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Flexibility, Structuration, and Simultaneity in New Product Development
Abstract
A large body of research has pointed out the need for a contingent approach in the design of new product development processes, highlighting the risk of simply accepting a normative perspective that leads to the identification and diffusion of decontextualized “best practices.” In the literature there are contrasting views regarding the identification of the characteristics of product innovation processes in extremely uncertain and dynamic conditions. Some studies propose a fascinating dichotomy: the contraposition between flexible processes and Stage-Gate® processes. They maintain that Stage-Gate® processes are characterized by “early and sharp” product definition and clear separation between concept development and implementation (detail design and production ramp-up), whereas flexible development models seek to delay the concept freeze point and overlap product development stages going beyond concurrent engineering. Other studies have arrived at seemingly conflicting results; the suitability of the early and sharp product definition approach in turbulent environments is debated without supporting the dichotomy between flexible processes and Stage-Gate® processes. Moreover, additional reasons for questioning the contraposition between Stage-Gate® and flexible processes come from a series of studies on the management of discontinuous innovation. The aim of the present study was to develop a conceptual framework that can overcome this widely accepted but controversial dichotomy. The framework is based on the recognition of the orthogonality among three analytical dimensions: organizational, informational, and temporal. The organizational dimension refers to the structuration of the process. The informational dimension deals with classifying the development activities and investigating the firm's product definition approach (early and sharp mode vs. late freeze mode). The temporal dimension relates to the execution strategies of development tasks. The three-dimensional framework enables us to better understand the complex relationships between the degree of structuration in process design (organizational dimension), the degree of intersection between problem-formulation and problem-solving in product definition (informational dimension), and different types of execution strategies (temporal dimension).
... Cooper, 2008Cooper, , 2014, studies have criticised the SGS. For example, Biazzo (2009) argued that SGS is too linear and too rigid to deal with uncertain environments, while Salerno et al. (2015) suggested that the SGS is not a context-based or 'one fits all' solution. In this direction, the most influential document was the Agile Manifesto (Beck et al., 2001), which suggested that the SGS was not adequate for the software industry. ...
... In relation to velocity, we concluded that this design parameter is also associated with the speed of the response to new uncertainties (e.g. market) (in line with Biazzo, 2009). Although relevant, other candidates (e.g. ...
... This conceptualisation indicates that adaptability is more related to AM than the SGS. In line with Biazzo (2009), the traditional structure and scope of SGS lead managers to face difficulties in reviewing and altering the project requirements in case of changes in the customer's needs. Moreover, adaptability is more associated with the latency of uncertainty. ...
Setting the right approach for new product development (NPD) in the presence of uncertainty remains an ongoing debate in innovation management. Stage‐gate systems (SGS) and agile methodology (AM) are the dominant approaches. Recently, hybrid approaches (combining SGS and AM) have been proposed. Although these hybrid approaches represent a significant development in NPD, combining them without considering their design principles might lead to contradictory and competing conceptual formulations, thus increasing the difficulty of comparison among studies. Moreover, scholars and practitioners may struggle to understand when, why and how a certain configuration of the NPD process provides the right response to different manifestations of uncertainty. The current literature faces problems regarding the clarity of design principles (e.g. flexibility and adaptability), and this has led to research gaps concerning the uncertainty contingency and outcomes of hybrid approaches. This study combines bibliometric and content analyses to identify four design parameters and principles of NPD hybrid approaches: flexibility, adaptability, velocity and integration. Our findings might help advance the development and comparison of different hybrid approaches.
... As a result, flexibility in new product development (NPD) has emerged as an increasingly powerful tool to ensure stable performance under changing environmental conditions (Kettunen et al., 2015). Flexibility in NPD is required to cope up with environmental turbulence, which emerges over the course of a project (Biazzo, 2009). In the literature, NPD flexibility has been defined as the ability of a firm to develop new products in an uncertain environment without incurring excessive cost, time and loss of performance (Koste et al., 2004;Larso et al., 2009;Buganza et al., 2010). ...
... In the literature, NPD flexibility has been defined as the ability of a firm to develop new products in an uncertain environment without incurring excessive cost, time and loss of performance (Koste et al., 2004;Larso et al., 2009;Buganza et al., 2010). Studies have recognized NPD flexibility as a strategic weapon that ensures the continuous flow of new products in a dynamic environment (Perez and Sánchez, 2003;Biazzo, 2009;Buganza et al., 2010;Kettunen et al., 2015;Fantazy and Salem, 2016). ...
... .] approximately 50 per cent of new products introduced in the market fail completely and more than 70 per cent do not realise their desired goal". While earlier studies suggest different aspects of NPD (Biazzo, 2009;Song and Swink, 2009;Hsu, 2011;Lin and Huang, 2012;He et al., 2014;Kong et al., 2015;Kettunen et al., 2015;Tih et al., 2016), flexibility in NPD is still an under-researched topic in literature (Buganza et al., 2010;Kettunen et al., 2015;Fantazy and Salem, 2016). Moreover, studies on the flexibility aspect of product development are majorly done from the developed economies perspective (Mishra et al., 2014;Mishra, 2018). ...
Purpose
A significant amount of work has been done on new product development (NPD); however, studies on the flexibility aspect in NPD are scant. This study aims to investigate the relationship between NPD flexibility and five infrastructural factors, namely, marketing and manufacturing integration practices (MMIPs), advanced human resource practices (AHRPs), supplier integration practices (SIPs), operational improvement practices (OIPs) and advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs).
Design/methodology/approach
The study applies a questionnaire-based survey approach to examine the proposed relationships between different variables and NPD flexibility. Using a 39-item questionnaire, 262 valid and usable responses were collected from Indian manufacturing firms. Data were analysed using principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Further, structural equation modelling was applied to examine the contribution of different infrastructural factors to NPD flexibility.
Findings
In light of the empirical evidence produced in this study, the study suggests that MMIPs, AHRPs, SIPs, OIPs and AMTs have a direct, positive and significant influence on NPD flexibility. Among all the predictors, SIPs are the strongest predictor of NPD flexibility, followed by OIPs and AMTs.
Research limitations/implications
The findings extend prior studies of NPD by broadening the theory related to NPD flexibility. Practitioners should take a macro approach and focus on several practices to enhance flexibility in NPD.
Originality/value
Unlike earlier studies that provide limited empirical evidence on NPD flexibility and deal with the concept in isolation, this empirical study applies a systematic approach to understand factors influencing NPD flexibility.
... Some practitioners even view CI as 'more trouble than they are worth' (Campbell and Cooper 1999, p. 516). As a result there has been calls for more research into the extent to which design concepts should be frozen and into flexibility in development projects (Biazzo 2009). ...
... Service innovation projects face high levels of uncertainty especially at in the initial stages. To manage this uncertainty, firms need to be able to introduce design modifications throughout the process (Biazzo 2009;Witell, Gustafsson and Johnson 2014). During development, firms must maintain a certain degree of flexibility, frequently reviewing and questioning initial plans to react appropriately to shifting conditions. ...
... Service design is a process that takes knowledge embedded in the customer and iteratively transforms this it into a pragmatic service value offering. This is the first time service concept transformation has been studied despite a calls for more research into the extent to which design concepts should be frozen and into flexibility in development projects (Biazzo 2009;Kandemir and Acur 2012). Surprisingly concept transformation was not found to have a significant effect on success. ...
Customers are a knowledge resource outside of the firm that can be utilized for new service success by involving them in the design process. However, existing research on the impact of customer involvement (CI) is inconclusive. Knowledge about customers’ needs and on how best to serve these needs (articulated in the service concept) is best obtained from customers themselves. However, codesign runs the risk of losing control of the service concept. This research argues that of the processes of external knowledge, acquisition (via CI), customer knowledge assimilation, and concept transformation form a capability that enables the firm to exploit customer knowledge in the form of a successful new service. Data from a survey of 126 new service projects show that the impact of CI on new service success is fully mediated by customer knowledge assimilation (the deep understanding of customers’ latent needs) and concept transformation (the modification of the service concept due to customer insights). However, its impact is more nuanced. CI exhibits an “∩”-shaped relationship with transformation, indicating there is a limit to the beneficial effect of CI. Its relationship with assimilation is “U” shaped, suggesting a problem with cognitive inertia where initial learnings are ignored. Customer knowledge assimilation directly impacts success, while concept transformation only helps success in the presence of resource slack. An evolving new service design is only beneficial if the firm has the flexibility to adapt to change.
... However, when task underestimation is high, the initial timing of the stages and gate meetings is often made too optimistically. This is why it is often argued that flexibility is required to account for unexpected tasks being discovered in an NPD project (Biazzo, 2009;Verganti, 1999). Re-planning and postponing gate meetings whenever this is deemed necessary throughout the project is what we call the flexible gate timing strategy (depicted with extra gate timing decision points in Figure 1, row 4). ...
... 1. In line with the concept of fuzzy or conditional gates (Biazzo, 2009;Cooper, 1994), the model allows uncompleted tasks at the time of the gate meeting to be moved to the stock of tasks pushed to the next stage. This means that the timing of the gate is protected, but tasks that are not yet finished move from, for example, the front-end to the development stage. ...
... This also allows the team to complete more unexpectedly discovered tasks in the development and commercialization stages, thereby positively affecting new product quality and sales (Reid and de Brentani, 2004;Verworn, Herstatt, and Nagahira, 2008). In contrast, when keeping the front-end gate fixed, unexpected tasks that are not discovered in the front-end will be discovered and completed in the development stage (in line with the notion of fuzzy or conditional gates) (Biazzo, 2009;Cooper, 1994). The revised time plan would thus be much too optimistic as the workload is underestimated once more. ...
Stage-wise timing of new product development (NPD) activities is advantageous for a project's performance. The literature does not, however, specify whether this implies setting and adhering to a fixed schedule of gate meetings from the start of the project or allowing flexibility to adjust the schedule throughout the NPD process. In the initial project plan, managers and/or development teams often underrate the time required to complete the project because of task underestimation. Although the level of task underestimation (i.e., the unknown) is not identifiable at the start of the project, our study argues that project managers and/or teams can manage the unknown by measuring three project conditions (i.e., the knowns) during front-end execution, and use their values to select the best gate timing strategy. These project conditions entail: (i) the number of unexpected tasks discovered during the front-end, (ii) the willingness of customers to postpone their purchase in case the execution of these unexpected tasks would lead to a delayed market launch, and (iii) the number of unexpected tasks discovered just before the front-end gate. Together these conditions determine whether a more fixed or more flexible gate timing strategy is most appropriate to use. The findings of a system dynamics simulation corroborate the supposition that the interplay between the three project conditions measured during front-end execution determines which of four gate timing strategies with different levels of flexibility (i.e., one fixed, one flexible, and two hybrid forms) maximizes new product profitability. This finding has important implications for both theory and practice as we now comprehend that the knowns can be used to manage the unknown.
... As expected, a considerable number of articles describe traditional risk management, focusing on predictable and identifiable risks (variability). The second most frequent code were Strategies for managing uncertainties (SMU), with articles discussing uncertainty management approaches, particularly the following approaches are predominant: learning or " trial and error, " selectionism (also called parallel approaches) (Pich et al., 2002; Sommer and Loch, 2004; Loch et al, 2008; Chun, 1994; Lenfle, 2011; Rice et al., 2008), and managerial flexibility (Huchzermeier and Loch, 2001; Thomke and Reinertsen, 1998; Santiago and Bifano, 2005; Biazzo, 2009; Wang and Yang, 2012). Instructionism (an approach in which decisions are made a priori) and the hybrid approach between flexible and rigid management are also cited (Olausson and Berggren, 2010). ...
