One of the key ingredients of a successful new product/service development is the ability of the organization (typically the new product development team) to ensure that the product/service idea fits in to the strategic direction of the company. Before working on the new product development, the team has to ensure that it is in line with the strategic direction of the company so that you don’t end up launching products or services that are completely misaligned with what the organization wants to achieve in the long term. The team that actually works on these kind of projects should carry a strong product/service vision and the passion to develop something new that provides a great customer value proposition and contribute significantly in creating long-term business value.

This is so relevant to business development teams as they write up solutions for customers—both in unsolicited pitches and in responses to proposal solicitations. It’s just too bad that the government’s acquisition process does not allow for ‘check-ins’ once the final proposal request has been released for competition.

Tim’s comments on the lack of clarity of what a “successful” company is and needing a clear understanding of what your customer expects are right on! Being better at delivering new products on time and on budget is great, but if they miss their financial targets, should they be considered successful? I am not surprised in the drop off between successful companies and laggards when it comes to meeting ROI expectations. I wonder how many of these successful companies identified their customers’ unmet needs before beginning the development of their products versus learning and iterating through concept testing during the product development process, and what impact this has on the financial targets.

I find the key messages in the article in line with our own lessons learned from recent projects. In particular creating the focus through a clear scope and mandate and empowered project manager, regular customer reviews separate from project progress reports, and discipline to estimation and risk assesment.

The most successful new products that come to mind over the last decade include a well-known Web search portal/engine, a portable music player, a touchscreen smartphone, a DVD by mail service (now morphing to on-demand Internet delivery), a social networking site, a microblogging site, and a personal digital video recorder complemented by a network-based scheduling and recommendation service. They each would appear to violate these principles in clear ways. And, their success is more than survivorship bias, as some of the firms involved demonstrate a track record of market-leading innovation.

Perhaps equally as successful as “keep it focused” is serendipity; in opposition to “project culture” is a strong and visionary leader; and instead of “talk to the customer,” innovation often requires overturning or ignoring stated customer beliefs regarding their needs and preferences. Metrics such as being on-budget and on-time do not necessarily equate to innovation leadership, and ROI and employee satisfaction metrics are not necessarily correlated with innovation metrics such as percentage of revenues from products introduced in the last 3 years.

For many years, my personal mission has been to help my company build new lines and products which met with commercial success. The concept of CAPE has evolved through the collective wisdom and foresight of many associates, customers, and business partners. I sincerely believe it is one of the main reasons for my success in building new products/projects that I have managed over the years.

CAPE

A concept that can become an outstanding and practical navigation tool in new product launches as also an outstanding guiding principal. The four Steps to CAPE:

1.Conceptualize.
2.Anticipate/Analyze/Align
3.Plan/Prioritize
4.Execute.

Until good ideas can be seen through to their logical execution, they just remain ideas, which is where as often witnessed, corporate performance’s can fall short.

CAPE without an E, ie execution is CAP—a Dhakan, as we call it in Hindi! Or, alternatively, without a C its an APE (resulting in mindless actions).

A prerequisite to good execution: ALIGN - which is often the basic problem, where a company is not always aligned internally or externally to its changing consumers and the competition, misaligned supply chain, inappropriate design briefs, and so on. If we can get CAP right then getting the final E would be a lot easier and simpler.

In every team there are thinkers (CAP) and doers (E) and sometimes these groups are mutually exclusive. The challenge is to get the synergy and respect for each other in the team which is always easy to achieve under a well-trained leader, who leads by example. All organisation leaders may not have such not qualities.

CAPE not only can guide us to achieve the new product launch purpose through an efficient journey, it can also help the journey become full of learning and builds wisdom on the way for the entire team.

Again, post execution reflection and measurement of results is also more meaningful if CAPE has been followed diligently.

This brings me to add one element: That is clarity of goal, objective, perceived results. ‘To what purpose this new launch?’. CAPE without this clarity can be misleading.

Life is a journey, not a means to an end. CAPE makes this journey satisfying and cheerful. Such is the power of CAPE! Logical execution of ones new ideas and concepts therefore holds the key to success in management. CAPE allows anyone to be passionate about making an impact and can help any organization navigate epic challenges on the horizon.

A well-nurtured emphasis on CAPE can allow organizations to value talent, laughter, creativity, and a sense of belief that anything is possible.

I could not agree more with point #2, nurture a project culture, I think from my personal experience, it takes the cake. I would be interested in knowing if the authors found out the relative weight of the 3 factors. I believe #1 and #3 are doable i.e. processes and methods can be created and taught in a firm but how does one teach or create #2? With teams spread across the globe the challenge becomes even more pronounced. Is it a question or Haves and Have Nots—some firms have it in their DNA and others just don’t?

Know when to outsource. Companies need to identify not only their core competencies but their core defiencies in product development. The laggards, too often, attempt to complete projects only with internal staff to keep development costs lower. This might save money in the short term but for sustainable growth, an organization needs to bring in “best of breed” practitioners when their own internal resources are stretched too thin or when they do not have the degree of specialization and/or world-class expertise to give the new product the attributes it requires to become the leading brand.

Useful research. The key for product-development related projects is to know your customer, i.e. segment and define your customer first, understand what he needs, and then start thinking what your company wants and can offer today and tomorrow. Super key for important strategic projects are a) a project-linked incentive system b)a strong project manager with the responsibility to deliver and authority to put together a project team c)regular monitoring of the intermediary results by the top management team. When there are many projects in the company, project management becomes an important stand alone function. It is then financially affordable to create a project management team which coordinates and monitors various projects, and accumulates and shares project management skills and knowledge within the company.

