential challenges that could impact the success of the NPD process improvement initiatives. At the corporate level, understanding and mitigating risks is crucial for safeguarding the overall success of the organization’s strategic objectives. On a team level, participants gain valuable insights into potential obstacles affecting their specific workflows and objectives. By acknowledging and addressing these risks collectively, the workshop becomes a strategic forum for developing contingency plans, fostering resilience, and ensuring that the NPD process improvements are not only visionary but also robust and adaptable in the face of potential challenges. This risk assessment approach aims to empower participants with the foresight needed to navigate uncertainties effectively, creating a more resilient foundation for successfully implementing process enhancements.

Proactive Problem Identification:

Risk assessment in the preliminary analysis allows organizations to identify potential problems before they escalate proactively. By systematically evaluating possible risks, teams can anticipate challenges that may impact the success of new product development initiatives. This foresight enables the development of contingency plans and strategies to mitigate identified risks, minimizing the likelihood of disruptions.

Resource Optimization:

Identifying risks early in the preliminary analysis enables better resource optimization. Organizations can allocate resources strategically by understanding potential challenges and ensuring that contingency plans are in place where needed. This proactive approach prevents unnecessary resource wastage and allows for a more efficient allocation of time, manpower, and financial resources throughout the NPD process.

Enhanced Decision-Making:

Risk assessment enhances decision-making by providing a comprehensive understanding of potential hurdles. Teams equipped with insights into possible risks can make informed decisions on project timelines, resource allocation, and strategic priorities. This clarity empowers decision-makers to navigate uncertainties confidently and adjust the NPD process based on a well-informed risk assessment.

Stakeholder Confidence and Alignment:

Conducting a thorough risk assessment instills confidence among stakeholders by demonstrating a proactive approach to potential challenges. It also fosters alignment within the organization as stakeholders are informed about the possible risks and the strategies in place to address them. This transparency contributes to a shared understanding of the NPD process, promoting collaboration and a unified effort to overcome challenges.

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5. Benchmarking:

Within the broader context of the preliminary analysis, our attention extends to researching and benchmarking against industry best practices for new product development (NPD). Having gained insights into the current situation, assessed existing technology, and identified potential risks, this phase seeks to complement that understanding with external perspectives. By examining industry best practices, participants delve into proven strategies that successful organizations employ. This comparative analysis aims to discern innovative methodologies and trends that align with the organization’s goals. By integrating these external learnings, we bridge the insights garnered from internal assessments with industry wisdom. This holistic approach enhances the organization’s adaptability and positions it strategically within the competitive landscape. Drawing inspiration from best practices ensures that the organization remains agile and responsive, synthesizing external successes with internal strengths to drive advancements in its NPD processes.

Informed Decision-Making:

Benchmarking against industry best practices equips participants with diverse insights and proven strategies. This wealth of external perspectives informs decision-making processes, allowing organizations to draw on successful models and tailor their strategies to align with market dynamics. It provides a crucial reference point for making informed choices that resonate with the broader industry landscape.

Validation and Insight:

The process of benchmarking serves as a validation mechanism for internal assessments, affirming areas of strength and uncovering potential improvement opportunities. Incorporating external perspectives ensures a well-rounded understanding of industry trends, innovative methodologies, and emerging practices. This validation enhances the organization’s ability to derive actionable insights from both internal evaluations and external benchmarks, fostering a comprehensive approach to process improvement.

Continuous Innovation Culture:

Embracing industry best practices nurtures a culture of continuous improvement within the organization. By actively seeking opportunities to learn from successful peers, teams are encouraged to adapt and innovate continuously. This cultural shift ensures that the organization remains agile, responsive to market changes, and open to integrating new approaches. Benchmarking becomes a driving force behind a mindset that values ongoing innovation as a key component of success.

Competitive Edge:

Actively engaging in benchmarking activities ensures that the organization maintains a competitive edge. By staying abreast of industry trends and adopting best practices, participants position their organization as a leader in the market. This strategic approach to benchmarking enables the organization to learn from others and anticipate shifts in the industry, fostering a proactive stance that keeps them ahead of competitors in the dynamic and ever-evolving market landscape.

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6. Stakeholder Alignment:

The final but pivotal step is securing alignment among stakeholders, and leadership emerges to ensure the efficacy of the upcoming workshop. Following the insightful benchmarking against industry best practices, this phase underscores the importance of harmonizing perspectives and commitments among key decision-makers and influencers. By actively involving leadership and stakeholders in the preliminary analysis, it incorporates their invaluable insights and ensures that their strategic goals align seamlessly with the organization’s objectives. This alignment sets the stage for a workshop that is relevant to the market trends and specifically tailored to address the organization’s unique challenges. Moreover, this collaborative engagement establishes a unified vision that empowers participants with a clear sense of purpose and direction. As the concluding step before the workshop, the alignment among stakeholders and leadership ensures a cohesive approach that enhances the workshop’s impact and facilitates the effective implementation of identified improvements in the post-workshop phase.

Strategic Buy-In:

Engaging stakeholders and leadership in the preliminary analysis ensures strategic buy-in. By involving key decision-makers at this stage, the workshop gains the endorsement and commitment of those who can influence and drive the organization’s strategic direction. This buy-in is crucial for aligning workshop goals with overarching business objectives.

Tailored Workshop Relevance:

The alignment of stakeholders and leadership enables the customization of workshop content to address specific organizational needs. Their insights tailor discussions, activities, and solutions to align directly with the identified challenges and improvement objectives. This targeted relevance ensures that the workshop is not only informative but also actionable in the context of the organization.

Smooth Implementation of Improvements:

Achieving alignment at the preliminary analysis stage facilitates a smoother implementation of improvements post-workshop. When stakeholders and leadership are on board with the proposed changes, seamless adoption within the organization is more likely. This alignment enhances the workshop’s long-term impact by ensuring that the identified improvements are integrated effectively into the NPD processes.

Unified Vision and Employee Empowerment:

The alignment among stakeholders and leadership contributes to creating a unified vision for the NPD process. This shared vision empowers workshop participants by providing a collective understanding of organizational goals. It fosters a sense of direction and purpose among employees, promoting a collaborative and unified effort to drive improvements. The alignment ensures that the workshop becomes a catalyst for positive organizational change, with all stakeholders moving in tandem toward shared objectives.

In conclusion, the success of the forthcoming workshop on new product development process improvement hinges significantly on the diligent efforts of our participants during this preliminary phase. The depth of insights derived from understanding the current situation, technology assessment, risk identification, and benchmarking against industry best practices directly correlates with the workshop’s effectiveness. It is imperative that participants actively engage in these pre-workshop activities, ensuring a thorough grasp of internal challenges and a keen awareness of external innovations. Moreover, the importance of stakeholder and leadership alignment cannot be overstated. Participants must actively seek this alignment, as it signifies strategic buy-in and serves as the linchpin for tailoring workshop content, implementing improvements, and fostering a unified vision. The workshop’s success lies in the discussions within its confines and the diligent groundwork laid during this preliminary analysis. As participants undertake this essential homework, they pave the way for a insightful and directly applicable workshop, propelling their organizations towards enhanced efficiency, innovation, and sustained market competitiveness.

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Course Manuals 1-7

Course Manual 1: Innovation Ecosystem

Nowadays, Innovation means many things this day. Unfortunately, it is often associated with new technologies, while the whole manufacturing and CPG world needs more than ever to reinvent itself and bring new products to consumers faster.

An Innovation Ecosystem is a dynamic network of individuals, organizations, and institutions collaborating to create new ideas, technologies, products, and services. In the context of manufacturing, this ecosystem includes a range of stakeholders, such as researchers, engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and industry experts. While there is an aspect that the company does not control, the whole internal architecture of processes and decision-making will consist of the core of this workshop. The innovation ecosystem is critical for companies’ success in today’s fast-changing business environment. It enables the creation of innovative products and services, improves operational efficiency, supports cost reduction, and enhances competitive edges. While the innovation ecosystem has many benefits, it faces challenges today, including intellectual property protection, talent retention, funding, and regulatory barriers. However, there are also many opportunities to overcome these challenges through collaboration, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Therefore, a company that wants to stand out through innovation has much work ahead. It needs to put the cornerstones that will enable it to succeed in the short and long term, with know-how passed on between the various partners.

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Case Study – Nestlé

By looking at a larger-scale company like Nestlé. They launched a plant-based burger called the Incredible Burger under its Garden Gourmet brand in 2019. The company also introduced a line of vegan products under the same brand, including vegan sausages and mince.

Moreover, Nestlé strongly focuses on sustainability and has launched several products that promote eco-friendliness, such as its Nespresso coffee pods made from recycled aluminum and its Purina Beyond pet food made from sustainable ingredients.

Through its regular launch of new and innovative products, Nestlé has maintained its position as one of the world’s largest packaged goods companies and a leader in the food industry.

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According to a Nielsen study, around 57% of recent survey participants stated that they had bought new products during their last trip to a simple grocery store. It illustrates that the pressure for new products is on. Consumers expect a manufacturer to make their life easier and regularly bring something new to the market. How can a company fulfill that expectation? With a balanced innovation Ecosystem. From the process to the strategy, each step of this ecosystem depends on the success of the other.

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Case Study – L’Oréal and innovation ecosystem

Let’s look at another Global company that strongly focuses on research and development and regularly launches new products that address consumers’ evolving needs and preferences: L’Oréal. This multinational beauty and personal care company offers a wide range of products, including makeup, skincare, hair care, and fragrance. In response to the growing clean beauty trend, L’Oréal launched its Garnier Organic skincare line, which uses organic and natural ingredients and is certified by Ecocert. The company has also launched its La Roche-Posay Toleriane range, which is designed for sensitive skin and offers a variety of products, including cleansers, moisturizers, and sunscreens.

L’Oréal also responded to the growing trend of inclusivity and diversity in the beauty industry. The company has launched various shades for its makeup products, including foundations, concealers, and lipsticks, to cater to different skin tones and undertones and to answer the needs of the various consumer. Occidental consumers are no longer in a range of 16-20 beige shades. They are expecting a perfect match. Moreover, L’Oréal has leveraged technology to create innovative products that cater to consumers’ needs. For instance, the company launched its personalized skincare brand, SkinCeuticals Custom D.O.S.E., which uses a proprietary algorithm to create customized skincare formulas based on individual consumers’ skin concerns.

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This program will help to build and balance your Innovation Ecosystem, starting at the base and clarifying the process, so your teams can gain efficiency quickly. A clear process will help you build a solid foundation to accelerate your go-to-market time. Starting with understanding the process, the governance, and the metrics, it will address the most urgent matters and solve short-term problems between your teams. You will immediately have to see quick wins before implementing the system.

Working on your Innovation Ecosystem is a synonym of revolutionized your business processes. Product development, from the execution up to the strategy, involves all the departments in your company. It is a long process to implement as the product lifecycle is long and the number of launches per year is limited, which translates into a longer cycle to iterate and improve your process, adapt to a new market environment and to and enhance the quality of the tools used along the way.

When being strategic with your innovation, the objective is to focus on fewer successful products and limit, if not eliminate, all me-too products. The latter is faster and easier to launch but will only bring long-term sustainability to the company if you have a strong brand that becomes your competitive advantage. On the bright side, it will allow your team to invest time and money in outstanding products, bringing incremental sales.

By focusing your teams’ efforts on products that will bring a competitive advantage to the market by solving a problem for the consumer, you increase the chance of repurchasing the product and consumer retention. Limiting the number of projects to focus on the good ones is the most tangible result you will experience going through the program.

As you move along, multiple aspects of product development will be addressed, from marketing to operations, finance, regulatory affairs and more. All teams must be involved and optimized to deliver a successful product. When people understand where and how they can contribute, the process can be accelerated. Once quantified, the capacity can be scaled up, and your company will become the next Proctor and Gamble in your industry!

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Case Study – Coca-Cola and Me-too product

For example, in recent years, Coca-Cola has launched several me-too products that are similar in taste and functionality to its flagship Coca-Cola product. But with a strong brand like Coca-Cola, the need to innovate with a breakthrough product to bring more money onboard is not that important. For example, the company launched Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, which tastes similar to regular Coca-Cola but contains no sugar or calories. Coca-Cola also launched Diet Coke Feisty Cherry, which has a cherry flavour and a similar taste to regular Diet Coke.

While the technology of these me-too products is similar to that of the original Coca-Cola product, the only advantage that Coca-Cola has is its strong brand recognition and association with high-quality beverages. The company can leverage its brand to generate interest and demand for its new products, even though they are essentially variations of its existing products.

In addition, through marketing efforts, Coca-Cola can differentiate its me-too products from its original products. The company uses different branding and packaging designs for its me-too products, which helps to create a sense of novelty and differentiation.

Despite being me-too products, Coca-Cola’s new offerings have been successful in the market due to the company’s strong brand and marketing efforts. The products can appeal to consumers who are already fans of the Coca-Cola brand and looking for new, exciting variations of their favourite beverages.

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Coca-Cola is the only company with greater brand recognition. The vast majority are bound to bring new, prosperous, differentiated products to market to increase their market share and revenues.

That’s where your Innovation Ecosystem is a model that will contribute to achieving that success. The process is the base of the system. No matter what else your company will build on, the base is the foundation to build. It will help everyone understand where they are going and what is expected. Then we will move to the management of the portfolio of active projects, establishing clear priority criteria. Only once the established longer-term perspective will be considered: the roadmap, the ideation, and the strategy.

The Base: Process, Governance and Metrics

The scope of the process can vary depending on the industry, company, and product but generally includes similar stages:

• Ideation: This is the initial stage where product ideas are generated. It can involve brainstorming sessions, market research, and identifying customer needs and pain points.

• Concept Development: Once a potential product idea has been identified, it is essential to flesh out the concept further. This involves researching the market and competitors, creating a rough prototype, and testing the concept with potential customers.

• Validation and feasibility: In this stage, the product’s design is finalized, and the engineering and technical specifications are developed. This may involve creating detailed CAD drawings, creating functional prototypes, and conducting product testing and validation.

• Manufacturing: The product moves into the manufacturing stage once the design and engineering are complete. This involves selecting suppliers, sourcing materials, and setting up the production line.

• Marketing and Launch: The final stage involves creating a marketing plan and launching the product. This may include advertising, promotions, and other activities to create awareness and generate demand.

Each of those themes will be discussed in further detail in the following sections, but what is important to understand is that the ability to accelerate the time-to-market is also the ability to work as a team. Accelerating it means ensuring that internal processes are known and well-oiled. The product development process, the base of your ecosystem, is a supra-process that triggers internal business processes. Through this program, we will ensure that the supra-process is well-defined and that the underlying processes are known and understood.

One of the significant advantages of having a clear process mapped is to have a clear understanding of all the deliverables and tasks needed to deliver a new product to the market. Listing and coordinating all those tasks and deliverables contribute to understanding what can be done concurrently or where there might be a bottleneck in resource capacity. Clarifying the steps, the sequence they happen, and what needs to be done to execute them successfully contribute to cross-functional collaboration. Once all the process flows are mapped, the following conversation will be about attributing the proper’s responsibility to the competent team. Each team must define the deliverables they are accountable for and what it implies for them. It is not the executive or decision maker’s role to estimate the work that needs to be done, but the one that will execute it.

A product development process is often known as a Phase-Gate process. The Phases are when the work is done, while the gates are the decision points. To succeed, you need more than just a process; that is the base on which you can build your customized ecosystem. The new product process is what we will focus on at first: mapping the existing and how it can be improved.

That’s where governance comes into play. The governance for the product development process will include decision-making milestones that are also risk management’s key pivot point. Those milestones will allow the senior leadership to stop a project if the risk is not controlled. It will also contribute to allocating cross-functional resources to deliver a successful product.

Project management is a separate governance topic. Many best practices from the Projects Management Institute are leveraged into the maintenance and improvement of the process. Having understood the process will make the project mapping much more straightforward. But to be able to move up the ladder of your Innovation Ecosystem and talk about the longer term, your project manager will have to build the Gantt chart and put all those deliverables into a timeframe for planning purposes.

The governance also helps to determine when those decisions will be made (that will become the Gate in the process) and who needs to make those decisions. The governance also allowed sharing of the decision-making responsibility, depending on the required decisions. Depending on what will better meet your company’s needs, there might be different decision makers to select ideas than when it is time to decide if you will invest one million dollars into a new manufacturing station in your plant. There is no general standard in governance, as it must be adapted to your need. Once addressing the governance, multiple examples and best practices will be brought to the table to help select your options for your company.

The overall Phase-Gate process goal is to reduce risk and control spending. The cross-functional team’s role is to perform tasks between the gate to help reduce the risk. When decision-makers must decide, they need answers to specific questions or interrogations. The team that presents the gate aims to facilitate decision-making by providing those answers. Governance also includes determining strategic decision-making, a decision that has a long-term impact on the company or involves investing a significant amount of money, and the operational decision, which has a shorter-term effect. Typically, you will have more strategic decisions required at the beginning and more operational towards the end of the process. We will cover that topic later in this training.

Due to the nature of the innovation, metrics need to be implemented to measure different aspects of the process and the projects. Therefore, clear metrics are also a key base component of your Innovation Ecosystem. Because innovation involves a certain level of unknown, it might be challenging to determine what to measure and when. Some metrics will contribute to determining the product’s success; others will define a successful project or process. Some other metrics are also used to measure the project itself, such as the timeline or the budget, the total duration, resources, etc. But the core of the conversation will be around the metrics that make a project pass or fail at the gate. Financial metrics are usually significant, but they should be one of the many portfolio management criteria. Of course, a decision to launch a new product is not solely based on financial decisions, and the strategic aspect is non-negligible.

While addressing metrics, we will need to discuss the metrics’ purpose. The question will be: «What do we need to measure? The following aspect will be the method: the Innovation process will nurture an idea into an actual product that will, hopefully, be profitable. » A new product needs to bring value to the company, but what is a worthwhile project for your company? Will your company want to keep track of all ideas, even the ones that will be killed? Or will the focus solely be on the one that reaches a certain point in the process? That will all be cleared out later.

See Case Study I that illustrates that point.

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Case Study – Earth Rated

Earth Rated is a successful small company that wants to diversify its revenue by attacking a new market adjacent to its current consumer base. The company had become the reference in dog poop bags and wished to accelerate its growth by diversifying its products. In its strategic plans, aggressive growth is based on improving distribution and increasing the number of new product launches. After validation of the market, it became clear that they could stretch their brand into another segment. That means incremental revenue, but it will also require marketing investment to help transfer the brand equity from one product category to another. Also, the new product category requires significant investment in manufacturing, which significantly increases the expected return on investment. While the standardized success metric for a new product in this company is up to six months, the ROI represents eighteen months in this specific strategic initiative. Even though the financial aspect was unfavourable to the projects, the team presented it to the leadership. It provided all the information for them to make an enlightened decision regarding the investment versus the gain on the market.

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The governance will determine who needs to make the critical decision. The metrics will help them make decisions, compare projects with each other, and support informed decisions rather than intuitive decisions. The intuitive decision might be a good orientation, but they must be put into context so the leadership can retrace them later.