... Market uncertainties are related to the customers' needs, the types of sales/distribution, and the project team's understanding of the relationship between their product and those of their competitors (Rice et al., 2008). The difficulty in understanding the customers' needs and translating them into functional and symbolic characteristics of the product generates market uncertainty (Biazzo, 2009). Song et al. (2001) suggest that the greater the market or technical uncertainty, the greater the complexity and turbulence of the external environment will be. ...
... The consecrated methodology of stagegates is extremely rigid. The basic concepts and propositions must be defined during the initial stage of planning and frozen as soon as they pass through the first gate (Biazzo, 2009). This management approach is effective in situations where uncertainties are moderate and stable but, for most turbulent environments, may not be the most appropriate approach (Biazzo, 2009). ...
_____________________________________________________________________________95Revista de Gestão e Projetos -GePVol. 7, N. 2. Maio/Agosto. 2016ZHENG/ CARVALHORevista de Gestão e Projetos -GePe-ISSN:2236-0972DOI:10.5585/gep.v7i2.402Data de recebimento:28/02/2016Data de Aceite: 23/05/2016Organização:Comitê Científico InterinstitucionalEditor Científico:Emerson Antonio MaccariAvaliação:Double Blind Review pelo SEER/OJSRevisão:Gramatical, normativa e de formataçãoMANAGING UNCERTAINTY IN PROJECTS: A REVIEW, TRENDS AND GAPSABSTRACTNowadays an increasing number of projects are being developed in high complexity and uncertainty environment, requiring different approaches for project management: less rigid andmore flexible. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to present a framework for managing uncertainties, through a systematic literature review. The developed framework, based on the contingency theory, suggests that approaches for uncertainty management are,in part, determined by the characteristics of the existing uncertainties. The responses for uncertainty can be driven by the cause or consequence of the uncertainties and those are chosen according to the ability to influence the cause, which is higher for internal uncertainties and lower for external uncertainties. The flexibility of the project management approach, in its turn, is impacted by the uncertainty degree.Keywords:Uncertainty;Risk;Project Management;Contingency Theory
... The process of formulating a verbal expression that could be the driver of action is problem formulation (Lyles and Mitroff, 1980;Nutt, 1993), and the outcome of this process is problem representation (Biazzo, 2009;Pretz, Naples, and Sternberg, 2003). When the trajectory of the innovation project becomes unfavorable or untenable, the formulation of a new problem representation is necessary. ...
... The models are described as processes set in motion when a problem arises (Nutt, 1993;Volkema and Evans, 1995) or when a problem must be found or defined (Lyles and Mitroff, 1980). The outcome of problem formulation is a problem representation (George, 1994), from which problem-solving activities follow (Biazzo, 2009). ...
Failure is an inevitable feature of innovation, and management research promulgates the importance of learning from it. Key to excelling at an innovation‐based strategy is understanding the processes that can turn failures into successes. However, post‐failure success remains elusive. Although failure signals that the innovation journey is off course, shifting trajectory is difficult, because it may require revising assumptions and reformulating the project’s problem representation. Using comparative case studies, this study set out to understand how problem representations are reformulated. Employing case method and comparing data versus theory iteratively, the important role of sensemaking and of leadership behaviors in driving post‐failure success was salient. Findings show that problem representations post‐failure require a process of problem formulation characterized by sensemaking and that innovative solutions are enabled by the reformulation of problem representations that spring from prospective sensemaking. Furthermore, this article identifies leadership change behavior as the linchpin driving a problem formulation process characterized by prospective sensemaking that catalyzes innovative solutions and explains why some projects thrive post‐failure and others do not. This article provides empirical support to the theoretical work of the literature on problem formulation, while extending the learning‐from‐failure literature by emphasizing and demonstrating the process driving post‐failure success. The major implication of our study is that different leadership behaviors may foster different types of sensemaking (retrospective or prospective), and that, in turn, the type of sensemaking matters for how a problem is reformulated. Ultimately, this article concludes that in the context of project failure, problem reformulation that springs from prospective sensemaking enables innovative solutions post‐failure.
... Our results reinforce this perspective and present another potential solution with a handed-over hybridization form. We thus call for further research to investigate whether and under what circumstances it is worthwhile to abandon the Stage-Gate structure in favor of iterative methodologies or combinations thereof (e.g., Gartner's approach to combining Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile, 3 [104], [105]). ...
In this article, we address the complex implementation of Stage-Gate hybrid models in new product development (NPD) processes. The existing literature provides fragmented insights into the implementation of hybrid models, and this systematic literature review offers a more holistic understanding of the Stage-Gate hybridization phenomenon. Our findings first reveal three iterative methodologies (Agile, Design Thinking, and Lean Startup) that are integrated into the Stage-Gate process in either a nested or handed-over hybridization form, second, identify the stages of the NPD process that are best suited for the integration of these methodologies, third, show and describe three types of hybrid models (Agile/Stage-Gate, Design Thinking/Stage-Gate, and Design Thinking and Lean Startup/Stage-Gate), and finally identify four aggregated dimensions (project type, market, technology, and learning gap) that R&D managers should consider when deciding to activate a hybrid model for a specific project. This study contributes to innovation and project management research by advancing the Stage-Gate hybridization phenomenon's conceptualization beyond the Agile/Stage-Gate model, addressing the calls for contingency studies in the domain of hybrid models, providing managerial guidance on the activation of these models, and identifying future research directions. The study is supplemented by a description of how and when four manufacturers have successfully employed hybrid models.
... NPD has inherent complexity since many subsystems, components, functions and entities are interconnected and a decision in one aspect can affect others (Biazzo, 2009;Troy et al., 2008). A formal NPD process starts with well-defined specifications for prototype design (Stevens, 2014). ...
Purpose
As the start of a new product development (NPD) process, the front fuzzy end (FFE) is believed to determine new product performance to a large extent. However, its effects on new product performance, particularly in terms of quality and cost, lack empirical evidence in the extant literature. Moreover, the joint performance effects of the FFE and cross-functional interfaces in later NPD stages (i.e. product development and product launch) are largely overlooked and deserve further investigation. Therefore, this study aims to explore the direct effects of the FFE and later stages’ joint moderating effects on new product performance (i.e. quality and cost) from a holistic process view.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual model is proposed to hypothesize the FFE–new product performance relationships and the joint performance effects of cross-functional interface management. A sample of 196 firms from an international survey is used and hierarchical linear regression is employed to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings
This study finds that FFE implementation contributes to both new product quality and cost performance. Moreover, interface management in multiple NPD stages has synergistic performance effects. Specifically, the FFE, customer involvement in product development and manufacturing flexibility in product launch jointly improve new product quality performance, while the FFE, supplier involvement in product development and manufacturing flexibility in product launch jointly improve new product cost performance.
Originality/value
This study extends the NPD literature by deepening the understanding of the key roles of the FFE on new product performance and evidencing the synergistic effects of cross-functional interfaces in multiple NPD stages. Further, this study also highlights the differential joint moderating effects of interface management in later NPD stages on new product quality and cost performance. This study also offers insightful implications to NPD managers.
... Tourism success depends on its customers and how the customer is satisfied with the products and services being offered. Customers are a knowledge resource outside of the organization that can be utilized for new service and IJMABER 189 Volume 4 | Number 1 | January | 2023 product success by involving them in the development process (Biazzo, 2009). Furthermore, according to Bonner (2010), the success of the entire tourist sector is directly impacted by the absorption of customer information. ...
Marketing is an effective tool in promoting and enhancing the image of any tourism destination. If properly planned and implemented, it will provide very good profit and investment. Using descriptive-correlational research, this study explored of determining if there is a significant relationship between consumers' psychographic intention and purchasing behavior, targeted the domestic and international tourists traveling to Guiuan, Eastern Samar and purchasing local products. A convenience sampling method was utilized to determine the number of respondents. There was a total of 332 tourists participated in the study. Frequency counts, percentages, weighted mean, and Pearson’s correlation was used in the analysis of the results. From the findings, it was revealed that consumers are after to quality of products and service delivery. They are particular to price and the value it can give to the amount they paid for. Information about the products must be available online for easy access of information. Accordingly, it is recommended that local government must work with other agencies in assisting how local owners can enhance their delivery of service. Maintaining the culture of hospitality is highly recommended to create a positive image. Consumers’ data must be gathered for reference in future decision-making from their buying patterns and behavioral purchase. The marketing framework will support different local product manufacturers in developing marketing strategies to enhance the marketability of their products and customer loyalty.
... O skorzystaniu z adaptacyjnego zarządzania projektem mówi E. C. Conforto, który wskazuje na skorzystanie z tej subdyscypliny w branżach innych niż tylko w rozwoju oprogramowania 7 . Bardzo często wymienia się właśnie elastyczność oraz adaptację jako odpowiedź na dynamiczne projekty przeprowadzane w zmiennym środowisku projektowym 8 . O efektywności zarządzania adaptacyjnego wskazuje brak badań empirycznych w innych branżach i projektach (poza oprogramowaniem). ...
Artykuł dotyczy zarządzania mediami, dlatego odpowiednio zaprezentowano próbę możliwego podejścia opartego na zwinnych metodologiach zarządzania projektami. Artykuł przedstawia kolejno media i zarządzanie nimi (przegląd literatury), charakterystykę projektów mediowych, zwinne zarządzanie projektami, analizę zwinnego podejścia i zarządzania mediami wraz z propozycją nowego pomysłu, jakim jest zwinne zarządzanie mediami (Agile Media Management) oraz wnioski. Poniższe wyniki podkreślają istotną potrzebę przyjrzenia się tej idei w ramach ważnego badania empirycznego oraz dalszego kierunku badań.
... In order to fill this gap, this paper is to put forward a reasonable method, i.e. evaluation matrix system, intending to help companies with the process of selection, so that they can move forward to execution, the final stage of innovation. This paper also calls for further research in innovation economics to study the effects of innovations by investigating their creative and destructive components, so that companies can launch more products which are conducive to the growth of GDP and to employment [4]. ...
... (Davies, & Brady, 2016;Paluch, et al, 2020). A more flexible approach adaptable to the contingencies of the project environment is required (Biazzo, 2009). ...
The high level of volatility, uncertainty,
complexity and ambiguity in business environments lead to
the fact that traditional management has been in serious
trouble. The required flexibility should provide the agile
project management causing a silent revolution of the way
projects are organized and executed. Although initially rooted
in the software development industry, we can say that agile
methodologies are spreading across a broad range of
industries. The benefits of applying an agile approach are
widely recognized, but there are still various challenges and
problems that the organization faces with when adopting an
agile practice.
... Our findings confirm the favorable influence of effectuation and causation on the innovation results. The findings also invite us to reflect on the extreme perspectives on strategic approaches to the phenomenon of innovation (Atuahene-Gima and Li 2004;Georgsdottir and Getz 2004;Biazzo 2009). They warn us to avoid ideological bias in future research by showing that causation, a logic associated with planning, is also effective for achieving successful innovation in SMEs in industries with high uncertainty, such as technology industries. ...
Technology-based SMEs develop their activity in changing environments with strong competitive pressures. These conditions make them much more likely to innovate but also make the innovative process more challenging due to greater complexity of decisions about resources and establishment of actions to achieve favorable innovation results. Although prior studies have analyzed diverse factors that impact the innovative dynamics of this type of firm, little advance has been made in exploring the problem from the perspective of decision-making. This study seeks to close this research gap using Effectuation Theory, one of the most-cited theories emerging in the field of entrepreneurship. More specifically, we analyze the use of causal and effectual decision-making logics to evaluate their direct and ambidextrous effects on innovation in technology-based SMEs. Our results provide evidence that not just one path, but rather a pool of alternatives, supports product and process innovation development. More specifically, when technology SMEs pursue product innovation, both effectuation and causation can be used as predominant mechanisms to achieve positive innovation results. If firms also seek to develop process innovations, however, they may obtain better results with an ambidextrous approach.