A complication in today’s environment is that projects are typically managed and staffed on a global scale. Also, in many cases, companies need to work with outside partners and institutions in successful development of new products. Nurturing a project culture in a global environment, where team members are separated by geographic, cultural, and organizational boundaries can be a huge challenge. This is where some of the emerging collaboration-enhancing technologies (like social networking, high-definition video, unified communications, security, and so on) hold significant promise. Many companies today are experimenting with these technologies to see if they can be applied to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the product development process. We are witnessing the transformation of how new products are developed and brought to market. Exciting times indeed!

While I agree with the three highlighted areas, I would also emphasize the importance of operational capabilities. Any product design is an optimal solution for customer needs, business needs, engineering, operations, suppliers, materials, etc., and therefore be looked at from a broader perspective. Any weakness in one of these areas may undermine the overall objective of developing a competitive and exciting product for the customer.

The three core issues you identify: creating a clear sense of goals from project inception; nurturing a “project culture”; and close ongoing “customer” relationships, are the cornerstones of Value Networks. However, in project environments command and control methodologies are ineffective in all but the latter, convergent phases of implementation. The opposite holds for stakeholder-driven management.

This facilitative approach identifies, acknowledges, integrates, and develops “customer” relationships in all parts of the value chains that are involved in the network. It provides better forecasting for the strategic development of projects, and it releases the synergy of all those on whom the development and implementation of individual projects depends.

The issue then is how to create the environment in which the value chain project network you allude to can flourish. This is the goal of development coaching. Development coaching aims to seed, nurture, and increase the ability of individuals, projects, and organisations to achieve the sustainable development you identify. It is not enough to understand the mechanics of a project or organisation because projects or organisations are arrangements of individuals and not simple pieces of machinery. In modern economies, command and control management has been dismantled through the awareness of this dependency of organisations on the commitment of the people that comprise it and who are also their ultimate clients. The benefits of such change can only be embraced fully through the effective application of developmental approaches that acknowledge the centrality of the people involved.

This article talks about; quality requirements (and management), good (project and portfolio) management and quality function deployment. Is it fair to say that any level of weakness of any of these three impacts a successful product launch?

Based on the analysis I am not sure whether you have proven convincingly that the “Nurturing a project culture” is a factor that improves performance. The relative percentages given for minimising staffing disruptions and for giving team leaders responsibility to review members performance 39% (high performers) versus 12% (low performers) and 44% versus 17%, respectively, suggest that for both these areas many of the leading performers did NOT adopt these aspects as part of their culture. What made them still successful? How did they compensate?

To illustrate more clearly the comparison in the category talking to the customer in periodically testing and validating customer preferences 80% (high performers) versus 43% (low performers) is given to suggest this as a factor. The 43% here for the low exceeds the 39% and approximates the 44% for the high performers in the culture category. The numbers seem to suggest a relative importance among the factors, in other words, project focus and discussions with the customer may carry a larger weight and play a more important role than culture. Or possibly the culture category is too broad and should be limited to or further research conducted on what exactly were the forces that moved persons to prioritize their projects over their job functions (as the percentages for this reflect a clear majority—i.e. greater than 50% for the high performers and a wide disparity).

The answer might very well still boil down to aspects of the culture but it would highlight definitively those which may then be able to be delivered as a “point” as done with the other 2 areas vis a vis customer focus or project focus rather than the broad “company/project culture”. With this targeted approach it will allow management to quickly identify in their companies what needs to change and determine if they are willing to adopt these changes.

Alternately, which may be just as vital to know, it may be that the weighting of the culture, if absent, can be compensated if greater concentration is placed with the other 2 areas and still lead to highly successful projects. Alternately, there may possibly be yet a 3rd or 4th undocumented one. This type of information will be extremely helpful as it relates to applying your results and research to effect meaningful change. Many thanks for this article that has provided these thought provoking discussions.

Interesting reading. I would like to know some more about the 28 companies. Are they mass-manufacturing rather standard products or small batch/one-off’s? How innovative are the designs they delivered? Do they organize incremental projects different from projects aiming to design more radically new products (or service combinations)?

I find the article simply points out a few basic project management principles and a basic necessity of new product development. First, properly defining scope is critical to a successful project, without it success cannot be measured. Second, allocating proper resources and assigning a project leader with the appropriate amount of authority amounts to basic project management. I don’t see any breakthrough information in that portion of the assessment. Finally, without understanding clearly what your customer expects and how to delight your customer, a new product will probably have limited success. An exception would be new-to-the-world products where the customer does not have any existing expectations. I think the article would be more valuable if it contained more definition around “successful” companies and the “laggards.”

I enjoyed reading this succinct article. The three elements mentioned are crucial to the success of any product development effort. However, a fourth element, communication and cooperation between technology and market-focused teams, is equally important. Success in the market depends on these two horses pulling their weights equally and cooperatively, in the same direction—toward customers and markets. Nurturing and building this partnership is crucial to any firm’s success in product development.

All of the things mentioned are good habits for sure, although I would be interested to see the size of the efforts. My experiences indicates that the larger the project the more difficult it is to manage costs and overruns. There is also more difficulty in using customer feedback in true innovation as they are less likely to understand the advantages of products that are just an incremental improvement of what they have.