Portfolio and Roadmap

Once the base is clearly defined, it is time to compare projects with each other and rank them with the portfolio. There are always more projects than resources, financial and humane, to be able to deliver them. It is essential to have a transparent decision process to prioritize the different projects according to what is important to the organization. We will cover that in more detail later, but the key is that the process needs to be cleared before discussing the prioritization of the project. The metrics must be discussed because a product’s success metrics must align with the criteria to prioritize your project.

Portfolio management and road mapping are two planning tools. One is on the short term, with active projects, while the other is on a longer time perspective. A roadmap can help plan for the upcoming three, five, and ten years… They are essential as they help with the planning of resources. As mentioned earlier, companies have limited resources, including time, money, and talent. Prioritization allows them to allocate these resources to the projects the more important for the company and presents the most significant impact on the product’s success.

Prioritization and road mapping also help to align stakeholders, as they bring inputs and buy-in from them, including customers, users, investors, and internal teams. Companies can ensure everyone is aligned and working toward the same goals by involving them. It also contributes to managing long-term and short-term risks.
By identifying and addressing potential roadblocks in the current projects or towards more challenging longer-term ones in their early stage of development.

Also, looking farther ahead enables companies to develop a clear product strategy by outlining the product’s long-term goals and vision. This strategy can guide decisions about which features to prioritize and when and can help teams stay focused on what matters most. Both tools are also very useful for demonstrating longer-term vision with short-term traction when it is time to onboard new partners.

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Product Portfolio

As mentioned, a product portfolio regroups all active projects and prioritizes them. It refers to a list of ongoing projects product development teams are currently working on independently of stages of the development cycle, from early-stage research to product launch.

The portfolio ensures that different teams effectively manage their resources according to the top priority identified by the stakeholders and align with its overall business strategy. The portfolio may include projects for developing new products or features, improving existing products, or addressing gaps in the company’s product offerings. Since product development involves multiple teams, having a clear list of what constitutes a priority contributes to the alignment of each team and focuses resources on fewer projects.

The most common product portfolio comprises three to five criteria that will be selected: Strategic alignment, Market attractiveness, competitive advantage, financial rewards, and technical challenge. Another element that might be added to the portfolio is the bottleneck of resources or departments. One of the advantages of transparent portfolio management is to ensure that resources are invested in the top priority and that those projects are hitting the market most efficiently. Suppose your company has ten priority projects, but your marketing team can only face five. In that case, your team will again have to make an informed decision about the priority and avoid straining your team with a workload more extensive than they can tackle.

Having a transparent decision process to prioritize is also essential to keep your employee engaged. When someone is invested in a project and put on pause, that person needs to understand why other projects have been evaluated as more important for the company. Without a formal prioritization process for your project portfolio, you might have a pet project around, or the flavour of the month project, that will shift before achieving a gate. That will translate into a lot of energy and dollar invested in the project but needing more traction to move them forward, deliver significant milestones and launch a successful product on the market.

Your product portfolio will include all actives new product projects. Depending on your product development lifecycle, a typical product portfolio will cover projects delivered within 12-18 months and must be reviewed periodically.

Roadmap

The roadmap will be the tools essential to your Innovation Ecosystem that will allow you to have a longer-term vision. Depending on your industry and ambition, the roadmap covers around five years but varies according to your product lifecycle.

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Your roadmap for product development becomes a strategic plan that outlines the high-level goals and objectives for future products to be developed, along with the timeline and critical milestones required. A product development roadmap typically includes several key elements:

1. Vision and goals: The roadmap should clearly articulate the overall vision for the product, as well as the specific goals and objectives that the development team aims to achieve.

2. Timeline and milestones: The roadmap should include a timeline that outlines the key milestones and deadlines for the product development process. This might consist of completing research and development milestones, launching a minimum viable product, and reaching full product maturity.

3. Features and functionalities: The roadmap should outline the product’s key features and functionalities and any updates or improvements planned for future releases.

4. Resources and dependencies: The roadmap should identify the resources required for product development, such as personnel, equipment, and funding. It should also highlight any dependencies the development team needs to consider, such as third-party software or hardware components.

5. Risks and challenges: The roadmap should identify potential risks and challenges the development team may encounter during product development. This might include technical challenges, market shifts, or unexpected obstacles that could impact the timeline or success of the project.

Your product roadmap includes two types of product projects: your existing products’ lifecycle and your new products. It is ongoing work to manage the product lifecycle, so you know where your product is in its lifecycle curve. You have existing products that have been launched at different times. Those products need maintenance, such as revamping, rebranding, and reformulation. Depending on the product life cycle phase, it is essential to allocate resources to optimize them or discontinue them, when required, to replace them with a. fresh new ideas. If you have a star product, refresh the ingredient or the manufacturing process and leverage that opportunity to improve the product. They must be mapped in your product roadmap, as it will require resources to renovate them, but also, they will need to be put on the market, so some budget and sales awareness will be required.

On top of the maintenance of your existing products, you have new products that will bring more incremental sales and talk to unique needs and new consumers. Having a longer-term perspective for the new incremental projects provides a view of the budget and resources required to launch those products and integrate them with the existing product maintenance. It will help to understand the company’s ambition, so the resources to achieve them can be addressed.

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Case Study – Starbucks and Teavana

Let’s look at the Teavana Teas and Starbucks experience. In 2017, Starbucks relaunched its line of Teavana teas, which it acquired in 2012. The company had initially struggled to make the Teavana brand successful, as consumers were more familiar with its coffee products and the market for tea in the US was weaker than in other parts of the world. So, Starbucks allocated resources to revamp the product line (introducing new flavours and blends and improving the quality of the tea ingredients). They improved the packaging by redesigning vibrant colours and illustrations to better appeal to consumers and stand out on store shelves. And they launched marketing campaigns to promote the relaunched Teavana line, featuring digital and print ads, as well as social media and influencer marketing.

By relaunching the Teavana line with these improvements, Starbucks successfully repositioned the brand and appealed to a broader range of consumers. The company reported increased sales and positive customer feedback, particularly among younger consumers looking for more health-conscious and natural beverage options.

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That is the kind of product repositioning that needs to happen on a timeline for all products. The market is very competitive in many industries, and your product needs a makeover every three or five years, depending on your industry. In the Starbuck example above, the resources required to revamp the formulation are the same as the ones that will typically work on new products. The marketing team that updated the package and tested it with consumers is the same team that will develop new packs for new products. Those new products are produced by the team that manages the new product’s first scale-up production. And the campaign budget needs to be planned and be part of the product launch budget. A few arguments explaining your product revamp or renovation must be mapped on your roadmap.

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Case Study – Kellogg’s and Nutri-Grain Bars

Let’s look at another compelling example at Kellogg’s. In 2021, Kellogg’s relaunched its Nutri-Grain bars, a popular breakfast snack. The company had identified an opportunity to update the product to better align with changing consumer preferences and trends, such as increased demand for healthier snack options. As Starbucks did with Teavana, Kellogg’s updated the Nutri-Grain bars product formulation and included more whole grains and fibre, as well as reduced sugar and artificial ingredients. They also redesigned the packaging for the Nutri-Grain bars, using brighter colours and more prominent product messaging to highlight the updated formulation and appeal to health-conscious consumers. Finally, they launched marketing campaigns to promote the relaunched Nutri-Grain bars, featuring TV and digital ads, as well as social media and influencer marketing.

By relaunching the Nutri-Grain bars with these improvements, Kellogg’s was able to better appeal to health-conscious consumers and increase sales. The company reported positive consumer feedback and plans to continue innovating the product line to meet changing consumer preferences.

The Nutri-Grain bars improvement was part of Kellogg’s roadmap, as it capitalized on the same resources as a new product launch. But we can also have an idea of Kellogg’s Product portfolio at the same time, as they also launch the following product simultaneously.

In 2021, Kellogg’s also introduced several new products, such as:

• Kellogg’s Joybol: A new line of breakfast bowls featuring different whole grains, nuts, and fruit flavours.

• Kellogg’s Eggo Stuffed Pancakes: A new variety of frozen waffles filled with different flavours of sweet filling.

• Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Bites: A new snack product featuring bite-sized versions of the famous Pop-Tarts toaster pastries.

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Launching new products is an essential part of Kellogg’s growth strategy and helps the company stay competitive. By introducing new products and innovations, Kellogg’s can attract new customers and keep existing ones interested in its brand. At the same time, the company also recognizes the importance of improving existing products, as seen in the Nutri-Grain bar example, to meet changing consumer preferences and needs. They balanced their risk and allocated their resources strategically to achieve those objectives.

Obviously, not all company has the privileged to launch that many innovations simultaneously. That’s why your planning tools, such as the product portfolio and product roadmap, are important tools for aligning the development team and executives around a shared product vision and strategy while providing a clear plan for achieving the goals and objectives of the project. By regularly reviewing and updating them, the development team can ensure that the product development process stays on track and that the product meets the needs of its target users.

Ideation and strategy

Having a mapping of the vision of the development for the upcoming three, five or seven years allows the team to put their idea on paper, but it also raises some questions: in which direction does the company will grow?

Strategy and ideation are at the top of the Innovation Ecosystem. It is now time to talk about company growth. What is the expected growth? From that growth, which percentage will come from acquisition, distribution, and innovation? Having numbers on the table will be crucial to align the innovation strategy. With all the work done to build the innovation ecosystem, the team will now have a good idea of the innovation team’s output today. The strategy will communicate what the expected output is. The Innovation strategy will be built to bring the company from where the team is today to where the team needs to be in the future. Suppose the company is currently at 100M$ in sales and expects to achieve 200M$ in 5 years, 50% from sales and 50% from Innovation. In that case, the innovation team must build a plan to deliver 50M$ in new products, including the renovation.

Once the numbers are on paper, the innovation team must build their strategic pillar: where to focus. Which axis will drive the product development and focus the team’s energy to surpass the market expectation with new products that will bring new money to the company? That’s where the marketing team works with innovation, looks at market trends, defines how to position themselves, and develops the product vision and innovation axis.

Clearly defining the Strategic Innovation axis will help the ideation that will support it. A product concept might not be launched due to technical challenges, increasing risks, or other unforeseen reasons. With a clear innovation axis, the team can start populating those axes with more ideas of product concepts, evaluating the market and competition, and estimating the probability of success. Hence, the portfolio of potential products is much more extensive in value. In the previous example, to deliver 50M$ over five years, the team must have three, four or five times more projects in its portfolio.

Ideation helps to focus on understanding the consumer to find the next big idea to help the company position itself in the market. Ideation should really focus on looking at consumer needs rather than on what your technology can do.

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Case Study – Fitbit

One example is Fitbit, a popular fitness tracking device that emerged from an ideation session by co-founder Eric Friedman in 2007. He wanted to create a device allowing users to track their fitness goals and progress easily. The resulting product was a wearable device that tracks steps, calories burned, sleep patterns, and other health metrics. Today, Fitbit is a well-known brand with various products and accessories in stores worldwide.

Another example is the Keurig coffee maker, which emerged from an ideation session by founder John Sylvan in the 1990s. He wanted to create a single-serve coffee maker that would be convenient and easy to use. The resulting product used pre-packaged coffee pods and a patented brewing system to make a single cup of coffee quickly and easily. Today, Keurig is a leading brand in the coffee industry, with a range of products and accessories in stores worldwide.

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Understanding all the Innovation Ecosystem layers shows how dependable they are on each other. Your process won’t be efficient if the portfolio is unbalanced in effort and prioritization. The roadmap means nothing if there is no strategy or no process. What is also important to understand is that at each workshop, there will be something to implement, and the team will be able to gain efficiency.

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Exercise – Understanding Innovation Ecosystem

The Innovation Ecosystem is a great way to mitigate multiple issues you might experiment with in your organization. Split into groups of 2 or 3 people and take 5 minutes to associate the problems with the element of the innovation ecosystem that might solve them. When I start working with clients, those problems are often brought to my attention. Let’s discuss how to solve them.

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Answers: 1-D; 2-D; 3-A; 4-A; 5-B; 6-F/B; 7-C; 8-E; 9-E; 10-E; 11-G; 12-E.

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Course Manual 2: Risk Management

Like any important project, while developing a new product, the risk management aspect is also a key element to succeed in the planning and execution of your new product development. Risk management identifies, assesses, and addresses potential risks to minimize their impact.

Risk management is highly associated with a robust process, as the risk should reduce as the project evolve and progresses. Initially, there is a high level of uncertainty due to the unknown of the product concept, the size of the opportunity, and the players in place on the market. The more the process moves along, the more answers are provided to the decision-makers. The team assesses the feasibility of the product concept, and the marketing team digs deeper into the market data. The research team surveys the consumer. All those efforts allow the risk to be reduced when the product is ready to be commercialized.

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Effective risk management is critical for projects of all sizes and across all industries, as it helps them navigate an increasingly complex and unpredictable business environment. It aims to help your team develop a product while minimizing the likelihood and impact of adverse events. Proactively identifying and addressing potential risks can increase resilience, protect your company’s reputation, enhance product performance, and achieve sustainable success.

Product risk vs project management risk

A product development project and process leverage lots of project management best practices. But fundamental differences need to be brought to your attention.

Product development risk refers to the uncertainties and potential adverse outcomes associated with creating a new product or service, including market acceptance, technical feasibility, remaining within the target cost, aiming for an opportunity window that can move, and intellectual property risks. This type of risk is typically focused on the success or failure of the product itself, such as whether it will meet customer needs, generate revenue, and deliver a return on investment.

On the other hand, project management risk refers to the uncertainties and potential adverse outcomes associated with the process of planning, executing, and controlling a project. This type of risk is focused on the ability of the project team to deliver the project within the defined scope, budget, and timeline. Project management risk includes issues such as project scope creep, budget overruns, delays, and resource constraints.

While there can be some overlap between product development risk and project management risk, they are distinct types of risk requiring different mitigation and management approaches. Successful product development requires effective project management, but effective project management alone can only guarantee a successful product launch if the product development risks are adequately addressed.

Benefits of Risk management while developing a new product

Risk management is critical to developing new products in a manufacturing environment. It involves identifying potential risks, assessing their likelihood and impact, and implementing measures to mitigate or avoid them. Effective risk management can help companies minimize the impact of negative events and increase their chances of success. Let’s explore why risk management is critical to success while developing new products in a manufacturing environment.

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1. Minimize Costs

One of the primary reasons why risk management is critical in developing new products is to minimize costs. Developing new products can be expensive, and companies often invest significant amounts of money in research and development. If a product fails, the company may lose the money invested in development, potential profits, and market share.

Using risk management best practices, the company identifies and addresses potential issues early in the product development process, allowing the team to avoid costly rework later. This can include product design, manufacturing processes, or quality control issues. It may have a similar impact on resource allocation. Efficient risk management can optimize the allocation of resources, including personnel, materials, and equipment, by proactively planning their needs or deployment. The team can ensure that resources are being used effectively and efficiently. That will directly impact the management of the schedule and reduce potential project delays. Risks that are identified and addressed early in the product development process can help prevent project delays, which can be costly in terms of both time and resources.

By being proactive, the team can also Optimize the supply chain, which may translate into significant savings once the production and sale ramp up. Optimizing the supply chain by identifying potential risks related to suppliers or logistics ensures that the supply chain remains efficient and cost-effective.

2. Enhance Product Quality

Another reason why risk management is important is to enhance product quality. Developing a high-quality product requires careful planning and attention to detail. By identifying potential risks early and addressing them before they become problems, companies can improve product quality and reduce the likelihood of defects or malfunctions. The failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) methodology can help identify potential quality risks early in product development. These risks can be related to product design, manufacturing processes, or quality control measures. Once quality risks are identified, the team can proactively address them. For example, if a potential quality issue is identified during the design phase, the team can modify the design to prevent the issue from occurring. Effective risk management can also help improve product testing. By identifying potential failure modes or other quality risks, the team can develop more comprehensive testing protocols to ensure the product meets quality and reliability requirements.

This can include testing for specific failure modes or conducting accelerated life testing to simulate long-term product use. That can also be extended to more targeted quality control measures. This can include regular inspections or audits, statistical process control, or implementing error-proofing measures to prevent defects.

Overall, effective risk management during product development can help improve product quality by identifying potential quality risks early in the process and taking proactive measures to prevent issues from occurring.

3. Ensure Compliance

Companies must comply with various regulations and standards regarding product safety, environmental protection, and other areas in a manufacturing environment or specific industries. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in fines, legal action, and damage to a company’s reputation.

Identifying regulatory risks from the get-go can help identify potential risks early in the product development process and ensure the product concept addresses them. This can include identifying potential issues related to product safety, efficacy, or labelling requirements. The team can then take proactive measures to manage them. For example, if a potential labelling issue is identified, the team can modify the product labelling to ensure compliance with relevant regulations. The team can reduce the likelihood of costly regulatory penalties or product recalls later by addressing potential regulatory issues early in the process. Once again, more specific quality control measures might be required to comply with some aspect of the law during development or production and measures throughout the product development process. This can include regular inspections or audits, statistical process control, or implementing error-proofing measures to prevent non-compliant products from being produced. Today environment can also be volatile due to economic or political conditions. Risk management can force you to stay up to date with regulatory changes by regularly monitoring changes; the team can ensure that the product remains compliant throughout its development.

In some situations, effective risk management during product development can help ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and other industry standards by identifying potential risks early in the process and taking proactive measures to ensure compliance. The last thing you want to see is having a product in inventory that you cannot launch due to a change of regulations.

4. Increase Efficiency

Increasing efficiency while developing a product can translate into cost savings. Still, by identifying and addressing potential risks early, companies can avoid delays and disruptions that can cause project timelines to slip. This can help ensure products are developed on time and within budget, increasing profitability and market share. It was mentioned earlier, but risk management can help your resource allocation. In many situations, developing a new product exceeds people’s day-to-day tasks. Identifying potential resource constraints, or bottleneck departments, early in product development helps the team proactively allocate resources effectively, ensuring that the project stays on track and within budget. This may trigger enhancing collaboration in the cross-functional team, which can help improve and ensure everyone is aligned on project goals and priorities, ultimately increasing organizational efficiency.

By taking a proactive approach to risk management, the team can ensure that the project stays on track, within budget, and meets quality and compliance requirements.

5. Improve Decision Making

Risk management can reduce uncertainty and prioritize actions. It can also improve decision-making by providing data and insights from the risk assessment. It also helps clearly identify trade-offs between different options or courses of action. The risk management in place supports weighing the potential risks and benefits of other options so that the team can make more informed decisions aligned with project goals and priorities. By identifying potential risks and developing mitigation strategies to address them, the best practices will help to prioritize activities and provide perspective when decision-making is required.

Overall, with adequate risk mitigation and a proactive approach to risk management, the team can make more informed decisions that are aligned with project goals and priorities, ultimately increasing the likelihood of project success.