... One refers to the so called 'second Toyota paradox', which consists of the apparently counterintuitive concept of achieving faster product development by delaying the choices and decisions regarding the product being developed (Ward et al. 1995). The five articles addressing this paradox build on the design theory known as 'set-based concurrent engineering' and they do not consider cultural aspects in their analysis (Biazzo 2009;Malak, Aughenbaugh, and Paredis 2009). Nevertheless, some authors recognise the important role of OC in dealing with the changes resulting from new product development and in successfully managing this paradox (Belay, Welo, and Helo 2014;Ford and Sobek II 2005). ...
This study investigates how the effective management of cultural paradoxes and dilemmas can support
lean implementation in a service organisation. We have conducted an in-depth single case study employing
the paradox theory as a theoretical lens. The findings offer a dynamic analysis of how organisational
culture (OC) influences lean implementation, and in turn, how lean implementation directly impacts the
OC. The study shows that in order to achieve a successful lean implementation, the organisation must
reshape the OC by identifying when to manage cultural tensions as dilemmas or as paradoxes. We also
discuss the existing defensive mechanisms (sources of resistance) and managerial actions taken to manage
those tensions and resistances. Besides contributing to the lean literature, this study contributes to
the operations management field more broadly by highlighting the need to replace the long tradition of
the trade-off perspective by a more embracing perspective that accepts the co-existence of dilemmas
(either-or choices) and paradoxes (balancing opposed goals). The practical implications rely on the identification
of lean practices that counterbalance specific cultural traits, offering recommendations to managers
dealing with the cultural clashes inherent to a lean implementation.
... SGM teams toil to define as much of the product design as early as possible (Munthe et al., 2014). The earlier product specifications are confirmed, the more risk that is 'retired', the sooner follow-on phases may commence (Iansiti, 1995;Biazzo, 2009). Developing new products supports business growth if appropriately executed, how firms manage NPD is essential (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1991). ...
We present a qualitative study of Agile Stage‐Gate Management (ASGM),: a hybrid new product development methodology that combines Agile and Stage‐Gate Management (SGM) approaches for the coordination of new product development. When applied to software projects, Agile is expected to deliver reduced development times, improved resource utilization, and greater financial success. We examine whether ASGM practitioners realize similar outcomes in a sample of global firms developing complex electro‐mechanical products (e.g., automobile components, railway propulsion systems, and medical devices). Our grounded theory approach articulates an understanding of ASGM through extensive interviews of experienced professionals. Our thematic analysis supports many expected benefits (i.e., speed to market, innovation enabling), but also does not encourage others, and reveals new pitfalls that deserve recognition (i.e., resource inefficiency). ASGM is not a panacea for all product development. Overall, physical product firms adopting this method can expect reduced development times and higher levels of innovation but will expend more resources to complete development projects, but a dichotomy exists. Physical product developers using ASGM experience a negative impact on project resource efficiency due to the need for dedicated resources, frequent product demonstrations, and duplicative management structures.
... In following Farjoun (2010, p. 220) in combining the two sets of literature, "that concerned with risk taking, innovation, and entrepreneurship and that concerned with reliability, risk reduction, institutions, and stability," our study helps us better understand the particular duality between stability and change that characterizes large, dynamic projects. Similar to research by Padalkar and Gopinath (2016a), Biazzo (2009), andVan Oorschot et al. (2018a), our study finds that an overly inflexible project execution has shortcomings in handling emergent issues, and that flexible execution based on a few processes instead leads to better performance. Indeed, it seems that the need for change as a mechanism increases during dynamic projects as phases become concurrent. ...
In concurrent engineering projects driven by short delivery times, team performance rests on the team’s capability to quickly and effectively handle different, emergent issues. We conducted an exploratory study of a large, dynamically complex project in which team members had a record of “good problem-solving abilities.” The study revealed how the team members demonstrated a collective ability to swiftly handle emergent issues, which again decreased the intensity of time and performance pressure. Beyond formal processes combined with lean practices, supporting this ability were situation awareness, task-based subgroups, direct lines of communication, and trust.
... Similar to the empirical findings, various authors also point out the importance of flexibility oriented cultural values (e.g. Stock, Six, and Zacharias 2013;Biazzo 2009;Buganza and Verganti 2006) and openness to innovation (Laursen and Salter 2006). A culture that is dominated by clan has strong loyalty and traditional values. ...
... For example, when individuals are uncertain about the problem and task due to the complexity of the technology involved, they are less able to map the implications of their actions [12]. Similarly, when individuals are uncertain about technical scope and customer needs, they are less able to decide on the key functional characteristics of the product [42]. Further, complex products with long life spans [43], where interdependencies between the operational environment and future technologies are difficult, if not impossible, to predict, reduce individual's ability to make good decisions about how the project should progress [44]. ...
Uncertainty drives project activity in New Product Development (NPD), and its resolution is crucial to project performance. However, there is a major gap in understanding the causal links between different uncertainty types and the project activities they trigger. Engineering managers lack guidance on how best to respond to different uncertainty types. We close this gap by experimentally contrasting responses to two uncertainty types central to NPD: technical and organizational uncertainty. We describe responses with respect to core engineering project activities: representation, information, and knowledge sharing. We present evidence from an experiment involving 50 professionals and 74 master's students. The results show that uncertainty type has a significant effect on activity response, and that there is a significant ordering effect within this response. Based on the identification of a new response type, change of situation, our findings show that technical uncertainty drives change of situation and representation activity, while organizational uncertainty drives information and knowledge sharing activities. This provides the basis for three main contributions. First, we identify "change of situation" as a new type of response to uncertainty in NPD. Second, we describe different responses to technical and organisational uncertainty. Third, we characterize an ordering effect in responses to uncertainty.
Managerial relevance statement:
This research offers important advice to managers of NPD projects in practice. First, NPD managers are advised to understand the uncertainty type they face and then identify a suitable response in terms of project activity. For technical uncertainty, typical responses include representation activities (e.g. prototyping or simulation) and changes to the situation. For organizational uncertainty, responses include information and knowledge sharing activities to enable the NPD team to reduce this uncertainty type and progress in the NPD task. Second, these responses to uncertainty can be combined to offer a more substantive approach for reducing uncertainty. For example, for technical uncertainty managers could consider varying the constraints of a problem by changes in situation to allow more effective representation activity. Similarly, for organizational uncertainty knowledge sharing could be followed by subsequent changes in situation to adapt the project goals and scope based on the discovered information. Planning for such combinatory responses would enable NPD managers to better tailor their response to the relevant uncertainty type and thus more effectively allocate time and resources when responding to uncertainty.
... The effective learning process refers to the value or applicability of learning outcomes, e.g., deducing insight from testing process to initiate succeeding testing iterations, augmenting product functionalities in close consultation with users and sharing captured knowledge across the organization wherever and whenever needed (Sehested and Sonnenberg, 2011). To enhance effectiveness, learning process is to be structured with a clear scope and objectives (Ries, 2011); it is not about unfettered exploration, but rather a systemic and controlled process of hypothesis-testing (Biazzo, 2009;Ries, 2011), or in the words of Smith et al. (1999) "guilty-until-proven-innocent" assumptions. Hence, experimentation is not a "shot in the dark"; it is virtually a scientific problem-solving process backed up with validated data (Bicen and Johnson, 2015;Bieraugel, 2015;Nepal et al., 2011;Sewing et al., 2008), starting with a solid understanding of customer expectations of value and anti-value (Browning and Sanders, 2012;Cooper and Edgett, 2008;Helander et al., 2015;Letens et al., 2011;Mascarenhas Hornos da Costa et al., 2014), and aiming to fill knowledge gaps with quick iterations of small-scale experiments (e.g. ...
Purpose
Increasingly, a firm’s innovation capability has become one of the key frontiers of competitive advantage. The Lean philosophy has a well-proven reputation for its focus on process efficiency and effectiveness, and therefore, is often applied in various areas of innovation. Such wide and ever-increasing applicability also has resulted in an incoherent corpus of literature on Lean innovation. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize an integrative view on Lean innovation management.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a systematic literature review, the key Lean principles and practices useful in the context of innovation management are identified and synthesized into an all-inclusive framework. By means of three illustrative cases (i.e. public hospital, electronics company and avionics manufacturer), this paper elaborates on how the proposed framework can be applied.
Findings
A total of 88 publications are analyzed, leading to 34 Lean principles and practices relevant to innovation management, which are further integrated into a comprehensive model, dubbed the “Leanovation” framework.
Originality/value
This study is the first attempt to advance the understanding of various interrelated and interdependent components of Lean innovation management in a holistic way.
... In addition to the promotion of cultural tensions by a lean implementation, the suitability of the paradox theory lens in this context is reinforced by paradoxical nature of the lean thinking itself (Liker, 2004). Relevant paradoxes within lean implementation identified in the extant literature include the flexibility versus standardization paradox (Adler, Goldoftas, & Levine, 1999;Maalouf & Gammelgaard, 2016;Pereira, Ro, & Liker, 2014), and the contradiction of a faster product development supported by the delay in product definitions (Biazzo, 2009;Malak, Aughenbaugh, & Paredis, 2009;Ward, Liker, Cristiano, & Sobek II, 1995). ...
... Similar to the empirical findings, various authors also point out the importance of flexibility oriented cultural values (e.g. Stock, Six, and Zacharias 2013;Biazzo 2009;Buganza and Verganti 2006) and openness to innovation (Laursen and Salter 2006). A culture that is dominated by clan has strong loyalty and traditional values. ...
... Within each literature stream, models have been suggested that describe the process, and these largely correspond to the front-end of problem solving, meaning, they are described as processes that are set in motion when there is a problem (Nutt, 1993;Volkema and Evans, 1995), or when a problem must be found or defined (Lyles and Mitroff, 1980). The outcome of problem formulation is a problem representation (George, 1994) from which problem solving activies follow (Biazzo, 2009). ...
This chapter introduces two perspectives on the management of innovation and product development – a linear perspective and a network process perspective – and discusses the differences and implications of these perspectives for innovation management. Our goal is to stimulate reflection on the management of innovation and to increase awareness of the available choices that can be made, as the two perspectives also represent great differences in relevant management technologies. Thus, these represent more than two perspectives, they lay two very different claims on how innovation happens and how innovation should or could be managed.
The linear perspective on management of innovation has emerged from studies on structured approaches to management of projects and innovation and was later supplemented with (especially survey) studies of critical factors in innovation and product development – rather popular with many consultancy companies. The network process perspective has grown out of case-based studies, longitudinal studies, and sociological and ethnographic studies. The process perspective attempts to understand how innovation happens from inside, focusing less on how managers can structure and manage innovation from a distance. Until recently it focused less on demonstrating what the process perspective offered in terms of understanding managing innovation. This work present a network process perspective in an attempt to promote the perspective more actively.
... SGM teams toil to define as much of the product design as early as possible (Munthe et al., 2014). The earlier product specifications are confirmed, the more risk that is 'retired', the sooner follow-on phases may commence (Iansiti, 1995;Biazzo, 2009). Developing new products supports business growth if appropriately executed, how firms manage NPD is essential (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1991). ...
