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Management must balance
these three factors against one another. Unfortunately, initiatives
that drive strategic impact and resource use efficiency can be at
odds with the forces that push speed. And, most often, speed or time-to-market
initiatives are well entrenched in organizations. Sure, everyone wants
to develop and launch new products with significantly greater strategic
impact, using far less resources and doing it all faster than ever.
We all know, however, that current new product development methods
and processes seldom work like that. The complicated
trade-offs among these three forces requires management to seriously
consider new approaches to product development. You simply cannot
win the Red Queen's Race by driving speed alone. Organizations must
embrace strategic impact and resource-use efficiency as well. This
can be done by first deploying and then streamlining five complementary NPD processes.
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Product Line Planning
(Roadmapping)
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Front End Concept Generation
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Feasibility (market & technical)
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Stage-Gate Development
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Portfolio and Pipeline Management
By the very nature of new product development, most organizations
already do much of the work within each of these processes. Their
challenge is that without structure or process, such "default"
work is often disjointed (one function transferring work to another) and disconnected
from a single strategic orientation. Results can be frustrating
to management, and even more frustrating to the people doing work
in the trenches of NPD. The five processes, when integrated and
streamlined, enable the organization to be aware and in control
of the trade-offs among speed, strategic impact, and efficiency.
Many, if not all organizations have some form of a Stage-Gate or
phase review process in place. These processes are typically set
up to screen projects and then develop them as quickly as possible.
Some organizations complement their Stage-Gate process with a proactive
concept generation process. All too often, seemingly good Front-end
concept generation processes yield far too many small concepts and
not enough big (high strategic impact) concepts. As the organization
tries to get ahead, it simply pushes more projects through the same
Stage-Gate pipeline. Resources become overwhelmed and the pipeline
clogs. Management's recourse is to then push on speed even harder
and shift resources away from Front-end activities (where strategic
impact is created) to as many projects in the Stage-Gate process
as possible.
Organizations need the Stage-Gate process and they need the Front-end
concept generation process. But to win the Red Queen's Race they
also need to generate the right targets for the Front-end through
Product Line Planning process and to optimize the mix and flow of
projects through both the Front-end and the Stage-Gate process through Portfolio
and Pipeline Management.
From a Portfolio Manager's perspective, the message
is simple. Projects can be shifted around as much as you like, but if you
want a more valuable portfolio you need to get more valuable projects. In
other word, portfolios cannot approach optimal without fruitful front-end
processes, including concept generation and product line planning... each with
the budget and resources to support them. Today, most organizations have
yet to work this out.
Winning the Red Queen's Race is not easy. But going as fast as
you can is simply not sufficient. New product development must also
emphasize strategic impact and efficiency. To do this, consider
augmenting your Stage-Gate process with integrated Front-end concept
generation, Product Line Planning, and Portfolio and Pipeline Planning.
Most of all, consider doing it before your competition!
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