6. Enhance Communication

companies can ensure that everyone clearly understands the potential risks and their impact By involving all relevant stakeholders in the risk management process. This can help improve collaboration and reduce the likelihood of miscommunication or misunderstandings. It promotes transparency by identifying and communicating potential risks and issues openly and honestly. This can help build trust and credibility with stakeholders, ultimately improving communication. It also provides a common language for discussing potential risks and issues. Risk management contributes to establishing a common language to describe potential risks and their potential impact; stakeholders can better understand the potential risks and engage in more effective communication. And what naturally comes from better communication, transparency and shared vocabularies: a better alignment of priorities across different teams and stakeholders.

Effective risk mitigation can improve communication by promoting transparency, providing a common language, enhancing collaboration, aligning priorities, and improving decision-making.

Risk management is critical to developing new products in a manufacturing environment. It can help companies minimize costs, enhance product quality, ensure compliance, increase efficiency, improve decision-making, enhance communication, and foster innovation. By identifying potential risks early and taking steps to mitigate or avoid them, companies can increase the chances of success and reduce the impact of negative events. As such, risk management should be a core component of any product development process.

A straightforward product development process also enables manufacturers to test the product thoroughly before launch, ensuring that any issues are identified and addressed before the product is released to the market. This reduces the likelihood of negative customer feedback and increases overall customer satisfaction.

Leveraging a clear process to mitigate risk while developing new products in a manufacturing environment provides various benefits. These include better quality control, reduced costs, improved efficiency, and better success.

Product Risk and Investment

Product development risk and investment must be balanced properly to ensure the product portfolio balance.

Product development risk involves uncertainties and potential negative outcomes, from market acceptance or volatility to technical feasibility or intellectual property risks. That needs to be layered with investment timing, which refers to deciding when to invest more or release more funds or resources in a product development project. Various factors can influence this decision, such as market conditions, availability of resources, and competitive landscape, that can have evolved and impacted the opportunity the team was after.

Timing is important, where a robust process allows clearly identified points where risk should be reassessed according to a clear set of variables that will be covered later on the portfolio risk.

In some cases, the level of product development risk may be a factor in deciding when to invest or release more funding in a project. For example, suppose a project is in the early stages of development, and there is still significant technical uncertainty. In that case, an investor may choose to wait until more progress has been made before committing to resources. Alternatively, if there is strong market demand for a product and the competition is limited, an investor may choose to invest early to capture market share.

Effective management of product development risk can help to increase the likelihood of success, while careful consideration of investment timing can help to optimize the return on investment.

The risk management and the investment can also be represented with these Risk vs opportunity curves. That graphic represents the time invested in a project (on the x-axis), the investment, or effort (y-axis). It represents the balance there between both when developing a new product. In this case, risk refers to the potential negative outcomes or uncertainties associated with the product development process. In contrast, opportunity refers to the potential positive outcomes or benefits that may be realized if the product is successfully developed and brought to market.

One approach to managing risk vs opportunity is to conduct a risk analysis, which involves identifying potential risks and their impact on the project and the potential opportunities that may arise from successfully managing those risks. This can help prioritize risks and opportunities and inform decision-making throughout product development.

Ultimately, the success of a new product will depend on the ability to manage risk and opportunity effectively. By carefully balancing these factors and making informed decisions throughout the development process, businesses can increase their chances of developing a successful product that meets the needs of their customers and delivers a return on investment.

Risk management aims to help your team to develop a product while minimizing the likelihood and impact of negative events. Proactively identifying and addressing potential risks can increase resilience, protect your company’s reputation, enhance product performance, and achieve sustainable success. Effective risk management is critical for projects of all sizes and across all industries, as it helps them navigate an increasingly complex and unpredictable business environment.

Risk Analysis

Complete risk analysis involves a structured and systematic approach to identifying, assessing, and addressing potential risks of developing a new product.

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Here are the key steps involved in risk management while developing a new product:

1. Risk Identification – The first step in risk management is identifying potential risks associated with the new product. This can involve reviewing similar products in the market, conducting a hazard analysis, and considering any unique aspects of the product that may pose a risk.

The first part of identifying risk well is to define the scope and objectives of the project: Clearly defining the project’s scope and goals can help identify potential threats. This can include assessing the project’s feasibility, understanding the target market, and defining the desired outcomes.

Different methodologies can be used to help identify the risks, internal (capabilities) and external (competitors, market, etc.). You can conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats): which can help to identify potential risks associated with the product development process. This can involve analyzing the company’s internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats that may impact the project. You can also use PESTLE (Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural, Technical, Legal, and Environmental) if your projects lead you to a new culture or market, the consumer habits might differ, or your product is within the highly legislated industry. Another interesting methodology could be Porter’s five forces (New entrants, Suppliers’ power, Buyers’ power, substitute, and level of competition). Once again, it depends on the environment you aim to evolve.

There are technical aspects that need to be discovered. Consider the technical risks, including issues related to the product’s design, manufacturing process, or technical feasibility. Identifying potential technical risks early in the development process can help develop mitigation strategies. The technical risk can become very complex to identify when moving to adjacent or incremental technical capabilities.

Another aspect of identifying the risk is the financial one. Financial risks may include issues related to project funding, the cost that can get out of hand, budget overruns with commercialization initiatives or challenges, or revenue projections. Assessing the financial viability of the project and developing contingency plans can help mitigate financial risks.

To be successful, engaging key stakeholders can help identify potential risks and develop mitigation strategies. This may include input from customers, suppliers, investors, and other relevant parties.

By taking these steps, businesses can identify potential risks and develop strategies to mitigate those risks early in the product development process. This can help avoid costly delays and negative outcomes and increase the likelihood of developing a successful product that meets customers’ needs and delivers a return on investment.

2. Risk Assessment – Once potential risks have been identified, the next step is to assess their likelihood and potential impact. This can involve using tools such as risk matrices, which visually represent the likelihood and impact of different risks. Evaluating the probability and impact, on a scale from 1-3, or Green-Yellow-Red, can help to summarize it.

To assess the likelihood of risk, you can look for historical data on similar projects completed in the past and determine how often certain risks occurred in those projects. This can give you a baseline estimate of the likelihood of those risks occurring in your project. You can also refer to expert opinions, stakeholders, and other subject matter experts with experience in similar projects or adventures. They may have insights on the likelihood of certain risks based on their experience. Some statistical methods can estimate the possibility of risks depending on the risk. For example, you could use regression analysis to identify variables correlated with certain risks and assess the likelihood of those risks occurring based on those variables.

Finally, you can add a Brainstorming moment at the kick-off or pre-kick-off meeting. Brainstorming with your project team might help identify potential risks and assess the likelihood of them occurring based on their knowledge and experience.

The likelihood of risk always comes with the impact of those risks. The impact should also be assessed with a short scale (Green-Yellow-Red, or Small – Med – High). The impact could affect the different aspects of the business:
Financial, schedule, Technical, and reputational, to name a few. Financial consequences require estimating the potential cost of a risk event. For example, if a delay in product development occurs, how much money will be lost due to missed sales opportunities? This leads us to the schedule impact, which involves estimating how a risk event may impact the project schedule.

For example, if a supplier doesn’t deliver a component on time, how much will this delay the project timeline? The technical impact estimates how a risk event may impact the product’s technical specifications. For example, if a product’s safety feature fails, how much will this impact the product’s safety rating? That is where the identification of Must Have vs Nice to Have features needs to be communicated. That will be covered later in this program. The reputational impact can be raised not only once the product is launched but as soon as information about the new product filter out of the company. It refers to all estimates of how a risk event may impact the company’s reputation. For example, if a product recall occurs, how much damage will this do to the company’s brand?

Once you have assessed the likelihood and impact of risks, you can now work on mitigation plans to limit their effects.

3. Risk Mitigation – After assessing the risks, the next step is to develop a plan to mitigate or avoid them. This can involve implementing design changes, adding safety features, or revising manufacturing processes. The goal is to reduce the likelihood and impact of potential risks. Different approaches can be contemplated:

• Avoidance: Find ways to avoid the risk altogether. For example, if a particular supplier is deemed unreliable, you could avoid the risk of late delivery by finding a more reliable supplier.

• Transfer: Transfer the risk to another party, such as an insurance company or a third-party vendor. For example, you could transfer the risk of a product recall to an insurance company.

• Reduction: Implement measures to reduce the likelihood or impact of the risk. For example, you could implement a quality control process to reduce the risk of product defects.

• Acceptance: Accept the risk and plan to manage it if it occurs. For example, you could accept the risk of a delay in delivery and have a contingency plan in place to manage the impact on the project schedule.

Other approaches could be as good. The goal here is to have a plan whenever risks arise.

One element often overlooked: Assign a person responsible for each mitigation strategy. Ensure each risk has an owner accountable for implementing and monitoring the mitigation strategy. The day the team faces a risk, finding an owner for those mitigation plans is more complicated.

4. Risk Monitoring – Even after implementing risk mitigation measures, it is essential to continue monitoring the product for potential risks. This can involve conducting regular safety tests, tracking customer complaints, and reviewing any changes to regulations or industry standards that may affect the product. It is essential to keep track of all identified risks and the mitigation strategies in place to address them. Use a risk register or similar tool to track each risk’s status and the mitigation strategy’s progress.

To avoid the frog’s situation in boiling water, establishing triggers will prompt a review of the risks and mitigation strategies. For example, if a particular supplier has a history of late deliveries, set a trigger to review the risk and mitigation strategy if there is a delay in delivery. Otherwise, the team keep going, with weekly review and tackling down tasks, and stop looking at the risk.

5. Risk Communication – Finally, effective risk management involves communicating potential risks and mitigation measures to all stakeholders in developing and producing the new product. This can include employees, suppliers, customers, and regulatory agencies.

One key element of communicating is to develop efficient tools or dashboards that track the evolution of each risk previously identified. Regularly update the project team and stakeholders on the status of identified risks. Establishing clear communication channels for reporting and discussing risks will encourage team members to report any potential risks identified and ensure that stakeholders know the importance of risk management. Regular communication also contributes to a perception of being in control.

The communication can also be coupled with a risk meeting. Holding a regular risk meeting to review and discuss the status of risks provides the opportunity to identify new risks, reassess the likelihood and impact of existing risks, and adjust the mitigation strategy as necessary.

AS product development projects evolve a lot, mainly during the early phase, it is important to update your assessment and mitigation plan along the way by keeping the mitigation plan updated with the latest information on each risk.

Risk reporting can be part of regular project status reports to ensure that stakeholders are aware of any potential risks to the project and the steps being taken to manage them. It also helps to concentrate all communication regarding a specific project into one report, one source of truth.

Communicating risks effectively during a project ensures that all stakeholders know potential issues and take proactive measures to address them. This can help minimize the impact of risks on the project and increase the likelihood of a successful outcome.

By following these steps, companies can effectively manage potential risks associated with developing a new product, minimize the impact of negative events, and increase the chances of success. Effective risk management can also help companies comply with regulations, enhance product quality, increase efficiency, improve decision-making, enhance communication, and foster innovation.

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Case Study – Negative consequence for not managing risks

Numerous new products have been manufactured without adequately managing risks, leading to negative consequences for the company and its customers. Here are a few notable examples:

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 – In 2016, Samsung released the Galaxy Note 7, marketed as a high-end smartphone with advanced features. However, the device was plagued with battery problems that caused some units to catch fire or explode. Samsung initially tried to address the issue by issuing a recall and offering replacements, but the replacements also had the same problem. Eventually, Samsung had to issue a second recall and discontinue the product altogether. The Galaxy Note 7 debacle cost Samsung an estimated $5.3 billion in losses.

Boeing 737 Max – The Boeing 737 Max was designed to upgrade the famous 737 aircraft with improved fuel efficiency and other features. However, the plane was involved in two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, both linked to a faulty automated system called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). It was later revealed that Boeing had rushed the development of the 737 Max and needed to test the MCAS system adequately. The crash’s fallout has cost Boeing billions of dollars in losses and lawsuits.

Takata Airbags – Takata was a Japanese automotive supplier that manufactured airbags for many car manufacturers. However, it was discovered that the airbags could deploy with too much force and rupture, sending metal shrapnel into the car’s cabin. The defect has been linked to at least 27 deaths and hundreds of injuries worldwide. It was later revealed that Takata had known about the defect for years but had failed to take adequate measures to address it.

These examples illustrate the importance of managing risks in the product development process. In each case, the company faced significant financial and reputational damage due to the failure of its product. Proper risk management could have helped identify these issues early and take steps to mitigate or avoid them.

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Portfolio balanced risk

A balanced project portfolio is essential in risk management in the product development context. This concept involves allocating resources and efforts across a variety of projects in a way that minimizes overall risk exposure and maximizes returns. The goal is to balance the portfolio by considering various factors, including project size, strategic and market fit, competitive advantages, financial fit, resource requirements, and overall risk level.

The development and management of the product portfolio will be addressed later in this program. Still, in general terms, portfolio management provides a framework for managing risk through the following elements:

1 – Define the portfolio: Begin by defining the portfolio of projects that you will be managing. This includes new product development initiatives, process improvement projects, research and development initiatives, product improvement or revamp, and other related efforts.

2 – Prioritize projects: Prioritize the projects in the portfolio based on their strategic and market fit, competitive advantage, technical and financial capacity, risk level, and potential returns. This step involves considering the goals and objectives of the organization, as well as the market and competitive landscape.

3 – Allocate resources: Allocate resources to the projects in the portfolio based on their priority and resource requirements. This includes human, financial, and other resources necessary to execute the project.

4 – Monitor progress: Monitor the progress of each project in the portfolio to ensure that it is on track and meeting its objectives. Regularly evaluate the risks associated with each project and adjust the allocation of resources as needed to balance the overall portfolio.

5 – Optimize the portfolio: Continuously optimize the portfolio by adjusting the allocation of resources to maximize returns and minimize overall risk exposure. This involves regularly evaluating the performance of each project and adjusting the portfolio as needed.

Organizations can effectively manage risk and optimize their returns by implementing a balanced project portfolio approach to product development. This approach enables them to allocate resources strategically and make informed decisions about which projects to pursue, ultimately leading to better outcomes for the organization. Never underestimates the value of a general business-wise alignment on which project is a priority. Not only will you have a general agreement on the best project for the company, but by focusing your resources to help mitigate risk and avoid having underdog projects moving along and generating unmapped risks.

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Case Study – P&G and Portfolio Management

Consider Procter & Gamble (P&G), a well-known multinational consumer goods company. P&G uses a portfolio management approach to prioritize its product development initiatives across various brands, including Crest, Pampers, Tide, and others. The company has a portfolio of hundreds of projects at any given time, and it prioritizes these projects based on strategic fit, resource requirements, and risk level.

To manage its portfolio, P&G uses a three-tiered approach that involves:

1. Strategic Choices: P&G evaluates its strategic choices and identifies which brands and product categories to focus on. For example, the company may prioritize initiatives related to personal care products or household cleaning products.

2. Portfolio Choices: Based on its strategic choices, P&G evaluates its portfolio of projects and identifies which initiatives align with its strategic priorities. The company may prioritize initiatives to lead to new product launches or drive growth in key markets.

3. Project Choices: Finally, P&G evaluates individual projects and determines which initiatives to pursue based on their resource requirements, potential returns, and risk level. The company may prioritize projects aligned with its strategic priorities and have a high potential for success.

By balancing its project portfolio approach, P&G can effectively manage its risk exposure and optimize its returns across various brands and product categories. “The Game Changer,” a book by A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan, outlines P&G’s approach to product development and provides several examples of how the company prioritizes its portfolio of projects.

One example from the book is the launch of P&G’s Swiffer product line. The Swiffer line was launched in the early 2000s and became an instant success, generating billions of dollars in revenue for the company. However, the development of the Swiffer line was challenging.

P&G had an extensive portfolio of projects then and needed to prioritize which initiatives to pursue. The company identified a few key strategic priorities, including the need to improve its home care business, and evaluated its portfolio of projects based on these priorities.

The Swiffer product line was one of many initiatives being considered by P&G at the time. Still, it stood out because it aligned with the company’s strategic priorities and had the potential to be a game-changer in the home care market. P&G allocated significant resources to developing the Swiffer line and worked to overcome the technical and manufacturing challenges associated with the product.

Ultimately, the launch of the Swiffer line was a massive success for P&G, and the product became one of the company’s top revenue generators. The example of the Swiffer line demonstrates how P&G uses a balanced project portfolio approach to prioritize its product development initiatives and allocate resources strategically to maximize returns and minimize risk.

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Exercise – Risk Assessment for Product Development

Objective: This exercise aims to provide a practical understanding of risk management in product development and help them identify, assess, and prioritize risks associated with new product development initiatives.

Exercise:

1. Break the team into groups of two or three and assign each group a stage of the project, such as product development, marketing, or production.

2. Each group needs to develop a fictional (or past) product development scenario relevant to their company. The scenario should include details about the product, target market, competition, and any specific challenges or constraints.

3. Each group must identify, and brainstorm potential risks associated with the product development process. They should consider various categories of risks, such as market, technical, regulatory, supply chain, etc. They should consider internal and external factors impacting the product’s success.

4. Once the risks are identified, it is time to evaluate them based on their likelihood of occurrence and potential impact on the project’s objectives.

5. Once the risks have been assessed, ask each group to discuss and determine appropriate risk mitigation strategies for the identified risks. Participants should consider measures to prevent, mitigate, transfer, or accept the risks.

6. After completing their risk assessments and mitigation strategies, each group will quickly present their findings to the larger workshop audience. Participation is encouraged to share insights and perspectives on risks and mitigation approaches.

7. Finally, discuss the importance of risk management in product development and the potential impact of effective risk mitigation strategies on project success.

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Course Manual 3: Phase-Gate Methodology

When there is a project, there should be a plan. This methodology supports the planning and improves the quality of the execution significantly.

The stage gate process is a popular project management methodology widely used in product development. It involves breaking down a project into a series of stages, each representing a distinct phase of the development process. Each stage is then further divided into individual gates or decision points, which act as checkpoints to assess progress, identify potential issues, and determine whether the project should proceed to the next stage.

The stage gate process is designed to be highly structured and organized, ensuring that projects are delivered on time, within budget, and to the required quality standards. It helps to reduce the risk of failure by providing clear guidelines and criteria for decision-making at each stage, allowing project managers to identify and address potential issues early in the development process.

In contrast, traditional product development often takes a more siloed approach, where different teams or departments work on separate parts of the project with limited communication or collaboration. This can lead to delays, misunderstandings, and a lack of coordination, ultimately impacting the project’s success.

Intuitively, an organization can deliver new products to the market. A traditional approach would be for the Sales team to bring a new idea from the market (a competitor’s new launches or a client request). They will report the identified needs to the engineering and design team, who will solve the formulated problem with their best knowledge. They will ascertain that the product complies with regulatory standards and is optimized with the manufacturing constraints. They will invest in mould or equipment to produce the new product. Marketing will develop promotional material, and the product will hit the market at the promo price to catch attention. Sales will push the discounted new product. Customer Services or technical support will handle complaints… and the cycle will start over.