Stage Gate Management (SGM) has been used successfully by global organizations to direct the New Product Development process (NPD) for years, recently a new variant of this venerable approach has emerged. Researchers and firms have begun to intersperse elements of Agile, as popularized for the development of software, to create an Agile – Stage Gate Management (ASGM) hybrid NPD framework. Agile practitioners believe in process waste reduction, an intense focus on customers, and the creation of nimble entrepreneurial project teams, which, for software products, has positively impacted development time to market, resource utilization, and market success, more generally, improved business outcomes. For NPD professionals responsible for physical products, not solely software, do these Agile tenets continue to produce results? With minimal available research, a Grounded Theory study was conducted to inductively create theory from the implementation of ASGM, specifically for firms that design, develop, and manufacture physical products. Twenty-nine experienced industry professionals were interviewed from four global companies which represented five distinct Business Units (BU) which competed in a variety of markets and industries around the world. From these interviews, a Content Analysis approach was employed to organize primary and secondary themes which illustrated NPD team practices. Additionally, a comparative multi-case study method further developed specific Agile/Scrum techniques implemented, the measures of business success realized, as well as, a new ASGM model for like firms. From this research, firms which developed physical products did not implement all Agile practices, only Team Interface, Product Demonstrations, and Specification Flexibility were uncovered. The cases did, however, subjectively realize an improved time to market, as well as, greater product success for projects commercialized using ASGM. Lastly, a new framework emerged which highlighted the unique practice of Agile behaviors earlier in the development process, but rigid, or SGM-like, activities closer towards product launch.
... In design, all types can be expected to shape activity ( Garcia 2005), particularly as designers often face multi-faceted problems where they must deal with team, organisation, and process issues in addition to pure product considerations ( Kleinsmann & Valkenburg 2008). Specifically, Bstieler (2005) and Biazzo (2009) highlight how activity is typically driven by one or two types in any given situation. Thus the composite perception of these uncertainty types i.e. the nature of uncertainty perception, is an important determinant of design activity progression. ...
This paper proposes the Uncertainty Driven Action (UDA) model, which unifies the fragmented literature on design activity. The UDA model conceptualises design activity as a process consisting of three core actions: information action, knowledge-sharing action, and representation action, which are linked via uncertainty perception. The foundations of the UDA model in the design literature are elaborated in terms of the three core actions and their links to designer cognition and behaviour, utilising definitions and concepts from Activity Theory. The practical relevance and theoretical contributions of the UDA model are discussed. This paper contributes to the design literature by offering a comprehensive formalisation of design activity of individual designers, which connects cognition and action, to provide a foundation for understanding previously disparate descriptions of design activity.
... to stronger alignment through customer relationships, and innovation. ( Huit et al,2008) beside that some concept related to SCO like green supply chain orientation (SCO). Firm orientation reflects their inclination to innovation and green-oriented companies are believed to be more innovative in their process and product (Hong, Kwon and Roh 2009.;Biazzo, 2009;Routroy, 2009). On the other hand business adaptiveness recently has received increased attention as both input and output factors in business processes, While several scholars (e.g., Tuomine, Rajala, &Mollet, 2004;Zahra and Pearce, 1990;C hild, 1997) have acknowledged that adaptability is a construct of strategic, operational or functio ...
Supply chain orientation (SCO) has become one of the most important dynamic capabilities that has a strategic significant contribution on improving companies operational adaptability and performance. Based on RBV, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between Strategic, structural SCO and operational adaptiveness of Sudanese industrial companies. Data was collected through a survey of 180 manufacturing companies. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data, and the study results have shown a positive relationships between SCO and operational adaptiveness. The results have also confirmed the relationship between strategic and structural SCO. Moreover the results found that Structural SCO mediates the relationship between Strategic SCO and operational adaptiveness, which is support the strategic SCO as preliminary for structural SCO and the necessity of the fit between strategy and structure. Furthermore companies will get more operational adaptability benefits when adopted internal culture that enhance mutual and cooperative work with supply chain partners.
... o stronger alignment through customer relationships, and innovation. (Huit et al ,2008) beside that some concept related to SCO like green supply chain orientation (SCO). Firms' orientation reflects their inclination to innovation and green oriented companies are believed to be more innovative in their process and product (Hong, Kwon and Roh 2009.;Biazzo, 2009;Routroy, 2009). On the other hand business adaptiveness recently have received increased attention as both input and output factors in business processes, While several scholars (e.g., Tuomine, Rajala, &Mollet, 2004;Zahra and Pearce, 1990;Child, 1997) have acknowledged that adaptability is a construct of strategic, operational or functio ...
Supply chain orientation (SCO) has become one of the most important dynamic capabilities that has a strategic significant contribution on improving companies operational adaptability and performance. Based on RBVThis paper aims to investigate the relationship between Strategic, structural SCO and operational adaptiveness of Sudanese industrial companies. the data was collected through a survey of 180 manufacturing companies.using Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data, and the results show that a positive relationships between SCO and operational adaptiveness, moreover the study confirmed the relationship between strategic and structural SCO, In addition to the results found that Structural SCO mediation the relationship between Strategic SCO and operational adaptiveness, which is support the strategic SCO as preliminary for structural SCO and the necessity of the fit between strategy and structure. Furthermore companies will get more operational adaptability benefits when adopted internal culture that enhance mutual and cooperative work with supply chain partners.
... Similar to the empirical findings, various authors also point out the importance of flexibility oriented cultural values (e.g. Stock, Six, and Zacharias 2013;Biazzo 2009;Buganza and Verganti 2006) and openness to innovation (Laursen and Salter 2006). A culture that is dominated by clan has strong loyalty and traditional values. ...
... Flexibility is a concept which may have many connotations, but the real meaning of flexibility in the business perspective will be to have a system which should be such that in case of any change in situation, it may be able to adjust and maintain its status quo in terms of the short term objectives like market share, and long term goals like sustained profitability. Many authors have mentioned about the concept of flexibility under different perspectives like Biazzo (2009) recently mentioned about the structuration and simultaneity in new product scenario; Peters (1996) mentioned it from the production perspective. Similarly, Jin Zhongqi (2001), Johnson et al (2003), Norris (2001), Sawhney (2001) and Sushil (2000) used different perspectives to show that flexibility is an essential and an inevitable tool for the success of organisations. ...
Flexibility plays a central role in the survival and success of organization in today's fast changing environment, which has been recognized by many authors in management theory. This paper is an attempt to give a conceptual framework for 'flexible marketing system'. Using the literature and experts opinion, the author has tried to give a comprehensive, systematic and structured approach towards a hypothetical organizations with flexible marketing system in place, which will have concern to sense shifting customer demands, anticipating competition moves and adjusting the firms marketing efforts to maximize returns while minimizing risk. The paper concludes by explaining the benefit of adopting flexible marketing system approach to become a highly successful organization. Benefits to such an organization will include – possession of trained executives on market sensing techniques, smooth flow of information, adequate IT system and its implementation, and fast decision making and overall job satisfaction for employees.
... Outra contribuição deste artigo refere-se à caracterização do processo de transição tecnológica no setor elétrico, que, por suas especificidades, demandará novos arranjos organizacionais nas empresas concessionárias, que devem se estruturar para lidar com a gestão de inovações que contribuam para tal processo. É reconhecida pela literatura acadêmica a importância do projeto organizacional para a inovação (Tushman & O'Reilly, 1996;Salerno, 2004;Lam, 2005;Worley & Lawler, 2006;Biazzo, 2009;Marx et al., 2012). ...
... Another contribution of this paper refers to the characterization of the technological transition process in the electricity sector, which, by their specificities, require new organizational arrangements in utility companies, which must be structured to deal with innovation management that contribute to this process. The importance of organizational design for innovation is recognized by academic literature (Tushman & O'Reilly, 1996; Salerno, 2004; Lam, 2005; Worley & Lawler, 2006; Biazzo, 2009; Marx et al., 2012). Therefore, a set of theoretical challenges have posed a reflection on the nature and the depth of change that organizations face when dealing with transition technology and on how this process will require organizational changes in the sectors involved in this process. ...
Abstract: This article aims to characterize the organizational structure for innovation in electric utilities according the literature related to technological transition and work organization for innovation. Case studies showed that most companies have presented more suitable organizational structures to deal with established technologicalregimes. However, the growing demand of society for sustainable energy systems poses a great challenge to the power industry, as these require great efforts in R&D for radical technological innovation from the companies in the sector. It is argued that companies organized under adhocracy are better able to cope with the challenges of the transition towards sustainability imposed on the electricity sector.
Resumo: Este artigo tem como objetivo caracterizar a estrutura organizacional para a inovação em empresas do setor elétrico de acordo com a literatura relacionada à transição tecnológica e à organização do trabalho para a inovação. Por meio de estudos de caso, identificou-se que maioria das empresas estudadas apresenta estruturas organizacionais mais aptas a lidar com regimes tecnológicos estabelecidos. Entretanto, a crescente demanda da sociedade pela sustentabilidade dos sistemas energéticos coloca ao setor elétrico um enorme desafio que exigirá das empresas do setor grandes esforços em Pesquisa & Desenvolvimento para a inovação tecnológica. Argumenta-se que empresas organizadas sob a lógica adhocrática são mais aptas a lidar com os desafios da transição rumo à sustentabilidade imposta ao setor elétrico.
Palavras-chave: Gestão da inovação; Transição tecnológica; Inovação; Sustentabilidade.
Unexpected events and new information during a new product development (NPD) project may require responsiveness regarding development efforts and new decisions about the allocation of financial resources. Prior research mainly focused on major decisions about financial resource allocations at predefined milestones; this study zooms in on more frequent and smaller financial resource allocation decisions between formal reviews. This research is based on a case study of a large car company that manages NPD projects with long lead times and large budgets, which are often reviewed and adjusted because of new events that unfold during these projects. We identify an approach for within-project NPD cost compensation at these more frequent and smaller financial resource allocation decisions, which prioritizes the goal of keeping NPD costs in check by requiring teams to compensate NPD cost overruns elsewhere within their project. The study empirically investigates factors associated with the use of this approach, which are based on the need and the feasibility of finding cost compensation. This is particularly relevant for development projects with a high level of uncertainty, which require regular budgetary responsiveness.
In this conceptual work, we describe cross-disciplinary meaning and language related to the innovation phenomenon located in a business context. Our work attempts to find common meaning and language for innovation that can be applied across all business innovation projects irrespective of the business discipline, and to synthesize these common terms into an innovation communication and planning tool. The objective of providing a common meaning and language for innovation is to give practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders a shared communication platform, and common language and meaning that assist incumbents to discuss and collaborate during innovation projects without the boundaries created by siloed, nuanced, and discipline-specific understandings. The outcome of the paper is a conceptual framework and canvas tool constructed from universal meaning and language for business innovation with the aim of providing a set of common questions that business practitioners could ask during times of innovation. Furthermore, the Business Innovation Canvas provides new directions for future study and the development of tools that take advantage of common meaning and language to aid innovation practitioners and researchers.
We explore the relevance of two different views on new product development (NPD) drivers, defined as “advantage of youth” and “business acumen”. The two arguments, that establish a negative relationship between an individual’s age and NPD and a positive impact of professional experience on NPD, are theoretically contextualized and empirically tested in the entrepreneurship domain. Considering a sample of more than 4,000 Italian entrepreneurs of innovative start‐ups, a series of econometric analyses confirm that both effects apply and reveal interesting nuances as to the relevance of the age effect and the relative importance of different dimensions of entrepreneurs’ business acumen on NPD. Further additional analyses highlight how both the “advantage of youth” and “business acumen” do not necessarily lead to successful entrepreneurial NPD, but at the same time, they both are found to importantly characterize top performers among entrepreneurs engaging in NPD. Overall, this in‐depth analysis on entrepreneurial NPD and its drivers underlies the importance of a micro‐founded and individual‐based approach in the study of new product dynamics, and in doing so, it contributes to enrich the upper echelons perspective and related frameworks on innovation outcomes through entrepreneurship. By theorizing and documenting those personal demographic and human capital traits which are mostly associated with entrepreneurial NPD, a series of interesting implications quite naturally descend for several stakeholders: (prospective) entrepreneurs, managers who aim at nurturing an intrapreneurship culture within their companies and policy makers interested in increasing dynamic efficiency in the economic system through the launch of new products and services.
