Comparison of New Product Development (Technology Transition) Strategies

Rapid Product Development or Rapid Concept (Research) to Market (Operations)

Product Dev. Institute Harvard I Harvard II National Research Council NASA LeanTEC
• Customer focused • Development strategy • Superior performance in • Acceptance of risk • Schedule/budget constraints • Technology transition
- Build in market-focused actions - Prioritize projects time, productivity, and • Flexible environment • Collocated personnel process
- Market needs/customer value - Functional integration quality • Open communication • Flat organization • Enabling environment
- Field work by core project team - Maximize efficiency - Lead time focus • Organization-wide • Concurrent engineering • Technology transition
- Begin early - Create/improve capabilities - Productivity focus commitment • Contract outsourcing portfolio
- Broaden the base • Functional mapping - Total product quality focus • Value innovation • Streamlined acquisition • Project resources
• Front-end loaded - Marketing mapping • Integration in the • Focus on end-user needs • COTS components • Project charters
- Preliminary market assessment - Engineering mapping development process • Reduced lead times • Design reuse • Project plans
- Technical assessment - Manufacturing mapping - Overlapping and • Consistent funding • Flexible designs • Project contracts
- Supplier assessment - Integrative mapping communication • Use of COTS • Front-loaded funding • Communication protocols
- Market research • Aggregate project planning - Small team sizes and
- Concept testing - Research projects • Iterative development • Simplified reviews • Collaboration protocols
specialization
- Customer value assessment - Alliance-based projects • Simple procurement and • Minimal redundancy • Shared team experiences
- Simple, flatter organizations
- Business/financial assessment - Incremental projects • Integrating customer and
acquisition processes • Extensive testing • Formal reviews
• Spiral development - Breakthrough projects product
• Flexible standards and • Public relations
- User needs and wants study - Next-generation projects - Heavyweight product managers testing procedures
- Full proposition concept test • Development funnels - Customer access and orientation • Decentralized decision-
- Rapid prototype and test - Research-driven - Leadership by concept making
- Field trial and beta test - Entrepreneurial-driven • Manufacturing for design
• Cross functional teams - Innovation-driven - Manufacturing principles focus
- Multi-disciplinary team • Development framework - Rapid prototyping
- End-to-end project - Customer-focused - Rapid tools development
responsibility - Disciplined
- Clearly defined team leader - Coherence and detailed Common Factors
- Excellent communications - Fit with mission
- Empowerment over resources - Standardized pattern
• Measure and improve • Cross-functional integration • Early market feedback (e.g., on each increment).
- Put performance metrics in
place
- Cross-communication
- Relationship management
• Iterative development (e.g., 30-60-90 day increments).
- Establish success criteria - Organization commitment • Small, highly-qualified cross-functional project teams
- Hold teams responsible - Management commitment
- Continuously improve - Incentives to integrate
with influential leaders (e.g., mostly PhDs).
• Maximize portfolio • Cross-functional leadership • Flexible processes and products (e.g., streamlined
productivity - Functional teams
- Strategic buckets - Lightweight teams
processes and rapid-prototyping technologies).
- Product roadmaps - Heavyweight teams
- Project selection/prioritization - Autonomous teams (What this boils down to is integrating and streamlining
- Resource allocations • Tools and methods
- Portfolio reviews • Prototype test cycles
research, development, and operations into a single,
• Product innovation • Organizational learning smaller, and more efficient organization.)
- Institutionalize stage-gates • Capability development
- Scalable/adaptable stage-gates
- Automate stage-gates
- Alliance-enabled stage-gates
- Improve stage-gates
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