That approach is commonly used in many companies. The overall objective is achieved: adding a new product to the market and feeling that the client’s need has been addressed. Unfortunately, that intuitive or traditional approach does not allow all ongoing project visibility. The absence of decision-making might influence the time-to-market, as the priority most likely changes every week.

Other than not being efficient, there are some issues with that approach. First, the consumer needs to be put in the process. The team needs to look at the relevance of the market and understand consumer needs before developing a new product. The consumer does not test the product or is surveyed to express their needs. Secondly, the work starts right away on the drawing board without first having developed a business case outlining the general characteristics of the project, such as the selling price and the production cost, to ensure profitability. This also highlights the need for a more technical or financial analysis before developing the product. Thirdly, customer service or technical support will quickly be overwhelmed by calls from unsatisfied consumers or clients due to a lack of consumer testing. The consumer needs help understanding the product, or sales might be much lower than expected. All those variables must be addressed before the company spends a dollar on execution. Finally, there is no way this process can be accelerated, evaluated in terms of capacity, or scaled up. For this traditional approach to work, you need many highly experienced people with lots of goodwill and decision-making capacity—clearly not a sustainable way in today’s labour shortage context.

The traditional approach can also be qualified as a sequential approach to product development: each task needs to happen one after the other in a silo. Nothing in parallel. It is mentioned in the literature that by moving from sequential to parallel or simultaneous project planning, the process is shortened significantly, even up to 25-30% of its time. The product development professional looked at the project management tools and adapted some principles to get from the traditional to a more efficient way.

Another key element of the traditional approach is the need for more opportunities to stop a project. Having a project moving along without visibility to the higher management does not allow one to ask questions or mitigate risks. By working in silos, decision-makers have no milestones to examine the project’s economics and assess its cost-effectiveness. At no point a document compiled the technical and the business risk of moving along with a client’s request. The risk of launching a new product that is not financially sustainable is high. To maintain a profitable product portfolio, new product launches should be assessed at some point and killed if they are not within the acceptable financial framework.

The Phase-Gate methodology is a concept borrowed from the Project Management best practices that help mitigate your risk while moving along. It contributes to separating the execution from the decision-making point. It also allows the decision-makers to follow the product development progress and make investment decisions at the proper time. Developing the product by phase allows for mitigating the financial and technical risks. The risk is high at the beginning, as there are many unknown elements, such as the volume sold, the cost of the product, and the ability to manufacture the product. As the project moves to the phase and gates, questions are answered, and business and financial risks are reduced significantly. Risk mitigation is what drives the structure of the Phase Gate. The team built the project based on the significant risks that must be addressed to make a strong concept before investing money into building it.

Phases are when the operational work is done, while Gates are decision points where decision-makers share insights. Those Gates become checkpoints, or Milestone, in the project. The Phase Gate becomes the framework within which the work is structured into delivering key information for the following decision points. The ability to break down the project into phases is key while working with a cross-functional team. Some team, like Marketing, might be required to be involved in multiples phase of the projects, while the manufacturing team only need to be involved later. The design or research team will be highly involved at the very beginning of the projects while less involved towards the end. The Phase-Gate structure makes clear the transfer from one group to another, from one phase to another, in product development.

The Phase-Gate Methodology starts with an idea and terminates when the new product is launched. Every step in between framed the development. In product development, it is essential to build prototypes early on and have an evolving concept that follows consumer behaviour instead of working in isolation without outside intervention. The Phase Gate approach will support it by developing certain elements, validating, and coming back with a decision before investing too many resources and ending up with a useless product the consumer doesn’t understand.

Benefits of a new product process

New product development exists but might be in a more intuitive way than with a structured approach. No matter the size of your organization, there is an informal process or meeting where projects are reviewed, and conversation happens for the new product to come to life. The need to move from this intuitive teamwork is often associated while positioning new product development within the corporate growth strategy. Then, it becomes clear that it has to be better organized beyond the process to accelerate the new product launch. To be sustainable in time and for the resources involved, implementing the Innovation ecosystem becomes critical to corporate success. It starts with a solid process for the new product development.

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The implementation of the Stage-Gate process will deliver at least those benefits for your organization:

1. Quality of execution: Providing a clear view of what needs to be done with control and decision points will ensure improved output quality. While sharing the path, we are going through really contributes to the team’s engagement towards the quality of their deliverables, as they know what is coming next. Some parts of product development can be complex… it shouldn’t be underestimated. Sharing the overall process helps the team understand that the quality of their deliverables is also essential for the next section and the overall product.

2. Sharper focus and better prioritization: Establishing when the decisions are required and what will drive them will contribute to establishing clear criteria for selecting and prioritizing projects. The clear decision points clarify what must be done to support that decision-making. That will help separate the secondary tasks from those that must be tackled before deciding. Also, following the same process becomes a tool to communicate between teams and support them to work toward the same short-term goal: the next decision point. Managers can focus their team on the key deliverables instead of working on multiple projects with different priorities.

3. Fast Pace Parallel Processing: Once all teams know when they can contribute, it will become easier to accelerate some deliverables while better-organizing others to eliminate the loop of revision and iteration in the long run. Having a clear process mapped and shared with teams opens the door to implementing better project management practices, allocating multiple deliverables to be handled in parallel instead of waiting to have a task completed before looking at the next deliverables in line. A product development process is not something linear but really a dynamic project that can quickly become Agile, integrate Sprint, etc.

4. TRUE Cross-functional Team Approach: A cross-functional project means avoiding silos. Having a straightforward product development process mapped will help build a shared understanding of each contribution and build trust between teams. Silos happen when team members do not understand their accountability or other teams’ responsibility. Therefore, when they get involved, collaboration is difficult. Trust is difficult. And work ends up being done twice, by a different team and reworked by a third one. That’s a waste of time. A straightforward cross-functional process required that each team, and each player, understand where they add value and where it is out of their control.

5. Strong market orientation: The new product development process allows time to return to the marketing and consumer to ensure the product development is relevant for them, not just wits well in the current product portfolio. Understanding that a winning product answers a consumer’s needs is vital. To deliver on that promise, it is crucial to open the conversation with your target market and keep talking to them at every development step. The process allows a feedback loop with the customer to ensure that the product and the messaging evocate positive feedback.

6. Better homework upfront: The process will establish and share a strategy before involving the cross-functional team. The best idea in the world will not necessarily have the more significant success in the market. Before spending money on developing a new product, it is important to take the time to sit and analyze the market and the competition. Understand consumer behaviour and the problems you can solve to make their life easier. Homework must be done thoroughly upfront before involving a large team and investing many dollars into new product ideas. The process is built in a way that requires positing the strategy before moving along with the execution. A poorly thought project will only translate into a very messy execution.

7. Launch product with a competitive advantage: To be sustainable on the market and generate repurchases, your new product must solve consumers’ problems that the competition doesn’t. When evaluating ideas, it is essential to pinpoint the product’s competitive advantages. The process ensures the validation of the competitive advantage. The competitive advantage will always be highlighted by opening a conversation with your target customers since it will drive consumer interest, the sales forecast, and the messaging for commercialization. The process ensures you will not launch a me-too product with a very short lifecycle.

Overall, the stage-gate process provides a structured and systematic approach to help companies develop high-quality products that meet customer needs while minimizing risk and cost. As such, it can be a highly beneficial tool for companies in various industries seeking to bring successful products to market.

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Case Study – Nabisco and Oreo development

Let’s look at an example of product development that went through a stage-gate process and benefited from it. The Oreo Thins line from Nabisco is a popular food product that underwent Nabisco’s stage-gate process, which involved breaking down the product development into stages focused on ideation, concept testing, formulation, sensory testing, and launch.

During the ideation stage, Nabisco’s team brainstormed ideas for a new Oreo product that would appeal to health-conscious consumers who wanted a lighter snack. In the concept testing stage, the team tested different product concepts with consumers to identify the most appealing option.

At the formulation stage, the team developed a product recipe that would meet consumers’ taste preferences while meeting Nabisco’s quality and safety standards. In the sensory testing stage, the product was tested by a panel of experts to ensure that it had the desired texture, flavour, and aroma.

The product was introduced to the market in the launch stage with a comprehensive marketing and advertising campaign. The Oreo Thins line has been a commercial success, partly thanks to the rigorous stage-gate process used to develop and launch the product.

By breaking the development process into distinct stages and gates, Nabisco ensured that the Oreo Thins line was developed with high-quality ingredients, met consumers’ taste preferences, and was introduced to the market with a comprehensive marketing and advertising campaign. This helped to ensure the product’s success and ongoing popularity with consumers.

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An idea-to-launch process

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A video from Arpit Malik gives a high-level view of Product Innovation

The product development process starts with an idea and ends with a successful product on the market. Some key elements need to be understood to evolve the idea to actual success.

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IDEA and OPPORTUNITY:

All products start with an idea. An idea is a concept or thought that has the potential to be developed into a product or service. It is often the starting point for product development and comes from multiple places: strategic opportunity or strategic objective, client requests, a cost reduction initiative, supplier constraints, employee ideas, etc. In the context of an existing product, an idea may refer to potential improvements or new features that could be added to the product. An idea could generate one unique product, a product line, or a whole new product platform. All those undefined variables and options need to be clarified. That’s what we call the Fuzzy Front End. It regrouped everything from the innovation strategy to the product concept before starting the formal product development. It provides room to nurture ideas up to solid product concepts in a non-linear way, evaluate the market, seize the opportunity, and assess consumer needs. It isn’t easy to formalize that part of the process into specific timing as it is un-sequential and varies significantly depending on the idea or the market opportunities you are working on.

The outcome is the Business Case, a solid business proposal determining whether the product will be developed.

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Case Study

Here are some examples of how ideas and opportunities could be formulated:

• A new mobile app that helps users track their water intake and reminds them to drink enough water throughout the day.

• A new type of electric car battery that charges more quickly and has a longer range than existing batteries.

• A new line of plant-based protein snacks targeted at health-conscious consumers.

• A service that connects freelance graphic designers with small businesses needing design work.

• A subscription-based service that delivers fresh, locally sourced produce to customers’ doors each week.

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You can see that they do not point to specific features, the number of SKUs, or dimensions. They present opportunities that require further investigation, such as looking at secondary data, talking with the consumer, etc., to validate if it is a business-worthy opportunity. That is what will lead to the business case.

BUSINESS CASE: The business case is the document that regroups all the critical information to decide if the company will invest in a new product or kill the idea and invest in something else. A business case is a document that outlines the financial and strategic justifications for investing in a particular product or service. It typically includes a detailed analysis of market trends, customer needs, competitive landscape, and financial projections, among other factors. That document can be presented as an official report or as a presentation. The time to build the business case varies depending on the work done in the front end, the size of the opportunity and the risk the company will take if they decide to move forward with the product development.

The business case should regroup all critical elements for the decision-making. It must put the product project into the context of the company strategies and demonstrate that it is relevant to achieve the corporate objective.

It should comprehensively describe the market, product category and competition. Another program module will help you build a comprehensive competitive analysis to help strategically develop a product with winning features.

Another aspect critical to product adoption is presenting the consumers, the end users, more specifically, what the problem is that your product solves in the consumers’ life. It is critical to develop the product around a consumer’s needs.

Consumers don’t know what they need; they know what they do with existing products – direct and indirect competition. The product development team is the expert in identifying needs and developing solutions to make this consumer’s life easier. The Voice-of-Customer will be addressed later. There will be a whole conversation about product-centric and consumer-centric approaches later. The essential point is that you significantly increase your product’s long-term profitability and sustainability by putting your consumer in the middle of your product development.

Also, highlighting the competitive advantage, also known as a unique value proposition or unique selling proposition, is critical to ensuring product differentiation in the market. At that point, your product concept should be evolved enough that the technical team can provide a preliminary technical assessment so the feasibility is assessed in terms of timing and investment requirement.

The business case will only be complete with the financial assessment. The economic assessment is a preliminary evaluation of the profitability of the project. The preliminary forecast could vary around 25% between the business case and further analysis. The price positioning should be put into the context of the competitive landscape, and the cost will become a target for the development.

It is possible also to include key information, so the business case is also used as a project charter. This means having a preliminary Gantt Chart, Risk assessment, and embedding technical specifications in the appendix. That way, once the business case is approved, the project charter is also approved, and your team can start working immediately.

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Case Study – Business case

Let’s say a company that produces athletic shoes is considering expanding its product line to include a new line of environmentally sustainable shoes made from recycled materials. To evaluate the feasibility of this idea, the company would need to create a business case that outlines the potential financial and strategic benefits of this new product line.

The business case might include the following components:

• Strategic alignment: An assessment of how the new product line aligns with the company’s overall strategic goals and values.

• Market analysis: Research the market for environmentally sustainable shoes, including customer demand, competition, and pricing.

• Cost analysis: An analysis of the production costs for the new shoes, including the costs of sourcing recycled materials, manufacturing, and marketing.

• Revenue potential: An estimate of the potential revenue the new product line could generate based on sales projections and pricing.

• Risk analysis: An evaluation of the potential risks associated with launching the new product line, such as production delays, supply chain issues, or low customer demand.

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Using this information, the company could evaluate the new product line’s potential financial and strategic benefits and determine whether it is a worthwhile investment. This business case would help the company make a well-informed decision about moving forward with the new product line or focusing on other opportunities.

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION: Now that the decision-makers have approved Business Case, it is time to spend money and involve a larger cross-functional team. Once again, the time may vary significantly based on the industry, the type of product and the complexity of the challenge. Multiple departments will be involved in developing and testing the product. This is where the efficiency of a clear product development process will accelerate the time-to-market.

The validation phase involves gathering feedback from potential customers, stakeholders, and other experts to evaluate the potential demand for the product and identify any potential issues or challenges. This can include surveys, focus groups, and other forms of market research to assess customer preferences, willingness to pay, and other vital factors that can impact the product’s success.

The development phase assesses the product’s technical, financial, and operational feasibility. This can involve evaluating the product’s design, production requirements, costs, and supply chain logistics, among other factors. This phase helps to determine whether the product can be produced and brought to market at a reasonable cost while still meeting customer needs and preferences.

The product itself might evolve during that phase, as the manufacturing process might raise constraints that were unknown earlier. Also, it is the opportunity to optimize production, such as optimizing product dimensions to facilitate transformation or logistics. As the product comes together, it is crucial to keep validating with your consumer and test its usage and messaging. During those phases of product development, the team needs to take action to provide more precise forecasts, prices, and costs by pursuing market validation and tests.

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Case Study – Red Bull

Let’s take the example of the popular energy drink, Red Bull. Before launching the product, Red Bull underwent a thorough development and validation phase to ensure its success in the market.

During the validation phase, Red Bull conducted extensive market research to evaluate customer preferences and demand for the product. The company found a growing demand for energy-boosting products among young adults, especially those engaged in sports and other physical activities. The company also identified a gap in the market for a beverage that combined energy drinks’ benefits with soft drinks’ taste and appeal.

In the feasibility phase, Red Bull focused on assessing the technical and operational feasibility of the product. The company invested heavily in research and development to ensure the product was safe and effective. It also worked to develop a unique flavour and branding that would appeal to its target audience.

Overall, Red Bull’s validation and feasibility phase was critical to its success in the market. By gathering feedback from potential customers and assessing the product’s technical and operational feasibility, the company could develop a product that was financially viable and met customer needs and preferences.

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That shows the value of the development and validation phase by clearly understanding whether the product concept is feasible and viable in the market. The development and validation phase helps identify potential issues or challenges with the product concept, such as low customer demand, high production costs, or technical challenges. It helps to develop strategies to address these issues.

Those conclusions might lead to a decision to move forward with the product development process, with modifications or adjustments to the original concept based on the feedback received during this phase. Alternatively, the outcome may be a decision to abandon the product concept entirely if it is determined that it is not financially viable or there needs to be more customer demand.

Ultimately, the development and validation phase outcome is a well-informed decision about whether or not to move forward with the product development process. This decision is based on a thorough assessment of the product concept, including its technical feasibility, market demand, production costs, and other key factors that can impact its success in the market. By conducting a thorough validation and feasibility phase, companies can make more informed decisions about their product development investments and increase their chances of success in the market.

All that key validation helps to move forward and build a solid launch and product plan. That is the last chance to strategize and validate different aspects of the project. The next phase will be the execution of the launch.

LAUNCH: The last stretch of the project is the execution or launch. It involves bringing the product to life with the first mass production of the product (any tests run should have been completed in the previous phase), and it usually starts with ordering all the raw materials. There is no turning back at this point. The launch campaign also moves to execution. Everything from photoshoots to PR activities should be timed perfectly and come to the launch readiness simultaneously. It may also involve all the client’s presentations as well. What is the length of this last phase? I will say between the longest lead time for raw material and production or the longest listing lead time. It could be between 3 months after the first shipment and twelve months after the first sale. It will end based on metrics that the team will have defined beforehand.

The company generates revenue from its investment when the product is finally introduced to customers. The product is introduced to the market during the launch phase, generating interest among potential customers. This can involve a range of marketing and advertising activities, such as promotional events, social media campaigns, influencer marketing, and targeted advertising. The goal is to create buzz and excitement around the product and generate interest and demand among potential customers.

Another critical aspect of the launch phase is gathering customer feedback and addressing any issues or challenges. This can involve monitoring customer reviews and feedback, handling customer complaints or issues, and continually improving the product based on customer feedback.

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Case Study – DeWalt Compact Drill Launch

One example of a successful first production and launch is the DeWalt DCD771C2 20V Max Lithium-Ion Compact Drill/Driver Kit.

DeWalt is a well-known brand in the power tool industry, and the launch of the DCD771C2 drill/driver kit was a significant milestone for the company. The product was developed to meet the needs of professional contractors and DIY enthusiasts, focusing on delivering reliable performance and versatility.

The launch of the product was carefully planned and executed, with an emphasis on generating interest and demand among potential customers. This included targeted advertising, promotion, in-store displays, and product demonstrations. DeWalt also ensured that the product was widely available and accessible to customers through their retail stores and online marketplace network.

The DCD771C2 drill/driver kit has been very successful since its launch, with positive reviews from customers and high demand in the market. The product is known for its powerful performance, compact design, and ease of use, making it a popular choice among both professionals and DIY enthusiasts.

Overall, the successful launch of the DeWalt DCD771C2 20V Max Lithium-Ion Compact Drill/Driver Kit demonstrates the importance of effective planning and execution in the launch phase of product development. By effectively marketing and promoting the product, making it accessible to customers, and delivering high quality and reliability, DeWalt succeeded in the competitive power tool market.

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Successful product launches require careful planning and execution, including effective marketing and advertising, establishing distribution channels, and gathering customer feedback. By effectively executing the launch phase, companies can increase their chances of success in the market and achieve their business goals.

However, it’s important to remember that the launch phase is not the end of the product development process. Instead, it’s just the beginning of the product’s lifecycle, and ongoing efforts will be required to continue to improve and evolve the product over time. By continually gathering customer feedback, monitoring market trends, and investing in continuous product development efforts, companies can ensure the long-term success of their products and stay competitive in the market.