Prior research has extensively discussed the incidence of exploration and exploitation capabilities on innovation. Theoretically, cultural factors are considered variables that benefit this relationship. However, this rationale has not been evaluated in previous research. The present study examines the moderating role of cultural factors in the relationship between exploration and radical innovation, as well as in the relationship between exploitation and incremental innovation. This was performed by means of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), using Partial Least Squares (PLS), with data from 251 large Colombian firms that intensively use information and knowledge. The results hereof indicate that exploration and exploitation influence radical and incremental innovation, respectively. This is a novel finding on firms from developing countries, as it is a relationship that has been mainly studied in organisations from developed regions. It was also found that the cultural factor alignment strengthens the relationship between exploitation and incremental innovation. However, the cultural factor adaptability does not benefit the relationship between exploration and radical innovation. These results bridge the existing literature gap on how exploration/exploitation capabilities, cultural factors, and innovation behave as a whole. In addition, these findings are helpful in managerial terms, because they offer a better understanding of the ways in which firms can achieve innovation results.
This paper reviews the literature on green supply chain management practices over ten years from 2011-2021. The review criteria were based on ROSES's publication standard (RepOrting standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses). Articles for the study were selected using two leading databases Scopus and Web of Science. After screening the titles, abstracts, and full texts of the retrieved results, three researchers independently evaluated the relevancy of the articles and chose only 35 out of 150 suitable studies which met the standards and were relevant. The review was conducted in two stages. Firstly, citation analysis was done to review the research papers in order to recognize the key areas of the green supply chain management currently being focused on and examined by the research community. The findings based on the thematic analysis fell into these main themes, which are: green procurement, green manufacturing, green distribution, reverse logistics, management commitment and organizational performance. This paper concluded that there is a huge gap in the literature related to methodological choices as quantitative studies are dominant and developed a green supply chain management (GSCM) model.
Ein hybrides Modell des Innovationsmanagements muss gewährleisten, dass in einem VUCA-Umfeld die Aktivitäten des strategischen und des operativen Innovationsmanagements in hohem Maße kundenorientiert, anpassungsfähig, interdisziplinär und beschleunigt durchgeführt werden können. Entsprechend dieser Prämisse wurde vom Autor ein Innovationssystem entwickelt, das neben dem strategischen und operativen Innovationsmanagement auch das Lebenszyklusmanagement integriert. Das entwickelte Innovationssystem weist zum einen eine zirkulare Grundstruktur auf, welche die in einem dynamischen Unternehmensumfeld laufend notwendigen Iterationen und Rückkopplungen auf allen Ebenen des Innovationsmanagements gewährleistet. Zum anderen berücksichtigt das Innovationssystem die Anforderungen und Spezifika mittelständischer Produktionsbetriebe und hierbei insbesondere jene von Mechatronik-Unternehmen. Das erste Element dieses vom Autor als „Hybrides Innovations- & Produktmanagement-Modell (HIP-Modell)“ bezeichneten Systems bildet dabei der Bereich Discovery & Strategy. Ausgehend von der Unternehmensvision und der daraus abgeleiteten Unternehmensstrategie ermöglicht dabei ein aufeinander abgestimmtes Methoden- und Toolset der strategischen Frühaufklärung die frühzeitige Identifikation von Entwicklungen, die in weiterer Folge eine wesentliche Grundlage für das Ableiten potenzieller Innovationsfelder und deren Darstellung in einer Innovation-Roadmap bilden. Das nächste Element des HIP-Modells ist die Ideation-Phase. Da im Kontext der VUCA-Welt im Rahmen der Ideengewinnung, neben den eigenen Mitarbeitern auch externe Akteure vermehrt in die Ideation-Phase integriert werden sollen, sind auch zahlreiche Open Innovation Methoden Bestandteil des HIP-Systems. Das Spektrum reicht hier von der Lead-User Methode, bis hin zu ganzheitlichen Ansätzen der Ideengewinnung, wie dem Design Thinking Ansatz. Weisen positiv bewertete Ideen einen hohen Neuigkeitsgrad auf, so werden diese im Sinne eines skalierbaren Prozessansatzes entsprechend ihrer Innovationsart alternativ den Subprozessen radikale Produktentwicklung, Technologie- bzw. Vorentwicklung oder Geschäftsmodellentwicklung zugewiesen. Diese drei Innovationsarten werden im HIP-Modell unter dem Systemelement Discovery subsumiert und stellen jeweils eine Vorstufe der eigentlichen Produktentwicklung dar. Am Beginn dieser im Modell als Development bezeichneten Phase gilt es, aufbauend auf Feinanalysen des produktspezifischen Umfelds, das zu entwickelnde Produkt mittels der Product-Vision zu definieren, von der in weiterer Folge das initiale Product-Backlog abgeleitet werden kann. Daran anschließend werden die essentiellen Arbeitspakete der Konzept- und Entwicklungsphase des im Unternehmen implementierten Stage-Gate-Produktentwicklungsprozesses in einen Gesamtplan überführt, der die Basis für die Etappen- und die daran anschließende Sprintplanung bildet. Die dafür notwendigen Aktivitäten und die dabei einzusetzenden Tools sind essentieller Gegenstand des HIP-Modells. Aufgrund der hohen Bedeutung produktbezogener Dienstleistungen für den Erfolg vieler Technologieunternehmen ist in das HIP-Modell auch ein hybrides Framework für das Dienstleistungsengineering und –management integriert. In weiterer Folge enthält das HIP-Systemelement Lifecycle Hinweise für die prozessuale und inhaltliche Ausgestaltung der einzelnen Phasen des Lebenszyklus, damit die am Markt eingeführten Leistungen durch das erneute Durchlaufen der Phasen des Modells kontinuierlich an die immer häufiger auftretenden Veränderungen des VUCA-Umfelds entsprechend rasch adaptiert werden können. Die Integration agiler Ansätze und Methoden in die Innovationsprozesse eines Unternehmens bedingt aber auch eine Anpassung von Unternehmensorganisation, Führungsphilosophie und Unternehmenskultur. So gewinnen in Bezug auf die Aufbauorganisation duale Strukturen im Sinne der strukturellen Ambidextrie zunehmend an Bedeutung und gewährleisten, dass Unternehmen neben der laufenden Optimierung des bestehenden Leistungsangebots gleichzeitig auch radikalere Innovationsansätze zur Sicherung des zukünftigen Unternehmenserfolgs umsetzen können. Diese Änderungen verlangen aber auch eine grundsätzliche Änderung des Führungsverständnisses, bei dem die Führungskräfte sich verstärkt als Coaches sehen und ihren Mitarbeitern Vertrauen entgegenbringen und entsprechende Freiräume gewähren. Dies führt zu einem Wandel der Unternehmenskultur und das HIP-Modell zeigt in diesem Zusammenhang auf, welche Maßnahmen zur Etablierung einer innovationsfördernden und agilen Unternehmenskultur ergriffen werden können.
This paper aimed to develop modified total interpretive structural modeling (M-TISM) for marketing flexibility factors in the context of the Indian telecommunications sector. The study uses grounded theory methodology to identify factors for marketing flexibility and uses a modified total interpretative structural model (TISM) to establish hierarchical linkages among factors. MaxQDA software was used for data coding and analysis. The modified TISM model developed shows metrics used in the telecom industry to assess marketing's performance, namely average revenue per user (ARPU), and customer acquisition, as lagging factors. Conversely, availability of access networks, customer contextual usage patterns, and marketing intelligence functions are leading factors. The study is relevant for both practitioners and academia and has significant implications. For practitioners, the structural linkages identified will help enhance marketing program effectiveness and drive the critical metrics for an industry like average revenue per user (ARPU) and customer acquisitions. The study may help telecom practitioners in saving money, time, and efforts to infuse flexibility in their marketing function. Academia and researchers can take reference from methodologies used in this study for exploring factors of interest and developing hierarchical linkages among them.
This study examines proactive decision-making and design flexibilities in new product development (NPD) as critical forms of strategic flexibility. The conceptual framework identifies market and technological alignment as drivers of proactive strategic flexibility, and examines their association with strategic NPD performance and fit with market demands. The model is tested using data collected from a sample of 103 European manufacturing firms. The results suggest that market and technological alignment are important in developing proactive decision-making and design flexibilities, which in turn have significant effects on strategic NPD performance and NPD fit with market demands. Overall, the study will help managers develop a better understanding of key similarities and differences in proactive strategic flexibility practices and decide how to allocate resources to achieve market and technological alignment supporting their NPD activities. The paper provides novel insights into proactive strategic flexibility in NPD, its alignment with market and technological environments, and its effects on product development performance.
Product development activities are aimed at transforming new feasible product ideas into profitable products. This transformation requires the progressive reduction of uncertainty about market needs and technological choices. Market uncertainty arises from the complexity in translating customer needs (which change over time) into functional and emotional product attributes; technical uncertainty is linked to the degree of novelty in product and manufacturing process design decisions. In designing a product development process, it is essential to distinguish two kinds of problems: the strategic problem of risk and uncertainty reduction; and the organizational problem of cross-functional integration in the formulation of design decisions. In this chapter we first address the strategic problem of uncertainty reduction with the Stage-Gate model, exploring the concept of anticipation: the idea that the product development must be front-loaded with activities that allow to anticipate the resolution of knowledge gaps and aggressively reduce uncertainty in the early phases of the process. Then we present the recent evolution of the Stage-Gate model towards a process that is consistent with turbulent market conditions, in which the focus on anticipation is combined with reaction—the ability to keep the product concept open, preserving options in the advanced stages of development (flexible Stage-Gate). Finally, we focus on the role of integration events in tackling the organizational problem of cross-functional integration and the emergence of spiral and lean approaches to product development.
Purpose
Technological uncertainty and technological complexity are the two dominant characteristics of new product development (NPD) projects that have a negative influence on NPD performance, relying on a strong theoretical argumentation based on organizational information processing theory. The purpose of this study is the development of reliable and valid scales for the measurement of technological uncertainty and technological complexity, especially in the context of the discontinuous technological change of digitization.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses material from 44 in-depth interviews, which has been transferred into a questionnaire, and survey data from 166 respondents from the German automotive industry in charge of the development and production of electric and electronic technologies (including software). In this context, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses are used to test the developed scales for reliability and validity.
Findings
In this context, it can be stated that the developed scales affirm reliability and validity sufficiently. Interestingly, novelty, regarded as key item for measuring technological uncertainty, has to be dropped, as the factor loadings are under the cut-off of 0.40. Moreover, resulting items for measuring technological uncertainty and technological complexity do not deviate significantly from those discussed in previous study before the discontinuous technological change of digitization occurred.
Originality/value
This paper provides value for the discussion on how to measure technological uncertainty and technological complexity, especially in times of radical technological changes.
Purpose
This study is to compare the impact of organizational agility and flexibility on performance of each type of product innovation (radical vs incremental innovation). Additionally, the moderating effect of technological turbulence on the relationship between the two types of organization is examined.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on gaps in the existing literature, the survey data are collected from managers who are in charge of developing new products in three industries: food and beverage, chemical and machinery ( N = 431). Confirmatory factory analysis is used to verify measurement items and regression analysis is used to test hypotheses.