Phase-Gate or Stage-Gate® model

The Phase-Gate Concept was adapted to product development by Robert Cooper into what is known as the Stage-Gate ®. We will go over the concept of the traditional Stage-Gate® as defined in books. Once you understand the Stage-Gate, that will help to develop your Phase-Gate process, adapted to your reality and that relevant for your organization.

In the Stage-Gate process, a Stage is a distinct phase defined by specific objectives, activities, and deliverables. Each stage typically involves a set of activities that are designed to achieve specific goals and move the product development process forward.

On the other hand, a Gate is a decision point that marks the end of one phase and the beginning of the next. At each gate, a review is conducted to evaluate the progress of the project and determine whether or not it is ready to move on to the next phase. This review involves assessing the quality of the work completed during the previous phase and the feasibility and potential success of the project moving forward.

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The decision to move forward to the next phase is typically made by a cross-functional team of stakeholders, who assess the progress made in the current phase against predetermined criteria. This ensures that the product development process moves forward in a controlled, structured way and that potential issues are identified and addressed before they become significant problems.

The Stage Gate promoted by Cooper had six clear stages:

• IDEA: the process starts with a new idea that will be submitted to Gate #1, Idea screening. Ideas can come from multiple sources; there is no limitation on how someone, somewhere, has an idea. It can be generated by strategic planning, marketing planning, consumer or clients’ needs, supplier innovation, new business models, or an emerging problem. One key element of success is developing ideas into product concepts to evaluate their potential at the Gate.

• GATE #1 – IDEA SCREENING: The first decision point is where product concepts or ideas are assessed. It is essential to have clear criteria to filter ideas, such as determining the size of the target market, the competitive landscape, and the resources required to develop and launch the product.

The main objective of the Idea Screening Gate is to identify and eliminate any ideas that are unlikely to be successful and to prioritize those that show the most potential. This helps to ensure that the product development process is focused on ideas that are more likely to succeed while avoiding wasting resources on ideas that are unlikely to succeed.

At this Gate, the product development team presents a summary of the findings to a decision-making body, usually consisting of senior management and other key stakeholders. The decision-making body decides which ideas should move forward to the next phase based on the screening process results.

Since the concept is still preliminary, the risk is the need for more consistency between decisions that might generate frustration within the organization. This Gate is the first commitment to allocate resources to develop the concept further and come back with a more rounded concept. It is the first GO on the project.

• STAGE #1 – PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT: This phase is designed to evaluate the product idea further and gather more information to determine whether it is feasible and viable. It includes leveraging secondary data to assess the size of the opportunity. The product development team conducts a more detailed analysis of the product idea, including market research, evaluating technical feasibility, and assessing the resources required to develop and launch the product. This information is used to refine the concept and identify potential challenges that may need to be addressed in later phases. The main objective of the Preliminary Assessment Phase is to determine whether the product idea is worth pursuing further. This includes assessing the market’s potential size, estimating the costs and potential revenue streams, and identifying any technical or logistical challenges that may need to be overcome.

It is usually an inexpensive step. Suppose this product concept is relatively new or addresses a new market. In that case, investing in collecting primary data, such as focus groups or other direct contacts with consumers, may be relevant. At the end of this phase, the team presents a more detailed report to the decision-making body, outlining the findings and recommendations for moving forward. Based on the assessment results, the decision-makers decide whether to move the product idea to the next phase or not.

The objective of the technical assessment is to quantify the manufacturing capability and have a budget estimation of the investment that will be required, as well as the time needed to deliver the final product. This helps to minimize risks and increase the likelihood of success for the product development project.

• GATE #2 – SECOND SCREEN: This gate allows the decision maker to re-evaluate the projects approved in gate #1 with more information. Ideally, the Gate #2 decision is based on the same criteria as Gate #1 but allows a more in-depth conversation about the opportunity and the investment required.

During this Gate, the product development team presents a summary of their findings to a decision-making body, typically composed of senior management and key stakeholders. Their preliminary evaluation of the product ideas should include the potential feasibility and success assessment through the market potential for the product, the competitive landscape, and any potential technical or financial barriers to success. Based on the screening process results, the decision-making body then decides which ideas should move forward to the next phase.

The objective of this Gate is to eliminate any ideas that are unlikely to be successful and to prioritize those that show the most potential. This helps to ensure that the product development process is focused on ideas with the greatest chance of success while minimizing the risk of wasting resources on unlikely ideas.

• STAGE #2 – DEFINITION: This stage allows the team to build the strategy, as the next stage will be product development. In this stage, some spending is required to investigate the market further, potentially develop some prototypes and evaluate the adoption by final consumers. This stage is heavy in market research in many forms, as it will seal the opportunity before spending money executing the product. This involves defining the project’s goals, objectives, and requirements and assessing the market, technology, and resources required to develop the product.

The definitions stage is typically initiated by a project champion or sponsor who has identified a business need or opportunity and seeks approval to move the project forward. Some of the critical activities of the definitions stage in the Stage-Gate process typically include:

• Conducting market analysis to assess the size, growth potential, and competitive landscape of the target market

• Conducting a technical assessment to determine the feasibility of the product idea and identify any technical challenges or risks

• Developing a preliminary business case to justify the investment in the project, including estimates of the potential revenue, cost, and profit

• Defining the project’s scope, objectives, and success criteria

• Identifying the project team and resources required to complete the project

• Developing a preliminary project plan and timeline

• Approval to move the project forward.

It’s also the phase where the product concept evolves. Another author, Alan Cooper, in his book “About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design,” suggests that the Definition Phase becomes the phase where the user-centred design process begins. That means that the design team works to define the project’s goals, objectives, and requirements. This stage involves gathering information about the users, their needs, and the context in which they will use the product. The definitions stage is crucial because it sets the foundation for the rest of the design process and ensures that the design team is aligned with the needs of the users and the business.

During the Definitions Stage, Alan Cooper recommends that the design team conduct research to deeply understand the users, including their goals, tasks, and pain points. This may involve conducting user interviews, surveys, and contextual inquiries to gather qualitative and quantitative data. The team will then analyze this data to identify user patterns and behaviours and any constraints or opportunities for the design.

Once the user research is complete, the design team can finetune the project’s goals, objectives, and requirements. This may involve creating user personas and scenarios, which help to bring the user research to life and provide a clear understanding of who the users are and how they will use the product. The team will also define the product’s functional requirements, including features, functions, and interactions, and identify technical constraints or limitations.

All that research will help to define the launch strategy regarding distribution channels, develops and refines different aspects of the product and clearly understands the «must have» features versus the «nice to have» from the consumer’s point of view. The last part of this stage is to build a first financial assessment that will provide a target volume, price, margin, and cost. This financial analysis will evolve as we move forward, as the assumptions used in the Stage #2 will become more solid as the product is developed.

• GATE #3 – DECISION ON BUSINESS CASE: This gate is the final decision point before investing in product development. It represents the last point where the project can be killed before more substantial investment. The first part of the decision is based on all the information gathered in Stage #2, where the essential is assembled in a business case. Expectations are that the document presented answers, at the minimum the following interrogations:

• Strategic alignment: Does the proposed product align with the organization’s strategy and goals?

• Market potential: Is there a viable market for the proposed product? What is the market size, and what is the competitive landscape?

• Technical feasibility: Given the resources and capabilities of the organization, is the proposed product technically feasible?

• Financial viability: Given the estimated costs and potential revenue, is the proposed product financially viable? What is the projected return on investment (ROI)?

• Risk assessment: What potential risks are associated with the project, and how will they be mitigated?

To pass the Decision on the business case Gate, the project must meet specific predetermined criteria or “gates.” These gates may vary depending on the organization and the specific project, but they typically include a minimum threshold for each evaluation criterion mentioned above.

The second part of the decision will look at the project management aspect. The team needs to present a scope clearly defined, an estimate of the resources required (human and financial), and a high-level Gantt chart with critical milestones.

If the project meets the predetermined criteria, it is approved to move on to the next stage of the Stage-Gate process. If the project does not meet the requirements, it may be sent back to the Definitions stage for further refinement or terminated altogether.

• STAGE #3 – PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: The project team focuses on developing a detailed product design and creating a working product prototype during this stage. It initiates more spending than the previous phase, as more face-to-face conversations with consumers are required, as well as prototyping and potential moulding investment. Some of the activities at this point include, but are not limited to:

• Detailed product design: The project team works to develop a detailed product design that considers user needs, market requirements, and technical feasibility. This includes creating detailed specifications, drawings, and schematics.

• Prototype development: The project team creates a working prototype of the product, which is used to test and refine the product design. The prototype may be a physical model or a virtual simulation.

• Testing and validation: The project team conducts a series of tests to validate the product design and ensure that the product meets the desired performance, quality, and reliability standards.

• Design for manufacturability: The project team works to optimize the product design for ease of manufacturing and assembly to minimize costs and improve efficiency.

• Intellectual property protection: The project team works to protect the product’s intellectual property by filing patents, trademarks, and other legal protections as needed.

Throughout this phase, the project team must manage the project’s scope, timeline, and budget to ensure that the project remains on track and within budget. This may involve adjusting the product design or development plan as new information becomes available. It is a challenging phase in terms of project management, as many variables can move simultaneously, which might impact the timeline, budget, resources, etc.

This stage is heavily technical, while marketing keeps validating iteration and design changes with the consumer. The launch plan must also be locked at the end of the stage. Financial analysis needs to be updated regularly if the product is developed and the different aspects of the costing evolve.

Ultimately, the team should be able to play with a working prototype for evaluation at Gate #4. If the prototype meets the predetermined criteria, the project is approved to move on to the next stage of the Stage-Gate process. If the prototype does not meet the criteria, the project may be sent back to the Product development phase for further refinement or terminated altogether.

• GATE #4 – POST-DEVELOPMENT REVIEW: This gate acts more as a sanity check at the end of the development. The team presented a product concept associated with a market opportunity and technical and financial assessment in Gate #3. They now need to introduce the decision maker to the final prototype of the product that will be launched. If a significant issue was raised during the product development that affected the scope, it should have been presented at that time, as the gate does not act as a project update but as the presentation of the hard work put into Stage #3.

Robert Cooper, the Stage-Gate process creator, recommends several key criteria that should be evaluated in the Post Development review Gate. These criteria include:

o Strategic alignment: Did the product align with the organization’s overall business strategy and goals?

o Market performance: Did the product meet its market performance objectives, such as sales volume, market share, and customer satisfaction?

o Technical performance: Did the product meet its technical performance requirements, such as reliability, durability, and ease of use?

o Financial performance: Did the product meet its financial objectives, such as return on investment (ROI) and profitability?

The financial revision is crucial in the post-development decision, as the cost is nearly finalized. Therefore, the economics of the whole project is in balance.

To pass the Post Development review Gate, the project must meet or exceed the predetermined criteria or “gates” for each of the evaluation criteria mentioned above. The project team is responsible for preparing a detailed report that outlines the project’s results, including technical specifications, financial performance, and market performance. This report is presented to a review committee or steering team for evaluation.

If the project meets the predetermined criteria, it is approved for commercialization and launched into the market. If the project does not meet the criteria, it may be returned for further refinement or terminated altogether.

• STAGE #4 – VALIDATION: This phase tests all aspects of the product, from technical to consumer acceptance. It varies from in-house resistance tests to end-users actual product trials. While in Stage #3, the team works on the cost aspect. In this stage, the team refined the pricing and volume of the product to provide a revised financial that will embed less variability.

Some of the activities that are typically part of this phase are:

o Market testing: Market tests continue to validate the product’s potential appeal to customers and its ability to meet market needs. This may involve testing the product in a specific market segment or with a particular customer group.

o Customer feedback: The project team gathers feedback from customers/end-users on the product’s performance, features, and overall satisfaction. This feedback is used to refine the product design and improve as needed.

o Business model validation: If applicable, the team tests and validates the product’s business model, including pricing, distribution channels, and revenue streams.

o Validation of the production process or the pilot run tests. Usually, to validate the manufacturability, the team runs a small production to ensure that the product can be produced efficiently and at a reasonable cost.

The Validation Stage ensures that the product meets customer needs and market requirements before it is launched. It also helps identify improvement areas and provides valuable feedback for future product development projects.

• GATE #5 – PRE-COMMERCIALIZATION: That gate is the last before commercialization. In the previous phase, the team ran all the tests and validation to finalize the product readiness for manufacturing while keeping in the loop the Marketing team to ensure the commercialization is aligned with the product features. Some features may need to be cancelled due to manufacturing process limitations. It is key to work as a team, so the plan presented at this Gate can be deployed.

Some of the deliverables that are presented to the decision-makers might include:

Pre-Commercialization Gate. These activities include:

o Final market testing: The project team conducts final market tests to validate the product’s appeal to customers and ability to meet market needs.

o Production planning: The project team plans to produce the product, including identifying suppliers, estimating production costs, and developing a production schedule.

o Marketing planning: The project team develops a marketing plan for the product, including identifying target markets, developing marketing messages, and planning promotional activities.

o Financial planning: The project team develops a financial plan for the product, including estimating sales volumes, revenue projections, and profit margins.

The project team is responsible for preparing a detailed report that outlines the results of the market testing, production planning, marketing planning, and financial planning. This report is presented to a review committee or steering team for evaluation.

This Gate is critical in ensuring that the organization is well-prepared for the product launch and has a solid production, marketing, and financial management plan. It is the last opportunity to hold the launch or kill the project altogether. It also helps to identify any potential roadblocks or challenges that may arise during the commercialization phase and provides valuable feedback for future product development projects. The decision will unlock resources ($ and humane) to launch and manufacture the new product.

• STAGE #5: COMMERCIALIZATION: This is the final stage, with the first mass-production, the execution of the launch. There is no turning back at this point. It is more focused on executing the plan presented at the previous gate.

This Stage is focused on bringing the product to market and maximizing its potential for success; therefore, some of the activities include:

o Launch planning: A detailed plan for the product’s launch should include launch dates, promotional activities, and distribution channels.

o Production: Initial mass production of the product means ensuring it is produced efficiently and reasonably.

o Marketing and sales: Execution of the marketing plan developed previously and managing the sales process to ensure the product reaches its target market.

o Support and maintenance: Support and maintenance for the product after its launch, including addressing potential customer issues.

At this stage, the team ensures that the product reaches its maximum potential for success in the market. It requires careful planning and execution to ensure the product is launched successfully and the organization is prepared to support and maintain it over its lifecycle.

That is not the end, as moving forward, the product will be part of the regular operation for the manufacturing side but also will be embedded in the product lifecycle management and move to the roadmap for further improvement, extension, and so on.

• POST IMPLEMENTATION REVIEW: At some point after the commercialization, the project should come to an end. Depending on the industry and the type of products, it could be three months, six months, or even later after the first shipment. It is important to take the time to review the product, the project, and the process so that improvement can be implemented.

Some activities that need to be tracked at this point are:

o Evaluation of the product’s performance: Tracking the product’s performance in the market, including sales figures, customer feedback, and any issues that may have arisen during the launch.

o Evaluation of the project’s performance: Evaluates the overall performance of the project, including whether it was completed on time, within budget, and according to the original scope. That is the time to celebrate, have the one pizza dinner and debrief on the overall project.

o Identification of lessons learned: Identifies key lessons learned throughout the project, including successes and challenges, and identifies opportunities for improvement in the Stage-Gate process.

o Development of recommendations: Identify potential improvements to the Stage-Gate process based on the lessons learned during the project.

That is conducted by a review committee or steering team that evaluates the project’s success based on predetermined criteria.

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Case Study – Stage Gate in larger companies

The Stage Gate has been successfully implemented in larger-scale companies.

Procter & Gamble (P&G): P&G has used the Stage-Gate process for over 30 years to develop and launch new products. They credit this process with helping them to consistently bring successful products to market on time and within budget. One notable success story is the launch of the Swiffer cleaning system, which was developed using the Stage-Gate process and became a billion-dollar brand within five years.

Nestlé: Nestlé uses Stage-Gate to develop new food and beverage products. One successful example is the Nescafe Dolce Gusto coffee machine, which was launched in 2006 after a successful Stage-Gate process. The product has since become a popular choice for home coffee brewing.

PepsiCo: PepsiCo uses the Stage-Gate process to develop and launch new snacks and beverages. One successful example is the launch of the Lay’s Do Us a Flavor campaign, which used the Stage-Gate process to solicit new flavour ideas from consumers. The campaign resulted in increased sales and engagement with customers.

And smaller company leverage that methodology too:

Lululemon Athletica: Lululemon has used the Stage-Gate process to develop and launch successful new products in the athletic apparel industry. Their process includes a focus on customer feedback and market research, which has helped them to create products that resonate with their target audience. One notable success story is the launch of their Align leggings, which were developed using the Stage-Gate process and have become one of their top-selling products.

Method: Method is a medium size company that produces eco-friendly cleaning products. The method uses a four-stage process that includes concept development, prototype creation, product testing, and launch planning. This process has helped them to develop and launch successful products that resonate with their environmentally conscious customer base.

Seventh Generation: Another medium size company that produces eco-friendly household and personal care products. Seventh Generation uses a five-stage process that includes ideation, concept development, product development, testing, and launch. This process has helped them to develop successful new products that resonate with their environmentally-conscious customer base and has contributed to their growth as a company.

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That gave a portrait of the method most used in transformation or manufacturing environments. The mindset will be applied to the process mapping required to understand your company’s needs to accelerate its product development.

Not one size fits all

The goal of the mapping will be to deconstruct the development of a complicated project. That will serve as a base to decline that process into a lighter version and adapt to your product platform reality.

Through your product management, different product types will be later isolated. If you search on the internet, you will easily find multiple product innovation matrices. The Innovation Ambition Matrix is a simple tool that helps clarify your product portfolio and commands an adapted version of your product development process. The key factor is that not all projects or products present the same risk level. Therefore, the effort invested in them should be proportionate to the risk that needs to be mitigated.

To read the Innovation Ambition Matrix, you must understand that the x-axis is the technical risk, from your core knowledge on the left to the unknown and risky venture on your right. In comparison, the Y-axis addresses your market and consumer. The bottom talk to your existing consumer, and the top identifies unknown or new consumers.

While reading the innovation Ambition Matrix, you will find your core business in the bottom left corner. It refers to your existing product line. The effort required to develop a product line extension will be limited compared to the other product type, and the time will also be shorter. It will be easier for your team to develop the technical aspect of the product and manufacture it with existing facilities. Assessing your consumer needs will also be easier since this is the consumer you know. Companies most likely have data covering their behaviour, or they can easily access them through your social media. It will also be easier to optimize the cost of the new product, as you are in control of multiple variables right from the start. While developing a new product in that matrix zone, the questions will be more towards the risk of cannibalizing your existing product and the impact on the top line.

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The opposite corner (top right) will regroup the more transformational initiatives. Those product projects aim to redefine the business, bring new business models, and bring incremental sales to the company. They talk to new consumers about new technology, new product platform, or something your team is unfamiliar with. More risk is involved with that kind of product development, so more steps are required to mitigate that risk. More validation will also be necessary to gradually reduce the risk to an acceptable level for the investor. Another aspect of that kind of project is the implication of external partners that might bring either know-how or dollars to diversify the risk for your company. Not only this category of projects is more expensive and riskier, but it usually also needs more time to be implemented and might as well need more time to ramp up in the market.

In the middle, you will find the adjacent innovation. It’s the mid-way between the previous initiatives. It leverages something your company does well and brings it to a new space. You will likely be able to support the development internally without involving partners and the financial aspect, even though involving more assumptions than the core one is still manageable in-house. The level of risk is slightly higher. More information will be required to make a solid decision, and you might not know the target consumer that well.

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Case Study – Innovation Types

Here are a few examples to help you integrate the different innovation types:

• CORE INNOVATION:

o Nabisco brought to the market a new format of its Oreo with 100-calorie packets for on-the-go snackers: Nabisco created a line extension by offering a new format to its existing consumer. The know-how of the product itself was under control. The investment was only on the packaging side. Surely, they had been able to address a problem their existing format was not solving, but they most likely talked to the same consumer. The only question left was the level of cannibalization of their traditional Oreos format does that generate versus addressing the increasing (at that time) snacking trend of their consumer.

o Dow AgroSciences proposes a new use of its dry powder by offering reformulated version as a liquid suspension. Once again, the product existed within the product line. Still, a team identified a need for liquid suspension that was not addressed, or maybe the consumer didn’t have time to dilute the dry powder and wanted to buy it ready to use. In both cases, Dow AgroSciences identified an unmet need and adapted an existing product for its existing consumer. The liquid version probably required some technical and manufacturing adjustments, but the knowledge to do so was internal, and the risk was easily mitigated.

• ADJACENT INNOVATION:

o Procter & Gamble’s Swiffer is a good example. It is within the market that P&G knows well, but they innovate with new technology to solve the consumer problem. In that case, they leverage existing consumer finds an unmet needs and develop technology – and all the manufacturing capability – to solve that consumer problem. The Swiffer’s design and performance underwent multiple iterations until it met consumer expectations perfectly. It indeed took more time to develop the Swiffer than it took to launch a new counter detergent, but it redefined the category and replaced the basic broom in multiple households.

• TRANSORMATIONAL INNOVATION

o Apple took a huge risk and invested significant money when it decided to pursue the iPhone project. Even though they were already the iPod manufacturer, raising the bar to the cellular category was another game in terms of skill set. The market players were entirely new to them. That category is highly regulated, and Apple needed to gain credibility to gain some cellular capacity. The technology was completely different, and consumer needs were also to be addressed. Entering this completely new category required a lot of market research to understand how Apple could launch a successful product and, at the same time, bring something new and differentiated.

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Understanding the different types of innovation and the risk it triggers will help to decline the robust product development process that will be mapped to address the different types of projects you may face, for instance.

Usually, the number of gates will be limited for a core business opportunity, as the risk is limited. Usually, only two gates or two decision points are required: one to accept the business case and the launch. The business case will give visibility to the product and its viability. The launch will ensure that the company is aligned with that this product will be manufactured and launched. Those two key points ensure that the product project has all the expected visibility, which will contribute to the prioritization and mobilization of the team. The Launch decision also gives visibility of the project’s profitability and the launch’s magnitude.

Sometimes, based on the nature of the business, there might be a gate system for client or customer requests to personalize some product or the product format. That kind of request means the volume is known, so the financial situation is straightforward. Depending on the investment level, maybe only one gate will be required, and fewer decision-makers can make that gate decision quickly. The critical point is to ensure that every time a new SKU is created, at least one small business case is done to assess the risk and the cannibalization. It is also essential that once approved, the project, no matter how small it is, finds its way to the portfolio list so priorities are kept the same informally. Resources still work on the projects that deliver the most value for the company.

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Exercise – Innovation Ambition Matrix

Associate the innovation with the innovation Opportunities in the Innovation Ambition Matrix.

1. Apple’s decision to launch iPhone 15.

2. Dyson’s decision to launch hair dryers.

3. Heinz’s decision to launch a new format of ketchup.

4. Heinz’s decision to launch a squeezable bottle for Ketchup.

5. Club House’s decision to launch a transparent version of the Vanilla extract used in baking.

6. Arm & Hammer’s baking coda division decision to launch a refrigerator deodorizer.

7. Bose’s decision to launch a waterproof speaker.

8. L’Oréal decision launched a plant-based, natural, and clean-label new shampoo.

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Course Manual 4: Alternative To Phase-Gate

As you can see, the Phase-Gate Approach, which this program will emphasize, has been used by multiple companies and has delivered on its promise of efficiency. Other approaches in product development can be combined with the Phase Gate or used for experimental or new business model approaches. This section will cover briefly the following:

A. Agile Development: This is a flexible and iterative approach to product development that emphasizes collaboration and adaptability. Instead of breaking the development process into distinct phases, agile development teams work in short sprints, continually testing and refining the product based on feedback and changing requirements.

B. Lean Startup: This methodology emphasizes rapid experimentation and testing to quickly identify and validate product ideas. Rather than spending significant time and resources on product development before launching, the Lean Startup approach encourages teams to create a minimum viable product (MVP) and test it with early adopters to gather feedback and refine the product.

C. Design Thinking: Renown human-centred approach to innovation. This methodology emphasizes empathy, experimentation, and iteration. Rather than starting with a specific product idea, design thinking teams focus on understanding the needs and preferences of their target customers, then generate and test multiple ideas to meet those needs.

D. Open Innovation: Involving collaboration with external partners, including customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders, to generate and develop new product ideas. This approach allows organizations to tap into a broader range of expertise and resources and can help accelerate product development.

Agile Development

Agile development is an iterative and flexible approach, mainly used in software development, emphasizing collaboration, adaptability, and customer satisfaction. Some adaptations are relevant for product development in a manufacturing environment if a good project management structure frames it.

The fundamental principles of agile development are outlined in the Agile Manifesto. That document underlining the Agile concept is a set of guiding values and principles created in 2001 by software developers who came together to find a better way to develop software. The manifesto consists of four value statements and 12 principles prioritizing individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, and response to change over processes and tools.

The four value statements of the Agile Manifesto are:

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation.
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
4. Responding to change over following a plan.

The 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto expand on these values and include the following statements:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.

3. Deliver working software frequently, with a preference for shorter timescales.

4. Businesspeople and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Please give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done.

6. A face-to-face conversation is the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team.

7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.

8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

10. Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.

11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

12. The team regularly reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.

These principles prioritize delivering value to the customer, embracing change, collaborating with customers and team members, empowering individuals, promoting face-to-face communication, valuing working software over documentation, promoting sustainable development, encouraging technical excellence, valuing simplicity, promoting self-organizing teams, and encouraging continuous improvement. Even though those principles were developed for software development, the 12 principles can easily be integrated into your team and project governance as best practices for any project. Considering that product development requires lots of flexibility, as the challenge that arises might significantly change some aspects of the project (time, budget, scope), the Agile Principles are a great way to support the team throughout the challenging phase of the project.

The Agile Manifesto has been widely adopted as a guiding philosophy for agile software development and has influenced the development of other agile methodologies, such as Scrum and Kanban. It emphasizes the importance of flexibility, collaboration, and responsiveness to change in software development. It has helped shift software development’s focus from rigid processes and documentation to iterative, collaborative approaches.

Agile development teams typically work in short sprints, usually two to four weeks long, focusing on delivering a small, incremental piece of the product. At the end of each sprint, the team reviews progress and adjusts their plan based on feedback and changing requirements.

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The agile development process typically involves the following stages:

1. Planning: The development team and stakeholders collaborate to prioritize features and create a roadmap for the product.

2. Sprint planning: The team selects a set of features to work on during the upcoming sprint and creates a detailed plan for completing them.

3. Development: The team works on the selected features, with frequent communication and collaboration to ensure everyone is on the same page.

4. Testing: The team tests the new features to identify bugs and ensure they meet the requirements.

5. Review: At the end of each sprint, the team reviews progress and demonstrates the new features to stakeholders.

6. Retrospective: The team reflects on the sprint and identifies opportunities for improvement.

Agile development is beneficial because it allows for flexibility and adaptability to changing requirements, encourages collaboration and communication between team members, and provides opportunities for stakeholders to provide feedback throughout the development process.

Product development in manufacturing and the software environment have those points in common where the Agile Manifesto can be applied. It provides a safe space for the team to embrace change safely and face failure and challenges in developing some features while ensuring continuous process improvement. Not only does managing a project that way contribute to better cross-functional communication, but it also helps to navigate through multiple iterations of the product.

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Case Study – Agile Development at Unilever

Here is an example of a company that has applied agile development to develop consumer packaged goods (CPG) products: Unilever.

Unilever has created cross-functional teams for product development, with members from different departments such as marketing, research and development, and supply chain working together. These teams use agile methodologies such as sprints and daily stand-up meetings to collaborate and ensure product development is aligned with customer needs and market trends.

By using agile development, Unilever has reduced time-to-market for new products and improved product quality while increasing product development efficiency. For example, the company used agile development to launch a new range of Axe men’s grooming products in the U.S., which resulted in a 20% increase in sales within the first few months of launch.

Overall, Unilever’s success with agile development in CPG product development shows that this methodology can be applied to various industries, including those in which product development typically follows a more traditional waterfall approach.

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Lean Start-Up

The Lean Start-Up Approach is another alternative that might be applied in certain circumstances. Entrepreneur Eric Ries popularized that methodology for developing and launching new products or businesses in his book “The Lean Startup,” published in 2011.

The approach is based on lean manufacturing principles and agile development, emphasizing rapid experimentation, customer feedback, and iteration to build successful products and businesses. It involves several critical practices, including:

A. Validated learning: Rather than making assumptions about what customers want or need, the Lean Startup approach emphasizes testing those assumptions through experiments and gathering data to validate or invalidate them.

B. Minimum viable product (MVP): A minimum viable product is the simplest possible version of a product that can be launched to test and validate assumptions with customers. This approach allows for rapid iteration and avoids over-investing in features that customers may not want.

C. Build-measure-learn feedback loops: This approach emphasizes creating feedback loops between product development, customer feedback, and business goals, allowing for continuous iteration and improvement.

D. Agile development: The Lean Startup approach is also rooted in agile development principles, focusing on rapid experimentation, continuous improvement, and cross-functional teams.

Many successful start-ups have deployed the Lean Startup approach, influencing how many entrepreneurs approach product development and business creation. It has also been adopted by larger companies looking to innovate and stay competitive in rapidly changing markets.

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Case Study – Bison Brewing and Lean Start-Up Approach.

Bison Brewing Company, located in Berkeley, California, used the Lean Startup approach to develop a new beer line. The company, founded in 1989, faced increasing competition in the craft beer market and wanted to differentiate itself with a new product that would appeal to health-conscious consumers.

The company began by conducting market research and identifying a gap in the market for a beer made with organic, gluten-free ingredients. They then used the Lean Startup approach to develop a minimum viable product (MVP) and test it with a small group of early adopters.

Through customer feedback and iterative testing, Bison Brewing Company was able to refine its product and develop a line of gluten-free, organic beers that became a success in the craft beer market. By using the Lean Startup approach, the company was able to minimize risk and reduce costs associated with product development while also creating a product that met the needs of a specific target market.

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Design Thinking

Design thinking is an iterative problem-solving approach that puts the user or customer at the center of the product development process. It involves empathizing with the user, defining the problem, ideating and prototyping solutions, and testing and iterating until the optimal solution is found.

The Design Thinking approach originated in product design but has since been applied to various industries, including manufacturing. The design firm IDEO and its founder, David Kelley, popularized the approach. You can find in-depth training and tools on their website at ideao.com.

In product development, Design thinking can be applied to ensure that the final product meets the needs and desires of the customer while also addressing any technical or manufacturing constraints. The process follows five clear steps:

A. Empathize: Gain an understanding of the users, their needs, and their pain points through observation, interviews, and other research methods.

B. Define: Synthesize the information gathered in the empathy phase to create a clear and concise problem statement that identifies the user’s needs and the challenge to solve.

C. Ideate: Generate a wide range of possible solutions to the problem statement using brainstorming and other creative techniques.

D. Prototype: Create a low-fidelity representation of the best ideas generated in the ideation phase to start testing and getting user feedback.

E. Test: Use the prototypes created in the previous phase to test with users, gather feedback, and iterate until a viable solution is found.

The Design Thinking approach is characterized by its focus on the user, collaboration, and iteration. By involving the user in the product development process and testing solutions early and often, the approach can help companies create products more likely to succeed in the market.

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Case Study – Mars Wringley and Design Thinking

Design thinking has influenced how Mars Wrigley approaches product development by emphasizing understanding the consumer’s needs, wants, and desires and incorporating that understanding into every stage of the product development process. An example is the launch of Skittles Giants. Mars Wrigley used design thinking to identify a gap in the market for larger, chewier Skittles. The company researched consumer preferences extensively and found that consumers wanted a larger, more satisfying Skittle with a softer texture. Mars Wrigley then used rapid prototyping to develop several prototypes of the new Skittle product and conducted consumer testing to determine which prototype was the most appealing. The result was Skittles Giants, a larger, softer, and chewier version of the classic Skittles candy that has been a successful addition to the Skittles product line.

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Open Innovation

Open Innovation is a business concept that involves partnering with external individuals or organizations in the innovation process rather than relying solely on internal research and development. It is based on the premise that valuable knowledge and expertise exist outside of the organization and that by working with external partners, companies can access new ideas, technologies, and markets that they would not otherwise be able to develop independently. For instance, your suppliers have expertise in the products that are used and transformed in your manufacturing facilities. Some of them invest in research and development and might have some piece of information that your product development team can benefit from; by opening your innovation search to your key partners, you can save time and money in developing a new product.

The term “Open Innovation” was first coined by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director of the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book “Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology,” published in 2003. Chesbrough argued that companies should look beyond their own R&D efforts and be more open to external ideas, knowledge, and technologies to accelerate innovation and stay competitive.

Open Innovation often contrasts with the traditional closed innovation model, where companies develop new products and services in-house using their R&D capabilities and protect their intellectual property with patents and copyrights. Open Innovation encourages companies to actively seek and integrate external knowledge and resources into their innovation process, often through collaboration with start-ups, universities, research institutions, customers, suppliers, and other partners.

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Case Study – Open Innovation and Nestlé

An example of Open Innovation can be the collaboration between Nestlé Milo All-In-One Nutri Drink and a Malaysian dairy cooperative called the National Farmers’ Organization (NAFAS) and other local partners.

The collaboration involved NAFAS providing the milk for the product and Nestlé leveraging its global research and development capabilities to formulate the product and develop the packaging. The result was a milk-based drink that provided a convenient and nutritious option for consumers in Malaysia. It shows how open innovation can help companies leverage their partners’ strengths to develop successful products.

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Those multiple alternatives to Phase-Gate can apply to a specific context or be integrated as a methodology through your Phase-Gate. The idea is to keep an open mind and use the proper tools and methods that suit the needs of the project and the project’s team.

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Course Manual 5: Accountability

Any process or project will only be successful with the accountability of the team members. In a cross-functional project, such as product development, which involves individuals from different departments and areas of expertise, it’s important to clarify what accountability means and how it can benefit our project.

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In simple terms, accountability refers to being responsible for one’s actions and decisions. It means being answerable for the results of our work and its impact on the project and its stakeholders. As the Video showed, the success of the team and project comes from thinking outside the box and being solution oriented. Accountability becomes even more critical in a cross-functional project because of the various moving parts and dependencies between teams. So, if you stay still when an issue arises… nothing will happen. Each team player is responsible for ensuring that the information is transferred to the right person and that someone is acting to solve the problem.

Embracing accountability fosters a culture of trust, transparency, and ownership, where each team member is empowered to take ownership of their work and collaborate effectively with others. This can lead to better decision-making, timely problem-solving, and a successful project outcome.

To ensure accountability, each team member’s roles and responsibilities must be defined, establishing effective communication channels, setting achievable goals and objectives, and regularly monitoring progress and results. This can help us identify any issues early on and take corrective action if necessary.

RACI Methodology

The RACI Methodology provides an incredible canvas with well-defined roles to support the exercise of attributing clear roles and responsibilities to the team members. The RACI methodology is a powerful tool that can help clarify roles and responsibilities within a cross-functional team involved in a product development process. RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed, and it’s a way of assigning roles to different team members based on their level of involvement and decision-making authority.

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In a product development process, the RACI methodology can clearly define who is responsible for each task, who has the final decision-making authority, who needs to be consulted before decisions are made, and who needs to be informed of the progress and outcomes.

• The “R” in RACI stands for Responsible, which refers to the person responsible for completing a specific task or activity. This individual or team is expected to take ownership of the task and ensure it is completed on time and to the required standard. When assigning the “R” role, it’s important to consider the individual’s skills, experience, and availability. The person assigned to this role should have the necessary expertise and knowledge to complete the task effectively, and they should be able to commit to the required timeframes and deliverables.

The “R” role is important because it clearly explains who is responsible for completing each task or deliverable within the product development process. This can help avoid confusion, delays, and errors that arise when there needs to be clarity about who is responsible for what. To keep the process and the role definition clear and straightforward, only one person is usually assigned an «R» role.

It’s also important to note that the “R” role is not the same as the “A” (Accountable) role. While the person assigned to the “R” role is responsible for completing the task or deliverable, the person assigned to the “A” role is accountable for the overall success or failure of the project. This ensures a clear chain of command and decision-making authority within the product development process.

• The “A” in RACI stands for Accountable, which refers to the person who has the final decision-making authority and is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the deliverables, and, therefore, the project or product under development. This individual is accountable for ensuring the project is delivered on time, within budget, and to the required quality standards. The Accountable person is in charge, or directly accountable, for the work made by the responsible person. The person assigned to the “A” role is responsible for making final decisions, resolving conflicts, and ensuring that all team members involved in the task or deliverable (for instance, the person consulted) are supporting the person responsible to their best knowledge and are working towards the same goals. They are also responsible for communicating progress and outcomes to stakeholders, including senior management, customers, and other interested parties.

When assigning the “A” role, it’s important to consider the individual’s level of authority, experience, and leadership skills. The person assigned to this role should have the necessary expertise and knowledge to make informed decisions regarding the specific task or deliverable. It is key that the person accountable has all the expertise to ensure the quality of the task or deliverable being completed by the Responsible person; that explains why it is recommended that the Accountable person be the direct supervisor of the Responsible person.

The “A” role is essential because it provides a clear understanding of who is accountable for the success or failure of the product development process. This helps ensure a clear chain of decision-making authority and that all team members are working towards the same goals.

• The “C” in RACI stands for Consulted, which refers to individuals or teams needing to be consulted before making decisions or completing a task or deliverable. These individuals may have expertise or knowledge relevant, and their input can be valuable in ensuring the best possible outcome. They are consulted before completing the task or deliverables or making decisions to ensure that all relevant factors are considered and that the best possible outcomes are achieved.