Findings
The results show that organizational agility increases performance in radical innovation both in a certain situation and an environment with technological turbulence. In contrast, the impact of organizational flexibility is limited to increasing performance in both radical and incremental innovation performance in a certain situation.
Originality/value
Our study extends the knowledge of organizational agility and flexibility in the domain of product innovation. Adaptation of organization to respond the technological turbulence will stimulate creativity of new product development teams to produce new useful ideas and transform these ideas to product innovation. The different types of organizing a new product development team to handle technological turbulence will provide different results in product innovation performance. In addition, the findings provide a recommendation on how the organization of a new product development team can improve performance in each type of product innovation under technological turbulence.
The management literature defines modular innovation as a way to make technological changes in product modules that does not necessarily change the product architecture. However, engineering science shows that new product modules not only change the product architecture, but they can also be used for technologically radical next generation products. Therefore, there seems to be a misalignment in how the role of modular innovation is seen as an innovation management phenomenon and the actual practice of product design and engineering. We revisit the role of modular innovation by combining management and engineering approaches. We demonstrate the applicability of this approach through two cases that utilize patent data of two recent technologically innovative products: Tesla's Model X and iRobot's Roomba automated vacuum cleaner. The examples show, in detail, how the changes in product modules and functions have led to broader changes at the system architecture level, leading to new functionalities. The findings contribute to the innovation management literature by identifying a more nuanced role of modular innovation by embedding it in the product architecture, thus broadening the discussion on architectural innovation and technological radicalness.
Integrating insights on firms’ resource availability with bounded rationality and real options arguments, we propose that resource-abundant and resource-constrained firms reap different effects from a staged approach to innovation. We argue that resource availability triggers overoptimism and managerial discretion, and thereby impedes adequate resource reallocation in staged innovation projects, leading to different effects of staging at the firm level. An empirical analysis of 2,790 German firms confirms that a staged investment approach leads to a higher number of newly started and abandoned innovation projects in resource-abundant firms than in resource-constrained firms. Supplementary analyses suggest that this is indeed because resource-abundant firms demonstrate more overoptimism and managerial discretion. We discuss implications for the real options literature, as well as managerial implications for innovation investment decisions.
This study is an attempt to develop a scale to measure flexibility in the marketing system of an organization. The author has named it as 'FLEXMARK'. The methodology used to develop FLEXMARK scale is extensive literature survey and the In-depth interviews of the expert's from sales and marketing department. The author believes that marketing system is the backbone of any organization and has important role in the success and profitability of any organization. A reliable and valid scale thus developed will be helpful to measure organizational flexibility, and will also act as an important indicator of organizational performance. As a result, 59 attributes under 12 dimensions were found to be relevant in developing the scale. Some of the important dimensions include new product development and Innovation, price measure, channel partner, customer satisfaction, structure of sales and marketing (S&M) department, employee audit, training needs etc. The limitation of this paper is that this scale is not yet tested for its reliability and validity.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine what it means to be resilient in the context of environmental turbulence, complexity, and uncertainty, and to suggest how organizations might develop strategic resilience.
Design/methodology/approach
Sampling from the theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of resilience within the management and organizational literatures, this conceptual paper presents a model of strategic resilience and theoretical propositions are developed that suggest directions for future research.
Findings
It is proposed that strategic resilience is an emergent and dynamic characteristic of organizations whereby organizational legacy is a defining antecedent, top management team future orientation is a fundamental belief system, and problem formulation is a key deliberate process.
Research limitations/implications
Although the conceptual inquiry of strategic resilience offers clarity on a complex phenomenon, empirical evidence is needed to provide a test of the concepts and their relations.
Practical implications
By asserting that the environment is turbulent, complex, and uncertain, this paper opens up new possibilities for the understanding and study of strategic resilience, whereby metamorphosis and innovation are requisites, and entrepreneurship is part and parcel of strategy. As such it highlights the importance of managerial beliefs and behaviors that facilitate proactively and deliberately challenging of the status quo.
Originality/value
The proposed conceptualization of strategic resilience in this paper connotes action rather than just reaction, and in so doing highlights the importance of the synergy between strategic management and entrepreneurship. As such, it proposes factors that may help organizations persist and create value within a context and future that they themselves also shape.
Foresight at the fuzzy front end of the innovation process has become a widespread managerial practice to increase innovation capacity. Nevertheless, conducting foresight by focusing exclusively on internal know-how and capabilities might inhibit companies from maximising the full potential of this managerial practice. Therefore, opening up companies’ boundaries to look into the long term future jointly with other organisations and to share knowledge on possible future developments, is proposed as a promising approach against these limitations. Before committing to inter-organisational collaborations like collaborative open foresight, it is important to analyse whether the company possesses the necessary prerequisites. Findings from adjacent areas indicate that organisational culture and its influence on a company’s openness to engage in open approaches is an important precondition. So far, no clear evidence of a culture fostering openness for open foresight has yet been presented. Based on two in-depth case studies applying the Competing Values Framework for (organisational) culture analysis we identify cultural values that foster or inhibit openness: (1) A corporate culture characterised by a clan culture and adhocracy culture is fostering openness, whereas (2) a market and hierarchy culture inhibits openness for open foresight participation.
Bringing a new product to market involves both a creative ideation stage and an execution stage. When time-to-market constraints are binding, important questions are how to divide limited time between the two stages and who should make this decision. We introduce a laboratory experiment that closely resembles this setting: it features a product development task with an open design space, a downstream cost increase, and two development stages. We show that performance is significantly worse when designers choose for themselves when to transition from ideation to execution and that decision control explains a large share of performance variation even after controlling for individual differences. How the time is allocated between ideation and execution does not affect mean performance, but later transition increases risk. One driver of poor design outcomes in the designer-initiated transition regime are delays in physical construction and testing of designs. We show that such delays can be prevented by “nudging” designers toward early prototyping. However, the most important performance driver is the lack of task structure in endogenous regimes, which can be remedied by demanding a concrete, performance-oriented deliverable prior to a transition.
Data and the electronic companion are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2709.
This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management.
This study explores and documents the processes by which large manufacturing firms develop and produce radical products. Seven projects from five Fortune 500 firms were analyzed over a 3‐year period. Through the use of these case studies, we found common themes emerging in the way these firms manage their new product development (NPD) process in this turbulent environment. Our observations suggest that these high levels of uncertainty result in several unique challenges in developing the project, especially in the areas of managing functional integration and finding a divisional home for the emerging product.
Toyota enjoys competitive advantages over several companies due to its effective integrated system, both in product design and manufacturing-process design, and other aspects of business function. Toyota developed its system over decades through an incremental process of taking good ideas and adapting them to the existing structure. The system balances the demands of functional expertise and cross-functional coordination. The benefits and drawbacks of a particular practice are analyzed, including how it contributes to all aspects of integration. Finally, the success of Toyota's system lies on its skilled people with a lot of hands-on experiences, deep technical knowledge, and an eye for the overall system.
Reducing cycle times, managing costs, and improving project management are key to competitive advantage. This paper introduces an approach known as the dependency structure matrix (DSM) and discusses using the DSM to design project plans that produce greater concurrency and better iteration management. The DSM focuses management attention on the essential information transfer requirements of a project: finding essential tasks vital to begin early, developing project plans having improved throughput, removing unnecessary iteration, and simplifying project reviews, while at the same time preserving or improving deliverable quality. A DSM helps us decide what to assume and how and when to plan project reviews. Assumptions are among the greatest sources of project risks. Making assumptions and their dependencies explicit is the key to controlling risk.
Despite differences in definitions, researchers understand that radical innovation within an organization is very different from incremental innovation and that it is critical to the long-term success of firms. Unfortunately, research has also shown that it is often difficult to get support for radical projects in large firms, where internal cultures and pressures often push efforts toward more low risk, immediate reward, incremental projects. Interestingly, we know considerably less about the effective management of the product development process in the radical than in an incremental context. The purpose of this study is to explore the process of radical new product development from a strategic perspective, and to outline key observations and challenges that managers face as they move these projects to market. The findings presented here represent the results of a longitudinal (since 1995), multidisciplinary study of radical innovation projects. A multiple case study design was used to explore the similarities and differences in management practices applied to twelve radical innovation projects in ten large, established North American firms. The findings are grouped into three high-level strategic themes. The first theme, market scope, discusses the challenges associated with the pursuit of familiar versus unfamiliar markets for radical innovation. The second theme of competency management identifies and discusses strategic challenges that emerge as firms stretch themselves into new and unfamiliar territory. The final theme relates to the people issues that emerge as both individuals and the project teams themselves try to move radical projects forward in organizations that are not necessarily designed to support such uncertainty. A breadth of subtopics emerge within and across this framework relating to such ideas as risk management, product cannibalization, team composition, and the search for a divisional home. Taken together, our observations reinforce the emerging literature that shows that project teams engaging in radical innovation encounter a much different set of challenges than those typically faced by NPD teams engaged in incremental innovation.
“Every day, I try to go out and grab lightning.”
—Terry Fadem, Director, New Business Development, DuPont Corporation
This paper explores the performance of coupled development tasks subject to a deadline constraint
by proposing a performance generation model (PGM). The goal of the PGM is to develop insights
about optimal strategies (i.e. sequential, concurrent, or overlapped) to manage coupled design tasks
that share fixed amount of engineering resources subject to performance and deadline constraints.
Model analysis characterizes the solution space for the coupled development problem. The solution
space is used to explore the generation of product performance and the associated dynamic forces
affecting concurrent development practices. We use these forces to explain conditions under which
concurrency is a desirable strategy.
Winning at New Products is a 2001 book. It is now in its 5th edition, "Winning at New Products: Creating Value Through Innovation" 5th ed..
Available as paperback on Amazon.
How Toyota's product design and development process helps find the best solutions and develop successful products.
This paper demonstrates how the art form jazz improvisation can be applied to organizational innovative activities, focusing specifically on product innovation. In the past, the literature on product innovation focused on well-planned approaches which followed a clearly-understood structure based on a rational-functionalist paradigm. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that this model is inappropriate in today's highly competitive business environment. A balance between structure and flexibility seems to be an appropriate way to manage the contradicting demands of control and creativity faced by organizations in highly competitive environments. Jazz improvisation provides this synthesis through the concept of 'minimal structures'. We characterize the minimal structures that allow jazz improvisers to merge composition and performance, and then proceed to apply this approach to new product development.
New product processes—formal “stage-gate” systems for driving new product projects from idea through to launch—have been widely adopted in the last decade, and have generally had a strong and positive impact on firms' new product efforts. While these Second-Generation roadmaps represent a major improvement over the NASA-based first generation process of the 1960s, they too have weaknesses: too time consuming and too many time wasters, too bureaucratic, and no provision for focus. Here, Robert Cooper speculates about the nature of an emerging next generation of new product processes. He proposes fundamental changes to today's “stage-gate” systems that revolve around four Fs: they will be fluid and adaptable; they will incorporate fuzzy gates which are both situational and conditional; they will provide for much sharper focus of resources and management of the portfolio of projects; and they will be much more flexible than today's process. The end results should provide companies with a much more efficient road-map, bringing products to market faster and improving their use of scarce resources. But pitfalls are never far away in our evolution towards these Third-Generation Processes.