The “C” role is essential because it ensures that all relevant perspectives and expertise inform decisions. This can help avoid errors, improve outcomes, and ensure all team members work towards the same goals. The “C” role promotes collaboration within a cross-functional team.

That role ensures that all relevant team members can provide input and contribute their expertise at the right time. This promotes collaboration by encouraging team members to collaborate and share their knowledge. By consulting with all relevant team members, the “C” role helps build consensus around tasks, deliverables and decisions while ensuring everyone is working towards the same goals. This can help reduce conflicts and promote a sense of shared ownership of the project. Facilitating team communication can help break down silos and promote a more collaborative working environment. This is a significant issue faced in a cross-functional team and costs time and money. It has a huge advantage in risk management, as the experts are consulted at the right time and makes further steps, deliverables, and decisions more fluently.

• The “I” in RACI stands for Informed, which refers to the individuals or teams who need to be informed of the progress and outcomes of the project. These individuals may not be directly involved in the task, deliverable or decision, but they must know what’s happening to ensure coordination and alignment across the project. The person informed might need the confirmation or the output of the deliverables to initiate a new task or other deliverables. The individuals or teams assigned to the “I” role may include stakeholders, management, or other team members who need to be updated on the progress or outcome of a particular task or decision. They are not responsible for completing the task or deciding but must be informed of its progress or outcome for various reasons, such as compliance, coordination, or communication.

When assigning the “I” role, it’s essential to consider the level of information needed, the frequency and mode of communication, and the impact of the task or decision on the individual or team. The person or team assigned to this role should receive the necessary information promptly and appropriately to ensure that they are informed at the right time and able to fulfill their roles effectively.

The “I” role is important because it ensures that all relevant parties are informed of the progress or outcome of a particular task, deliverable or decision. This can help ensure everyone is on the same page and that everything runs smoothly and smoothly down the line. It can also help promote transparency and accountability, as all parties know the progress and outcome of the task or decision. The «I» person often needs confirmation before initiating a new task, deliverable, or action plan.

By using the RACI methodology, cross-functional teams can achieve clarity on roles and responsibilities, avoid confusion, improve communication and collaboration, and ultimately deliver successful product development outcomes.

Advantages of using the RACI methodology

The exact origin of the RACI methodology is still being determined, but it is believed to have been developed in the 1970s or 1980s. Some sources attribute its creation to consulting firm McKinsey & Company, while others credit the US Navy.

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Regardless of its origins, it is a methodology widely used in project management and is now considered a best practice for clarifying roles and responsibilities in cross-functional teams. Its simplicity and clarity have made it popular for many organizations seeking to improve their project management processes.

The RACI methodology had a proven track record with well know benefits. Here are some of them:

1. Clarifies roles and responsibilities: The RACI methodology provides a clear framework for defining roles and responsibilities within a project team. This can help eliminate confusion, prevent duplication of effort, and ensure that all team members understand their specific responsibilities and how they contribute to the project’s success.

2. Reduces conflict and delays: By clarifying roles and responsibilities, the RACI methodology can help prevent disputes and delays arising from unclear communication or overlapping responsibilities. This can lead to more efficient decision-making and project execution.

3. Improves communication: The RACI methodology requires team members to communicate with each other to ensure that everyone is on the same page. This can help promote effective communication within the team and facilitate a shared understanding of project objectives and requirements.

4. Promotes accountability: The RACI methodology promotes accountability by assigning clear roles and responsibilities to each team member. This can help ensure that everyone is held accountable for their contributions to the project and that no one is able to shift blame or responsibility onto others.

5. Increases efficiency and effectiveness: The RACI methodology can help increase efficiency and effectiveness by providing a structured approach to project management. By assigning clear roles and responsibilities, team members can focus on their specific tasks and make more informed decisions, leading to a more efficient and effective project.

6. Facilitates stakeholder management: The RACI methodology can help facilitate stakeholder management by ensuring that all relevant stakeholders are involved in the project and kept informed of its progress. This can help ensure stakeholders feel engaged and invested in the project’s success.

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Case Study – RACI and Product Development

Suppose a company is developing a new product line of packaged goods, such as breakfast cereals, and has assembled a cross-functional team to work on the project. The team includes a project manager, a packaging designer, a food scientist, a production manager, and a marketing manager. The team has decided to use the Stage-Gate methodology to manage the project, which involves breaking the project down into stages and using gate reviews to ensure that the project meets specific criteria before proceeding to the next stage.

The team decides to use the RACI methodology to ensure that the project runs smoothly and everyone knows their roles and responsibilities. They first identify the key stages involved in the project, such as:

• Concept development
• Market research
• Product development
• Production planning
• Packaging design
• Product launch

Next, the team assigns RACI roles for each of these stages as follows:

1. Concept development:

• Responsible: Marketing manager
• Accountable: Project manager
• Consulted: Food scientist, packaging designer
• Informed: Production manager

2. Market research:

• Responsible: Marketing manager
• Accountable: Project manager
• Consulted: Food scientist, packaging designer
• Informed: Production manager

3. Product development:

• Responsible: Food scientist
• Accountable: Project manager
• Consulted: Marketing manager, packaging designer
• Informed: Production manager

4. Production planning:

• Responsible: Production manager
• Accountable: Project manager
• Consulted: Food scientist, packaging designer
• Informed: Marketing manager

5. Packaging design:

• Responsible: Packaging designer
• Accountable: Project manager
• Consulted: Food scientist, marketing manager
• Informed: Production manager

6. Product launch:

• Responsible: Marketing manager
• Accountable: Project manager
• Consulted: Food scientist, packaging designer, production manager
• Informed: N/A (this task does not require an “informed” role)

Using the RACI methodology, the team has clearly defined each member’s role and responsibility for each project stage. For example, the packaging designer is responsible for the packaging design stage, and the food scientist is responsible for the product development stage. This can help prevent confusion and ensure everyone knows what to do to contribute to the project’s success.

Additionally, this methodology helps facilitate communication and collaboration within the team. For example, the food scientist may need to consult with the marketing manager during product development to ensure that the product meets consumer needs. In contrast, the packaging designer may need to consult with the food scientist during the packaging design stage to ensure that the packaging protects the product and meets food safety requirements. By clearly defining who needs to be consulted and informed for each stage, team members can work together more effectively and ensure everyone has the information they need to make informed decisions.

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Exercise – RACI

Context: Your manufacturing company is launching a new product line and has assembled a cross-functional team to manage the project. The team includes product development, marketing, production, quality assurance, and finance representatives. You are the project manager for this initiative and want to ensure that everyone on the team understands their roles and responsibilities for each project stage.

Exercise:

1. Break the team into groups of two or three and assign each group a stage of the project, such as product development, marketing, or production.

2. Ask each group to create a RACI chart for their assigned stage, using the RACI template (Responsibility, Accountability, Consulted, Informed) and including all team members involved.

3. After each group has completed their RACI chart, have them present it to the rest of the team and explain their rationale for each role and responsibility. Encourage questions and discussion.

4. Once all the groups have presented, discuss any areas of overlap or potential confusion between the different stages as a team. Are there any roles that appear in multiple stages? Are there any areas where roles and responsibilities could be better clarified?

5. Review the entire project lifecycle as a team and ensure a RACI chart covers each stage. Make any necessary adjustments to the charts to ensure that everyone knows their roles and responsibilities for the entire project.

6. Finally, discuss how the RACI methodology can help facilitate collaboration and communication among team members. Ask each team member to share an example of how they might use RACI to ensure everyone is aligned and working towards the same goal.

The RACI methodology is a powerful tool for clarifying roles and responsibilities in cross-functional teams and can help ensure that everyone is aligned and working towards the same goal. Using this methodology facilitates collaboration and communication and ensures that projects are completed on time, within budget, and to the satisfaction of all stakeholders.

Remember that RACI is not a one-time exercise. It’s a living document that should be regularly reviewed and updated as the project progresses. As new tasks and responsibilities arise, it’s important to ensure that the RACI chart is updated to reflect these changes.

I encourage you to take what you’ve learned and apply it to your own projects and teams. Use RACI to clarify roles and responsibilities and to ensure that everyone on the team is aligned and working towards the same goal. And if you have any questions or need further support, please don’t hesitate to contact me or the project team.

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Course Manual 6: Key Success Factors

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From 0:00 to 0:45

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The last phase of today’s workshop will be mapping your product development process. Before getting into the core of the topics, defining our key success criteria for the process and product development is essential. The key success criteria for mapping a product development process can vary depending on the specific product, company, and industry.

Successful Process

A product development process is, at the very base, a complex process that involves multiple departments, therefore, very different personalities, motivations factors and operational business reflexes.

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To be successful in the implementation of a new process, some element needs to be addressed:

• Clear goals and objectives align with the organization’s overall strategy and mission. This includes identifying the desired outcomes of the process. In our case today, the goal is to map a process that will allow your company to deliver a new product to the market with more chance of success while improving the time-to-market cycle from the business case to the product launch.

• Consistency: A successful process should be consistently applied across the organization to ensure all stakeholders and different teams follow the same guidelines and procedures. This includes defining clear roles and responsibilities, providing training and support, and ensuring everyone understands their role. After a structured process is mapped, further workshops will clarify roles and team players involved and ensure training for successful implementation.

But no matter how diligently the perfect process is developed, and the details defined, the key stakeholders – you – are the most critical factors in ensuring a culture change and imposing rigour in using the new process. If one department embraces the process and deliverables, another must do too. Consistency between teams is critical in creating a shared vocabulary; players collaborate when needed.

• Flexibility and adaptability: A successful process should be designed to fluctuate with the ever-changing business needs and circumstances. This includes building contingencies for unexpected events and being open to feedback and suggestions for improvement. It also implies no room for the purist in methodology, product development and innovation. The needs should dictate the process or the method rather than the other way around. It is common to see processes implemented but never truly adopted by the user because it doesn’t make sense in a day-to-day operation. If the process is too rigid, human nature will find a way around it. The last desirable thing is that a very robust process is developed and implemented, but people never adopt it because it is too complicated, detailed, or directive. The process should give the orientation and sequence of things but also provide enough flexibility to adapt to the project’s specific needs.

• Continuous improvement: A dynamic process should be subject to ongoing review and improvement to remain effective and efficient. This includes gathering feedback from stakeholders, analyzing performance metrics, and making changes to improve the process where necessary. In product development, reviewing the process at the end of a cycle is essential, as the business and the consumer need to evolve, and the tools are buzzing. New methodologies can be included or revealed to be not adapted to your company. It is also normal for new business needs, such as a customized product, to challenge the process in place and require a new version for a new type of project.

• Clear communications are essential to ensure that all stakeholders and team players understand their roles and responsibilities, the desired outcomes of the process, and the steps that will be taken to achieve those outcomes. Clear communication is vital to successful process implementation as it helps employees understand the changes being made, builds trust and buy-in, and ensures that all stakeholders are informed and involved. This includes using clear and concise language, providing regular updates, and seeking stakeholder feedback. When a new process is introduced, it can be disruptive to the organization’s daily operations, and employees may feel uncertain about how the changes will affect their roles and responsibilities. Clear communication can help alleviate these concerns by providing employees with a clear understanding of what is expected of them, why the changes are being made, and what benefits the new process will bring. It is also essential to ensure two-way communication so employees can provide feedback and ask questions about the new process. When employees feel that they have been adequately informed and involved in the process, they are more likely to be receptive to the changes and willing to work together to make the implementation successful.

• Accountability: Clarifying who’s responsible for which element is key for all stakeholders. A successful process requires clear accountability to ensure that all stakeholders are responsible for their part and that there are consequences for failing to meet expectations. This includes setting clear expectations and consequences, providing support and resources to help stakeholders meet those expectations, and holding stakeholders accountable for their performance. It all falls within the definition of tasks that will be defined in the upcoming workshop.

• Alignment with organizational culture: The corporate culture can significantly impact the implementation of a process. Change resistance can be managed at the individual level, but if the organization’s culture values stability and predictability, people may be resistant to new approaches that disrupt the status quo. That may become a significant roadblock. The culture can also influence how risk-tolerant its people are. If the culture values innovation and taking risks, people may be more open to trying out new processes.

On the other hand, if the culture values caution and risk avoidance, people may be more hesitant to implement new processes. The silo culture might be another red flag. How people communicate and collaborate in an organization can also impact the implementation of a process. Suppose the culture values openness, transparency, and collaboration. In that case, people may be more likely to share ideas, provide feedback, and work together to improve the process. At the same time, the silo and rigid hierarchy communication will be more unfavourable. The culture of a company is always a reflection of its leaders. Supportive and open-minded leaders will contribute to building a culture of continuous improvement, fostering open communication, and promoting collaboration and teamwork across the organization. At the other end of the spectrum, a paternalistic culture, with no room for mistake or being challenged on their core expertise, will not encourage a team to adopt new processes and risk failures or delay.

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Case Study – Process failure at Coca-Cola

Let’s look at an example of a company in the CPG world that failed to follow the key success criteria while implementing a process: Coca-Cola and the launch of “New Coke” in 1985.

The key success criteria for successful new product development include conducting thorough market research, involving cross-functional teams in the development process, and ensuring clear communication with all stakeholders. However, Coca-Cola failed to follow these criteria when it decided to replace its original formula with a new formula known as “New Coke.”

Despite conducting taste tests that suggested that New Coke was preferred over the original formula, Coca-Cola failed to consider consumers’ emotional connection with the original recipe. When the company announced the discontinuation of the original formula, consumers reacted with outrage, launching a massive protest campaign.

Coca-Cola also needed to involve key stakeholders in the development process, including bottlers and retailers. This lack of engagement led to significant pushback from these groups, who were concerned about the potential impact of the new formula on their businesses.

Finally, Coca-Cola needed to communicate the reasons behind the change clearly to consumers. The company’s messaging could have been clearer, leading to further consumer anger and frustration.

The launch of New Coke was widely regarded as a failure, with the company eventually reverting to the original formula after just a few months. The failure was attributed to the company’s failure to follow key success criteria in the new product development process, including conducting thorough market research, involving cross-functional teams, and ensuring clear communication with all stakeholders.

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Successful Product development

A successful product development process effectively translates customer needs and market insights into innovative products that meet or exceed customer expectations and drive business growth. Identifying a few success criteria will cover most of today’s workshop content.

• Customer focus: Understanding the customer’s needs, wants, and pain points is critical for creating a product that will succeed in the market. Customer insights should inform all stages of the product development process.

Putting the consumer at the center of your product development is a critical success factor because it ensures that the product meets the needs, wants, and expectations of the target customer. When companies develop products that align with their customer’s needs and preferences, they are more likely to succeed in the market. In today’s world, where new products hit the shelf almost daily, it is not enough to have a good product. The new product must contribute to making your consumer’s life easier. Therefore, companies must first understand their customer’s needs and preferences. This requires market research, such as surveys, focus groups, and user testing, to gain insights into what customers want from the product. By listening to customer feedback and incorporating it into the product development process, companies can create products that better meet the needs of their target audience. It also contributes to answering another reality of today’s world: consumer relationships. A consumer-centric approach contributes to customer engagement throughout the product development process. This means involving customers in the design process and collecting feedback on prototypes and early-stage product versions. Sharing that journey creates valuable social media content and excitement even before your product hits the shelf.

Finally, focusing on customer experience means considering not just the product itself but also the customers’ overall experience when using the product. Companies must consider factors such as ease of use, packaging, and customer support when developing a product to ensure customers have a positive experience and are more likely to become repeat customers.

• Cross-functional collaboration: Successful product development requires collaboration across different functional areas, such as marketing, engineering, and manufacturing. A cross-functional team that works together throughout the process should ensure that all perspectives are considered and that the product meets all functional requirements. By breaking down silos and enabling communication and collaboration across departments, companies can leverage the strengths and expertise of all team members, leading to better outcomes.

Effective cross-functional collaboration requires clear communication and alignment of goals and objectives across departments. This means creating a shared vision for the product and ensuring all team members understand and work towards the same objectives. It also requires open communication channels and regular updates on progress to ensure that everyone is aware of what is happening and can contribute their expertise as needed. That willingness to embrace diverse perspectives and ideas from teams from different departments brings different experiences, insights, and expertise. Companies can develop more innovative and compelling products by embracing and incorporating these diverse perspectives.

Not only does cross-functional collaboration drives better, well-rounded product development, but it also contributes to building strong relationships between team members. This means encouraging open and respectful communication, recognizing and celebrating successes, and addressing conflicts constructively and timely. By building a strong team dynamic, companies can create a culture of collaboration that fosters creativity, innovation, and success.

• Phase-gate process: Overall, a Phase-Gate process is a crucial success factor for product development because it provides a structured and systematic approach to managing the process from start to finish. Still, it improved decision-making by breaking the product development process into distinct stages or phases, allowing companies can make more informed and strategic decisions at each stage. Previous sections went into detail about how a Phase Gate contributes to the success of your endeavour.

The Phase-Gate process provides a structured framework for managing projects, with clear milestones, deliverables, and timelines. This enables teams to track progress more effectively, identify potential issues early, and take corrective action as needed. And it improved alignment by ensuring that everyone is working towards the same goals and objectives and that there is clear alignment between the product development process and the company’s overall strategy. This helps to reduce the risk of wasted resources, misaligned priorities, and missed opportunities while having teams focusing on the same thing.

• Risk management: The product development process must include strategies to identify and mitigate potential risks that could impact the product’s success. That’s another topic discussed at length earlier. Still, by identifying and mitigating potential risks early on, organizations can improve the chances of launching a successful product on time and within budget.

This can include market research, user testing, and contingency planning. Also, identifying risks early during the planning phase and regularly reviewing and updating the assessment as the project progresses contribute to building a comprehensive risk analysis. This should be comprehensive and include all potential risks impacting the product’s success. This includes product design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution risks. The product development’s success will depend on identifying and prioritizing those risks based on their potential impact and likelihood. This helps ensure that resources are allocated appropriately to address the most critical risks. Finally, continuous monitoring and review should be ongoing throughout the product development lifecycle. Risks should be regularly reviewed and updated, and mitigation strategies should be modified based on changing circumstances.

• Agile methodology is a key success criterion for product development because it enables teams to be flexible and responsive to change, which is essential in a dynamic and constantly evolving business environment. First, the iterative approach emphasizes a continuous cycle of planning, execution, and review, allowing rapid iteration and improvement. This iterative approach helps teams to identify and correct problems quickly and to adapt to changing market conditions. It is also a methodology that focuses on the consumer (which by itself is a success criterion presented above), with regular customer feedback and involvement in the process. This helps ensure that the product meets the needs and expectations of the target audience. That methodology also favours collaboration and teamwork (another success criterion already presented above) with regular meetings and communication between team members. This helps break down silos and ensures everyone works towards the same goals. It also offers a framework for flexibility and adaptability (critical to the success of processes) with the ability to quickly pivot and adjust courses based on new information or changing market conditions. This helps teams to stay ahead of the competition and respond to customer needs in real-time. Agile methodology helps teams to work faster, smarter, and more collaboratively, leading to more successful product development outcomes.

• Continuous improvement: A successful product development process should be reviewed and improved to incorporate lessons from previous projects. It is a key success criterion for successful product development because it allows companies to constantly refine and enhance their processes, products, and services. Companies can continuously seek ways to improve to stay competitive, meet changing customer needs, and adapt to new market trends. In product development, continuous improvement means regularly evaluating and refining the product development process itself. This includes identifying areas of inefficiency or waste, improving communication and collaboration between teams, and implementing new tools and technologies that can streamline the process.

It can also involve seeking customer feedback and using that feedback to inform product development decisions. By regularly gathering and analyzing customer data, companies can identify areas for improvement and make changes to better meet customer needs.

This last criterion is essential for successful product development because it allows companies to stay agile and responsive in a rapidly changing business landscape. Companies can stay ahead of the competition by continually refining and enhancing their processes and products and delivering greater value to their customers. This helps to refine the process over time, increasing efficiency and effectiveness.

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Case Study – KODAK & Colgate-Palmolive

Let’s look at one example of a CPG company that did not meet the success criteria for a successful product development process implementation: Kodak. Kodak was known for its innovation in the photography industry but failed to adapt to the shift from analog to digital photography. Kodak’s product development process did not prioritize a consumer-centric approach or cross-functional collaboration. The company struggled to keep up with competitors who could innovate quickly and efficiently. Additionally, Kodak’s leadership resisted change and did not prioritize continuous improvement or risk management in its product development process, ultimately leading to its decline.

Another company that did not meet the product development process success factors is Colgate-Palmolive, a global consumer products company. In the early 2000s, the company attempted to launch a new toothbrush, the Colgate Navigator, designed to provide consumers with a more thorough cleaning experience. However, the product development process did not go as planned, and the product failed to meet expectations.

Some of the key reasons for this failure were:

• Lack of consumer insights: The product development team needed to conduct more research on consumer needs and preferences and therefore needed to fully understand the market demand for a new toothbrush.

• Poor cross-functional collaboration: The teams involved in the product development process, such as R&D, marketing, and manufacturing, needed to work together effectively to ensure the product met consumer needs and business goals.

• Insufficient risk management: The team should have anticipated and mitigated potential risks and challenges during the product development process, such as manufacturing issues and competitive pressures.

• As a result of these issues, the Colgate Navigator failed to gain traction in the market and was eventually discontinued. This example highlights the importance of following key success criteria in product development to ensure the best chance of success.

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These key success criteria prioritize customer focus, cross-functional collaboration, stage-gate process, risk management, Agile methodology, and continuous improvement. These are all critical for delivering successful products that meet or exceed customer expectations and drive business growth.

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Course Manual 7: Mapping

This section represents the accumulation of all covered in this workshop: we will conduct a process mapping workshop to help us identify areas for improvement in our current processes. Before we begin, I would like to discuss some key success criteria for a successful process mapping workshop.

First and foremost, it’s essential to understand the goals and objectives clearly. To be relevant, the mapping should address the worst-case scenario you faced regarding product development. The mapping exercise will be much more efficient if based on a real experience of complex product development. That way, it will cover all angles, making it easier to simplify it for less complex projects. The other way around is much more complicated. It is also essential to understand that it will constitute a first iteration and evolve as the team gains a deeper understanding of its challenges.

Secondly, approach this process mapping with an open mind and a willingness to learn. Being open to new ideas and perspectives and willing to challenge our assumptions and biases. It is expected that members empathize with each other reality. All team has experimented frustrations. The goal is not to accuse but instead, find the cause of those frustrations and ensure that the solution that will be mapped addresses them.

Lastly, we have a diverse group of stakeholders involved in the process. This means including representatives from different departments, roles, and levels of the organization and external stakeholders where appropriate. That also means it is essential to listen to what one team needs and depends upon another one. Once again, empathy is critical.

How to get there:

To understand where the company stands today, it is essential to talk about an actual situation and map the existing process to understand how it works. Since the operation part is often more process-oriented, we will start mapping from the Business case; we will move to map the development, validation, industrialization, and launch to return to the Idea and opportunity.

We will focus the mapping solely on deliverables to keep the exercise simple. Deliverables are the tangible or intangible outputs of a product development process that are produced and delivered at specific points in time. Here are some examples of deliverables: Project plan, product brief, Prototype A, sales forecast, supply forecast, Testing reports, etc.

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Exercise – Identify Project:

As a group, we need to identify a product development project that meets the following criteria:

• It was recently commercialized or is at the final stage of development: we need a project that is fresh in everyone’s memories. That will help us stay close to reality and avoid mapping a theoretical process that does not align with reality.

• It was a complex project. As mentioned earlier, it is important to map a complex project, as specified in section 3.4, so we can extract and simplify it for a core project later.

The exercise ended when the team aligned on selecting a product development project.

Now that a product development project has been selected, we will refer to your personal experience to ensure we map your reality.

Each team member will now be assigned a colour representing their team or functions (for example, Pink will be used for marketing, Orange will be used for Product development or design, Green will be used for operation, Yellow for sales, etc.). If you have two members of the same department, they will have to work as a team.

It might be easy to leap toward tasks, but I will advise against it. A process should give the orientation without being too prescriptive about how to get there. We assume that everyone is competent and knows how to generate their deliverables. For instance, we will assume that the marketing team knows how to deliver a launch strategy and marketing material without describing each step. So from now on, each team will write on their paper the deliverable that their team has to generate, and it is their responsibility to ensure they understand what it is embedded. Later, I will ask them to define their deliverables, so they must be clear in their mind.

As a group, we will go through the following steps and define the output, input, stakeholders, and which deliverables are needed in each of those steps to deliver a new product to the market successfully.

STEP 1: BUSINESS CASE

Business case: that is the documents that assemble all the strategy and place the product concept into the market and competitive landscape. The product is only a concept at that phase or might involve preliminary prototypes. The Unique Value Proposition and consumer and market understanding should be clear now. Secondary and primary research is involved. Following the business, a case presentation is usually where the project starts. The business case can also act as the project charter, which we will cover later.

1 – What is the objective of the business case? What do you need as an output to develop a product concept?

2 – Who are the main stakeholders at this point in the process?

3 – Which information is needed to build a business case?

The animator will assist the team in clarifying each deliverable needed to complete this phase.

STEP 2: VALIDATION

Validation involves all activities and deliverables validating the theoretical concept presented in the business case. This phase involves prototyping, consumer testing and validation of the messaging.

1 – What is the objective of the Validation Phase? What do you need as an output to move to the development phase?

2 – Who are the main stakeholders at this point in the process?

3 – Which information is needed to move forward?

The animator will assist the team in clarifying each deliverable needed to complete this phase.

STEP 3: DEVELOPMENT

Development involves all activities and deliverables required to develop a product that will be manufacturable. This phase involves moulding, validating packaging, testing, and developing the launch strategies and forecasting.

1 – What is the objective of the Development Phase? What do you need as an output to move to the manufacturing phase?

2 – Who are the main stakeholders at this point in the process?

3 – Which information is needed to move forward?

The animator will assist the team in clarifying each deliverable needed to complete this phase.

STEP 4 MANUFACTURING AND LAUNCH

Manufacturing: That’s when the scaleup is done to assess capacity and constraints. All raw materials are ordered. Mass production is scheduled. Ultimately, the cost estimate should be very close to reality, and sales forecast, production time, and marketing to support the launch should be established.

Launch: Even though it’s called Launch, this phase includes the first production, the first shipments, and marketing launch activities.

1 – What is the objective of the manufacturing and Launch Phase? What do you need as an output to launch the product successfully?

2 – Who are the main stakeholders at this point in the process?

3 – Which deliverables are needed to put the product into the hands of the end user?

4 – The team needs to align on which indicators are considered at the end of the launch. Is it the first sale or shipment three months after the first shipment? After the pipeline fill hits shelves.

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The test of reality

Now that a process has been mapped, it is important to challenge it with real examples.

For the next two weeks, you have the mission to review your deliverables with your team and ensure you can write a clear definition for each.

Involving the team responsible for executing the product development process in testing it with reality is essential for several reasons. This will help ensure that the team understands the process and is committed to making it work.

1. Understanding and ownership: When the team is involved in testing the process, they understand how it works and what is expected of them. This helps to build ownership and buy-in for the process, which can lead to more significant commitment and engagement from the team.

2. Identification of issues and opportunities: The team members responsible for executing the process are often in the best position to identify problems and opportunities for improvement. By involving the team in testing the process, the team can provide valuable feedback on what is working well and what needs to be improved.

3. Identification of best practices: The team may have developed best practices or workarounds not included in the process map. These best practices can be identified and incorporated by involving the team in testing the process.

4. Continuous improvement: Involving the team in testing the process can help foster a continuous improvement culture. By soliciting feedback from the team, the process can be refined and improved over time, leading to greater efficiency and effectiveness.

The test of reality can lead to collecting data to help identify areas where the process is working well and areas where it needs to be improved. This data can be used to adjust and improve the process over time. But it is essential to keep the process manageable. Flexibility is a key aspect to remember. Being flexible and open to making changes to the process as needed. The reality of product development can be unpredictable, so the team may need to adapt the process to new challenges or opportunities that arise. To achieve that, it is important to be open to feedback from the team and other stakeholders about how the process should work. This feedback can help to identify areas where the process is not working well and may need to be adjusted. Then you can make those adjustments to the process to better align with the reality of product development.

Do not hesitate to communicate any changes to the team and other stakeholders. This will help to ensure that everyone is aware of the changes and understands how they impact their roles and responsibilities.

A huge step has been made in this workshop to build your Innovation ecosystem. We laid down the base with the process that had been mapped. A shared understanding of the key steps of the process as well as why it will benefit your organization for future projects. As we go along with other workshops, we will continue to bonify the Innovation ecosystem, refine the process, and implement governance to ensure its relevance for your organization as it evolves.

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Project Studies

Mapping Revision Workshop: Ensuring Real-World Alignment and Deliverable Accountability

Project Study: Development Team (Product Design, Market Research, Product Development)

This collaborative session will be led by the team leader who previously participated in the mapping process. Participants will work together to review and refine the high-level process map. The primary goal is to ensure that the shared documentation accurately reflects real-world scenarios and aligns with the company’s goals and objectives. Through a series of activities and discussions, sub-processes will be identified and validated against real-use cases, clear deliverables will be defined, and RACI responsibilities will be assigned to enhance process accountability.

Objectives

1. Review and Refine High-Level Mapping: Analyze and update the existing high-level process map, ensuring it accurately represents our operations.

2. Validate with Real-World Use Cases: Apply real-life scenarios our company faces to test the mapped processes for practicality and effectiveness.

3. Define Deliverables: Clearly articulate and document the deliverables associated with each process step.

4. Assign RACI Responsibilities: Determine roles and responsibilities (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) for each deliverable within the process.

Expectations

Participants are expected to actively engage in the workshop, sharing their insights and experiences to enhance the mapping revision process. Collaborative and critical thinking is encouraged as we aim to align our processes with the realities of our business environment. Please come prepared to contribute and be open to feedback and suggestions from your team members. The workshop’s success depends on your dedication and involvement in the activities and discussions.

Steps to undertake:

1. Overview of Mapping Process: the team lead will provide an overview of the existing high-level process map and its purpose.

2. Identifying Sub-Processes: Break down the high-level process into sub-processes and discuss their relevance and interdependencies.

3. Real-World Scenario Analysis: Teams will work on real-use cases and apply them to the sub-processes to validate their accuracy and effectiveness.

4. Deliverable Definition: Define and document clear deliverables for each sub-process step, focusing on what needs to be achieved.

5. RACI Assignment: Determine RACI roles for each deliverable based on team members’ expertise and knowledge.

6. Documentation and Action Plan: Document the workshop’s outcomes, including revised process maps, deliverables, and RACI roles. Highlight the difference between the current process or practices and the new process that had been mapped.

This Mapping Revision Workshop will not only refine our processes but also enhance our understanding of how they operate in the real world. By applying real-use cases and defining clear deliverables and responsibilities, we will ensure that our processes are not just theoretical constructs but practical tools that drive our company’s success. Together, we will bridge the gap between process mapping and real-world application, fostering greater efficiency and accountability within our organization.

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Project Study: Commercialisation Team (Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Technical Support)

This collaborative session will be led by the team leader who previously participated in the mapping process. Participants will work together to review and refine the high-level process map. The primary goal is to ensure that the shared documentation accurately reflects real-world scenarios and aligns with the company’s goals and objectives. Through a series of activities and discussions, sub-processes will be identified and validated against real-use cases, clear deliverables will be defined, and RACI responsibilities will be assigned to enhance process accountability.

Objectives

1. Review and Refine High-Level Mapping: Analyze and update the existing high-level process map, ensuring it accurately represents our operations.

2. Validate with Real-World Use Cases: Apply real-life scenarios our company faces to test the mapped processes for practicality and effectiveness.

3. Define Deliverables: Clearly articulate and document the deliverables associated with each process step.

4. Assign RACI Responsibilities: Determine roles and responsibilities (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) for each deliverable within the process.

Expectations

Participants are expected to actively engage in the workshop, sharing their insights and experiences to enhance the mapping revision process. Collaborative and critical thinking is encouraged as we aim to align our processes with the realities of our business environment. Please come prepared to contribute and be open to feedback and suggestions from your team members. The workshop’s success depends on your dedication and involvement in the activities and discussions.

Steps to undertake:

1. Overview of Mapping Process: the team lead will provide an overview of the existing high-level process map and its purpose.

2. Identifying Sub-Processes: Break down the high-level process into sub-processes and discuss their relevance and interdependencies.

3. Real-World Scenario Analysis: Teams will work on real-use cases and apply them to the sub-processes to validate their accuracy and effectiveness.

4. Deliverable Definition: Define and document clear deliverables for each sub-process step, focusing on what needs to be achieved.

5. RACI Assignment: Determine RACI roles for each deliverable based on team members’ expertise and knowledge.

6. Documentation and Action Plan: Document the workshop’s outcomes, including revised process maps, deliverables, and RACI roles. Highlight the difference between the current process or practices and the new process that had been mapped.

This Mapping Revision Workshop will not only refine our processes but also enhance our understanding of how they operate in the real world. By applying real-use cases and defining clear deliverables and responsibilities, we will ensure that our processes are not just theoretical constructs but practical tools that drive our company’s success. Together, we will bridge the gap between process mapping and real-world application, fostering greater efficiency and accountability within our organization.

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Project Study: Operation Team (Supply, Logistic, Manufacturing)

This collaborative session will be led by the team leader who previously participated in the mapping process. Participants will work together to review and refine the high-level process map. The primary goal is to ensure that the shared documentation accurately reflects real-world scenarios and aligns with the company’s goals and objectives. Through a series of activities and discussions, sub-processes will be identified and validated against real-use cases, clear deliverables will be defined, and RACI responsibilities will be assigned to enhance process accountability.

Objectives

1. Review and Refine High-Level Mapping: Analyze and update the existing high-level process map, ensuring it accurately represents our operations.

2. Validate with Real-World Use Cases: Apply real-life scenarios our company faces to test the mapped processes for practicality and effectiveness.

3. Define Deliverables: Clearly articulate and document the deliverables associated with each process step.

4. Assign RACI Responsibilities: Determine roles and responsibilities (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) for each deliverable within the process.

Expectations

Participants are expected to actively engage in the workshop, sharing their insights and experiences to enhance the mapping revision process. Collaborative and critical thinking is encouraged as we aim to align our processes with the realities of our business environment. Please come prepared to contribute and be open to feedback and suggestions from your team members. The workshop’s success depends on your dedication and involvement in the activities and discussions.

Steps to undertake:

1. Overview of Mapping Process: the team lead will provide an overview of the existing high-level process map and its purpose.

2. Identifying Sub-Processes: Break down the high-level process into sub-processes and discuss their relevance and interdependencies.

3. Real-World Scenario Analysis: Teams will work on real-use cases and apply them to the sub-processes to validate their accuracy and effectiveness.

4. Deliverable Definition: Define and document clear deliverables for each sub-process step, focusing on what needs to be achieved.

5. RACI Assignment: Determine RACI roles for each deliverable based on team members’ expertise and knowledge.

6. Documentation and Action Plan: Document the workshop’s outcomes, including revised process maps, deliverables, and RACI roles. Highlight the difference between the current process or practices and the new process that had been mapped.

This Mapping Revision Workshop will not only refine our processes but also enhance our understanding of how they operate in the real world. By applying real-use cases and defining clear deliverables and responsibilities, we will ensure that our processes are not just theoretical constructs but practical tools that drive our company’s success. Together, we will bridge the gap between process mapping and real-world application, fostering greater efficiency and accountability within our organization.

Project: Support (Finance, Legal, Sustainability)

This collaborative session will be led by the team leader who previously participated in the mapping process. Participants will work together to review and refine the high-level process map. The primary goal is to ensure that the shared documentation accurately reflects real-world scenarios and aligns with the company’s goals and objectives. Through a series of activities and discussions, sub-processes will be identified and validated against real-use cases, clear deliverables will be defined, and RACI responsibilities will be assigned to enhance process accountability.

Objectives

1. Review and Refine High-Level Mapping: Analyze and update the existing high-level process map, ensuring it accurately represents our operations.

2. Validate with Real-World Use Cases: Apply real-life scenarios our company faces to test the mapped processes for practicality and effectiveness.

3. Define Deliverables: Clearly articulate and document the deliverables associated with each process step.

4. Assign RACI Responsibilities: Determine roles and responsibilities (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) for each deliverable within the process.

Expectations

Participants are expected to actively engage in the workshop, sharing their insights and experiences to enhance the mapping revision process. Collaborative and critical thinking is encouraged as we aim to align our processes with the realities of our business environment. Please come prepared to contribute and be open to feedback and suggestions from your team members. The workshop’s success depends on your dedication and involvement in the activities and discussions.

Steps to undertake:

1. Overview of Mapping Process: the team lead will provide an overview of the existing high-level process map and its purpose.

2. Identifying Sub-Processes: Break down the high-level process into sub-processes and discuss their relevance and interdependencies.

3. Real-World Scenario Analysis: Teams will work on real-use cases and apply them to the sub-processes to validate their accuracy and effectiveness.

4. Deliverable Definition: Define and document clear deliverables for each sub-process step, focusing on what needs to be achieved.

5. RACI Assignment: Determine RACI roles for each deliverable based on team members’ expertise and knowledge.

6. Documentation and Action Plan: Document the workshop’s outcomes, including revised process maps, deliverables, and RACI roles. Highlight the difference between the current process or practices and the new process that had been mapped.

This Mapping Revision Workshop will not only refine our processes but also enhance our understanding of how they operate in the real world. By applying real-use cases and defining clear deliverables and responsibilities, we will ensure that our processes are not just theoretical constructs but practical tools that drive our company’s success. Together, we will bridge the gap between process mapping and real-world application, fostering greater efficiency and accountability within our organization.

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Program Benefits