A process, as a kind of system, derives its added value from the relationships among its elements (e.g., activities). For a group of activities to be truly integrated (versus merely aggregated), the flow of deliverables among them must be well defined, agreed to, and committed to. Engineering processes are especially complex because of the large number of interdependencies among the activities, as many types of information flow to many destinations. A process model of what actually flows must be extracted from the existing, implicit way work really gets done. Since this requires getting “close” to where work is actually done, it is beyond the ability of a single, centralized group to build the entire model. Instead, a number of process “puzzle pieces” must be integrated into a single process model that will have more holistic descriptive, analytical, and prescriptive value. (The systems engineering “V” model applies to processes as well as to products.) This paper applies a powerful technique for representing and analyzing complex processes, the design structure matrix (DSM). The paper shows how to use the DSM to display both internal and external inputs and outputs, thereby defining the “edges” of the process puzzle pieces so they can be assembled to form large, integrated processes where value can flow. Process definition and integration is akin to “mapping the genome” of how work is efficiently and effectively accomplished across disciplines and organizations. It is an important enabler of process understanding and improvement. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 5: 180–193, 2002
Product development professionals may have the feeling that yet another buzzword or magic bullet always lurks just around the corner. However, researchers have devoted considerable effort to helping practioners determine which tools, techniques, and methods really do offer a competitive edge. Starting 30 years ago, research efforts have aimed at understanding NPD practices and identifying those which are deemed “best practices.” During the past five years, pursuit of this goal has produced numerous privately available reports and two research efforts sponsored by the PDMA.
Abbie Griffin summarizes the results of research efforts undertaken during the past five years and presents findings from the most recent PDMA survey on NPD best practices. This survey, conducted slightly more than five years after PDMA's first best‐practices survey, updates trends in processes, organizations, and outcomes for NPD in the U.S., and determines which practices are more commonly associated with firms that are more successsful in developing new products. The survey has the following objectives: determining the current status of NPD practices and performance; understanding how product development has changed from five years ago; determining whether NPD practice and performance differ across industry segments; and, investigating process and product development tools that differentiate product development success.
The survey findings indicate that NPD processes continue to evolve and become more sophisticated. NPD changes continually on multiple fronts, and firms that fail to keep their NPD practices up to date will suffer an increasingly marked competitive disadvantage. Interestingly, although more than half of the respondents use a cross‐functional stage‐gate process for NPD, more than one‐third of all firms in the study still use no formal process for managing NPD.
The findings suggest that firms are not adequately handling the issue of team‐based rewards. Project‐completion dinners are for the most frequently used NPD reward; they are also the only reward used more by best‐practice firms than by the rest of the respondents. The best‐practice firms participating in the study do not use financial rewards for NPD. Compared to the other firms in the study, best‐practice firms use more multifunctional teams, are more likely to measure NPD processes and outcomes, and expect more from their NPD programs.
Not many authors have attempted to classify projects according to any specific scheme, and those who have tried rarely offered extensive empirical evidence. From a theoretical perspective, a traditional distinction between radical and incremental innovation has often been used in the literature of innovation, and has created the basis for many classical contingency studies. Similar concepts, however, did not become standard in the literature of projects, and it seems that theory development in project management is still in its early years. As a result, most project management literature still assumes that all projects are fundamentally similar and that "one size fits all." The purpose of this exploratory research is to show how different types of projects are managed in different ways, and to explore the domain of traditional contingency theory in the more modern world of projects. This two-step research is using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and two data sets to suggest a conceptual, two-dimensional construct model for the classification of technical projects and for the investigation of project contingencies. Within this framework, projects are classified into four levels of technological uncertainty, and into three levels of system complexity, according to a hierarchy of systems and subsystems. The study provides two types of implications. For project leadership it shows why and how management should adapt a more project-specific style. For theory development, it offers a collection of insights that seem relevant to the world of projects as temporary organizations, but are, at times, different from classical structural contingency theory paradigms in enduring organizations. While still exploratory in nature, this study attempts to suggest new inroads to the future study of modern project domains.
The process of product definition, during which a firm establishes the product specifications, has a vital influence on the success of a product but has attracted little attention from researchers. Conventional wisdom stipulates that a firm should finalize its specifications early in the product development process. However, in industries facing rapid technological change, stiff competition, and uncertain customer needs, specifications set too early could become outdated by the time of market launch, thereby decreasing the product's benefits to the customer. The authors discuss an alternative approach, in which a firm delays commitment to product specifications and finalizes them just in time for the market launch after careful deliberation, thereby benefiting from the evolution of core technologies and customer preferences. Because such an approach introduces new managerial challenges, it would be appropriate only under certain circumstances. The authors develop a simple model of the product definition process that offers insights about how a firm should customize the process to suit its needs. They capture these insights as a managerial framework and illustrate them with industry examples involving the development process for laser printers and network test kits.
This paper investigates interrelationships of product design, organization design, processes for learning and managing knowledge, and competitive strategy. This paper uses the principles of nearly decomposable systems to investigate the ability of standardized interfaces between components in a product design to embed coordination of product development processes. Embedded coordination creates ‘hierarchical coordination’ without the need to continually exercise authority—enabling effective coordination of processes without the tight coupling of organizational structures. We develop concepts of modularity in product and organization designs based on standardized component and organization interfaces. Modular product architectures create information structures that provide the ‘glue’ that holds together the loosely coupled parts of a modular organization design. By facilitating loose coupling, modularity can also reduce the cost and difficulty of adaptive coordination, thereby increasing the strategic flexibility of firms to respond to environmental change. Modularity in product and organization designs therefore enables a new strategic approach to the management of knowledge based on an intentional, carefully managed loose coupling of a firm's learning processes at architectural and component levels of product creation processes.
Despite differences in definitions, researchers understand that radical innovation within an organization is very different from incremental innovation [13,17,21] and that it is critical to the long-term success of firms. Unfortunately, research has also shown that it is often difficult to get support for radical projects in large firms [14], where internal cultures and pressures often push efforts toward more low risk, immediate reward, incremental projects. Interestingly, we know considerably less about the effective management of the product development process in the radical than in an incremental context. The purpose of this study is to explore the process of radical new product development from a strategic perspective, and to outline key observations and challenges that managers face as they move these projects to market. The findings presented here represent the results of a longitudinal (since 1995), multidisciplinary study of radical innovation projects. A multiple case study design was used to explore the similarities and differences in management practices applied to twelve radical innovation projects in ten large, established North American firms. The findings are grouped into three high-level strategic themes. The first theme, market scope, discusses the challenges associated with the pursuit of familiar versus unfamiliar markets for radical innovation. The second theme of competency management identifies and discusses strategic challenges that emerge as firms stretch themselves into new and unfamiliar territory. The final theme relates to the people issues that emerge as both individuals and the project teams themselves try to move radical projects forward in organizations that are not necessarily designed to support such uncertainty.
In Great Minds In Management Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt have brought together some of the most influential and original thinkers in management. Their contributions to this volume not only outline their landmark contributions to management theory, but also reflect on the process of theory development, presenting their own personal accounts of the gestation of these theories. The result is not only an ambitious and original panorama of the key ideas in management theory presented by their originators, but also a unique collection of reflections on the process of theory development, an area which to date little has been written about by those who have actually had experience of building theory. In their concluding chapter, Ken G. Smith and Michael A. Hitt draw together some common themes about the development of management theory over the last half a century, and suggest some of the conclusions to be drawn about how theory comes into being.
The process of product definition, during which a firm establishes the product specifications, has a vital influence on the success of a product but has attracted little attention from researchers. Conventional wisdom stipulates that a firm should finalize its specifications early in the product development process. However, in industries facing rapid technological change, stiff competition, and uncertain customer needs, specifications set too early could become outdated by the time of market launch, thereby decreasing the product's benefits to the customer. The authors discuss an alternative approach, in which a firm delays commitment to product specifications and finalizes them just in time for the market launch after careful deliberation, thereby benefiting from the evolution of core technologies and customer preferences. Because such an approach introduces new managerial challenges, it would be appropriate only under certain circumstances. The authors develop a simple model of the product definition process that offers insights about how a firm should customize the process to suit its needs. They capture these insights as a managerial framework and illustrate them with industry examples involving the development process for laser printers and network test kits.
Although many new-products professionals may harbor hopes of developing "the next big thing" in their respective industries, most product development efforts focus on incremental innovations. Accordingly, most research on the new-product development (NPD) process focuses on the development of evolutionary products. For new-products professionals seeking insights into the means for achieving breakthrough innovations, a fundamental question remains unanswered: Does the NPD process for discontinuous products differ from the process for incremental, or continuous, products? To provide a better understanding of managerial practices associated with discontinuous innovation, Robert Veryzer presents findings from an in-depth study of eight discontinuous product development projects. The study explores the key factors that affect the discontinuous NPD process, as well as the methods that the firms in this study use for assessing the radically new products they have in development. From the findings in this study, he develops a descriptive model of the discontinuous product development process, and he offers insights into the requirements for effective management of discontinuous innovation projects. Although half the firms in the study use a formal process for evaluating radically innovative products, the participants in the study generally do not employ a formal, highly structured process for managing discontinuous NPD efforts. However; these firms do follow a consistent, logical process in the development of radical innovations, and their process differs significantly from incremental NPD processes. The processes used by the firms in this study are more exploratory and less customer driven than the typical, incremental NPD process. The impetus for all the projects in this study comes from the convergence of developing technologies, various contextual or environmental factors (for example, government regulations), and a product champion or visionary. Starting from these drivers, the discontinuous NPD process focuses on formulating a product application for the emerging technologies. In all cases, these firms developed prototypes at nit earlier stage than the typical, incremental NPD process. To aid in the formulation of a new product application from emerging technologies, prototype construction in these discontinuous NPD projects precedes opportunity analysis, assessment of market attractiveness, market research, and financial analysis. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.
Concurrent Engineering (CE) represents a key trend in product development over the last decade. It has changed academic and industrial approaches of looking at the product development process. It can be defined as an integrated “new product development process to allow participants, who make upstream decisions to consider downstream and external requirements.” Central characteristics of a concurrent development process are activity overlapping, information transfer in small batches, and the use of cross-functional teams (Gerwin and Susman, 1996). Some related practices of Toyota are described here.
Organizations must be ambidextrous to successfully develop new products-they must act creatively as well as collectively. However, how to do this is not clear. I analyze this problem and review the literature in terms of two opposing forces: the first increases the quantity and quality of ideas, information, and knowledge available for creative action while the second integrates these things into collective action. I then model these forces to explain how the coexistence of contradictory structural elements and processes increases the probability of successful development.
The ability to link advanced technologies to market opportunities is a crucial aspect of radical innovation. When markets do not yet exist, it is difficult to persevere, given organizational pressures for immediate profit. To study this problem, eleven radical innovation projects are examined in nine large, mature organizations in a real-time field setting. The sample is augmented by interviews of four additional individuals who have repeated experiences in linking advanced technologies to markets. From results that are qualitative in nature, four themes emerge. First, vision is built and sustained through a variety of mechanisms that may operate in combination or serially. Second, there are a number of roles that individuals play in creating and evangelizing a vision through an organization. Third, there exist a few tools and methods for aiding in developing visions that are not dependent strictly on individual initiative, but these are not systematically employed by organizations. Finally, visions undergo a process of validation and internal acceptance that may depend heavily on reaching out beyond the familiar customer/market set of the firm. Building on these themes, we derive two sets of insights. The first identifies three different ways that visions might develop. We did not discover a singular process across firms or even within a single firm by which visions develop. Second, we identify three elements that occur when a vision is formulated and utilized in organizations: Motivation, Insight and Elaboration. Thus a vision does not arise through a single creative leap, but develops over time and requires focus, discipline, energy, and the involvement of many people. Awareness of this conceptual underpinning of visioning may help managers understand how to encourage this activity and help sustain long-term growth and renewal in their organizations.
C ommon sense, industry experience, and some academic research all suggest that, when conducting any complex tasks, small teams of talented people are better than large teams of average or talented people. To develop new prod-ucts quickly, for example, a recent textbook argues n software development, talented pfogfammers are known to be ten times or mofe as productive as the least talented members of a team. that small teams of no more than ten or so people are most effective.' One reason may be that the fewer people on a team, the easier it is to have good com-munication and consistency of ideas among team members. Small teams also can simplify scheduling and work out interdependency difficulties.^ Another factor to consider in determining the op-timal size for a particular team is individual team-member productivity. In software development, for example, talented programmers are known to be ten times or more as productive as the least talented members of a team.' This is no doubt true for other types of research, engineering, and intellectual work, such as creative writing, that we cannot so easily routinize or mechanize. Getting the same amount of raw productivity from a team of ten tal-ented people as opposed to 100 untalented people provides other benefits as well, such as simplifying communication and scheduling problems. The ten-person team would probably produce better results faster, even though managing prima donnas, such as "super-programmers," can present other challenges (the problem of "too many chiefs and not enough Indians")."* But, while small teams of talented people may be the most desirable way to develop new products, an-other issue that managers must consider is the inher-ent limits of small teams when facing very large products and short deadlines. Small teams even of "super-engineers" may still be unable to design, build, and test a complex product with many com-ponents quickly enough to be competitive. As a re-sult, even a very selective firm may end up having to manage teams of hundreds of talented engineers. In the automobile industry, for example, companies re-Michael A. Cusumano is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Does customer input play the same key role in every successful new‐product development (NPD) project? For incremental NPD projects, market information keeps the project team focused on customer wants and needs. Well‐documented methods exist for obtaining and using market information throughout the stages of an incremental NPD project. However, the role of market learning seems less apparent if the NPD project involves a really new product—that is, a radical innovation that creates a line of business that is new not only for the firm but also for the marketplace. In all likelihood, customers will not be able to describe their requirements for a product that opens up entirely new markets and applications.
To provide insight into the role that market learning plays in NPD projects involving really new products, Gina Colarelli O'Connor describes findings from case studies of eight radical innovation projects. Participants in the study come from member companies of the Industrial Research Institute, a consortium of large company R&D managers. With a focus on exploring how market learning for radical innovations differs from that of incremental NPD projects, the case studies examine the following issues: the nature and the timing of market‐related inquiry; market learning methods and processes; and the scope of responsibility for market learning, and confidence in the results.
Observations from the case studies suggest that the market‐related questions that are asked during a radical innovation project differ by stage of development, and they differ from the questions that project teams typically ask during an incremental NPD effort. For example, assessments of market potential, size, and growth were not at issue during the early stages of the projects in this study. Such issues came into play after the innovations were proven to work under controlled conditions and attention turned to finding applications for the technology.
For several projects in the study, internal data and informal networks of people throughout relevant business units provide the means for learning about the hurdles the innovation faces and about markets that are unfamiliar to the development group. The projects in this study employ various techniques for reducing market uncertainty, including offering the product to the most familiar market and using a strategic ally who is familiar with the market to act as an intermediary between the project team and the marketplace.
It is characteristic of engineering design that precedence relationships among the constituent design tasks contain information flow conflicts. The existence of these conflicts with the lack of formal methods to manage them render the development cycle time unpredictable. This paper discusses a qualitative approach to engineering design management from an information structure perspective. The objective is to model, analyse and manage the interactions manifested by the information exchanges within the design process. We introduce the notion of Structural Sensitivity Analysis (SSA), which is devised based on two measures of information dependency among design tasks: Sensitivity and Variability. Those two measures of dependency enhance the classical design structure matrix method and allow for more complex analysis to be performed.
Now there is proof that the evolutionary approach to software development results in a speedier process and higher-quality products.
Product definition creation and management are critical aspects of the new product development process. A well-developed product definition reflects understanding of customer and user needs, the competitive environment, technology availability, and regulatory and standards issues. A robust product definition is one that stands up to challenge and guides the product development process, allowing the development team to make tradeoffs and decisions quickly and effectively. This article examines the product definition creation and management processes at six major U.S. electronics companies. Customer and user needs assessment is a particularly critical aspect of product definition; clear, widespread communication of product definition elements throughout a product development team is important; and change to a product definition during product development must be carefully and explicitly managed to obtain the best chances of overall product success. Many of the firms in this study used surprisingly rudimentary procedures to bring together the requisite product definition information and failed to distinguish the creation of product definition as an important phase of the product development process. Further, few of the firms understood that product definitions will change during product development and they did not have mechanisms for managing that change.
We investigate the impact of two kinds of integration-internal and external-on dynamic capability. We use product development activities as a lens with which to focus on the capability-building process in a firm. We first develop a conceptual model of the capability-building process that relates specific problem-solving activities to the generation of organizational capabilities. We derive a measure, 'ynamic performance', that estimates the level of dynamic capability in an organization based on the consistency of its performance. Furthermore, we use the model to motivate a series of hypotheses which link specific processes to the achievement of high dynamic performance. We conjecture that the capacity to integrate diverse knowledge bases through problem solving is the basic foundation of knowledge building in an organization, and is therefore a critical driver of dynamic performance. The hypotheses are tested by drawing on extensive cross-sectional empirical studies of product development in the automobile and mainframe computer industries. The work follows by providing detailed longitudinal cases describing the impact of integration on competence-building processes at Nissan and NEC.
Enhanced capabilities for concurrent engineering, rapid prototyping, and smoothly functioning supplier partnerships have helped reduce product design and development times. Management attention has shifted to the cross-functional front-end strategic, conceptual, and planning activities that typically precede the detailed design and development of a new product. Here, new product ideas gain the shape, justification, plans, and support leading to their approval and subsequent execution. The front-end activity in eleven companies is discussed which highlights the best practices based on the authors assessment of seven critical activities.
This paper investigates interrelationships of product design, organization design, processes for learning and managing knowledge, and competitive strategy. This paper uses the principles of nearly decomposable systems to investigate the ability of standardized interfaces between components in a product design to embed coordination of product development processes. Embedded coordination creates 'hierarchical coordination' without the need to continually exercise authority - enabling effective coordination of processes without the tight coupling of organizational structures. We develop concepts of modularity in product and organization designs based on standardized component and organization interfaces. Modular product architectures create information structures that provide the 'glue' that holds together the loosely coupled parts of a modular organization design. By facilitating loose coupling, modularity can also reduce the cost and difficulty of adaptive coordination, thereby increasing the strategic flexibility of firms to respond to environmental change. Modularity in product and organization designs therefore enables a new strategic approach to the management of knowledge based on an intentional, carefully managed loose coupling of a firm's learning processes at architectural and component levels of product creation processes.
As product complexity and the rate of market change have dramatically increased over the last years, firms find it increasingly difficult to forecast product requirements in their development processes. This article redefines the problem from one of improving forecasting to one of increasing product development agility and thus reducing the need for accurate long-term forecasts. It introduces the notion of development flexibility, shows how it can be measured, and presents results from a large empirical study on integrated systems development, which found that projects using flexible technologies outperformed projects using inflexible technologies by a factor of 2.2 (in person-months). Finally, the article proposes three major strategies for introducing flexibility into organizations. These strategies can help firms increase their agility and position themselves to succeed in accelerating and more turbulent markets.
The disappointing performance of U.S. firms during the 1980s in technology-intensive, global markets (such as consumer electronics, office and factory automation, and semiconductor memories) has been widely attributed to a failure to continuously and incrementally improve products and processes. In "The Breakthrough Illusion", Florida and Kenney wrote that "The United States makes the breakthroughs, while other countries, especially Japan, provide the follow-through" on which competitive advantage is built. Gomory made a similar point. contrasting "revolutionary" innovations with "another, wholly different, less dramatic, and rather grueling process of innovation, which is far more critical to commercializing technology profitably...Its hallmark is incremental improvement, not breakthrough. It requires turning products over again and again, getting the new model out, starting work on an even newer one. This may all sound dull, but the achievements are exhilarating." In "The Machine that Changed the World", the most influential work on the subject of the 1980s, Womack, Jones, and Roos measured the competitive effects of this lack of attention to continuous incremental improvement throiugh a benchmarking study of the global automobile industry. Other studies reinforce this message: compared to their Japanese competitors, U.S. firms lagged in cost, quality, and speed; and in large measure, the problem stemmed from a relative........
This article explores the drivers of product development performance in a rapidly changing environment. Effective product developers in turbulent environments, such as Silicon Graphics and NEC, provide a contrast to traditional product development. They exhibit a development process characterized by extreme flexibility and responsiveness. This, in turn, hinges on the capability to gather and rapidly respond to new knowledge about technical and market information as a project evolves. Instead of focusing on execution and implementation, these companies' development process emphasizes the importance of the concept development stage, while keeping the product's specification fluid as late as possible in a project. This ensures the best match between system and component technologies, as well as the maximum flexibility to respond to changes.
A set of ground rules and vocabulary to facilitate focused discussion about the structure of organization and management theories are proposed. The many previous efforts at defining and evaluating theory help establish criteria for theory construction and evaluation. In the establishment of these criteria, description is distinguished from theory, and a matrix of criteria for evaluating the variables, constructs, and relationships that together compose a theory is developed. The proposed matrix may be useful both for defining the necessary components of good theory and for evaluating and/or comparing the quality of alternative theories. Finally, a discussion of the way theories fit together to give a somewhat broader picture of empirical reality reveals the lines of tension between the two main criteria for evaluating theory.
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As growth and profit alternatives continue to erode for many companies, the importance of radical innovation as a mechanism for organization rejuvenation is increasing. Some firms are building entire management systems to enable radical innovation over and over again. They are experimenting with different organizational structures that vary in terms of their relationship with R&D and in terms of how far down the commercialization path they oversee projects. To have a fully developed RI capability, firms find they must manage three sets of activities and ensure that the transitions between them are smooth. These are discovery, incubation, and accelerated growth of new businesses. In addition, firms with different cultures of innovation can all develop RI competencies. This article reports interim results of a three-year longitudinal study of 12 well known, large industrial firms with a declared strategic intent to develop a competency in radical innovation.
As design managers begin to implement concurrent engineering in order to reduce development time, design procedures can become more complex, potentially taking even greater time to complete. This paper discusses the basis for such design task complexity and presents a method for representing these constraints within a design process model. These models are used to explore several approaches for design process management. It is shown that while the feedback characteristic of concurrent engineering is essential to enhance design quality, this feedback causes iteration which can use up valuable engineering time. For concurrent engineering to save time, we require a framework for evaluating which tasks are vital to begin early in the development cycle, and which tasks should be left for later.
This paper reports on the results of an empirical study of product development in a complex and novel environment. The work is based on field investigations of recent product development projects performed by all leading mainframe computer producers. The projects focused on the development of complex products based on advanced technologies and probed deeply into their science base. The results show striking differences in development lead time and research and development productivity between different projects. The analysis relates these performance differences to the process for the integration of new technology. Organizations that emphasize the accumulation of system-level knowledge of product and production process and its use in technology evaluation and selection are associated with high productivity and short development lead times. This appears to have a greater impact on development performance in this novel environment than more traditional factors, such as processes for effective crossfunctional integration and for overlapping problem solving.
Technological innovation within the firm can be modelled as a process of uncertainty reduction. The four major sources of uncertainty are user needs, technological environments, competitive environments, and organizational resources. Reducing these uncertainties is the responsibility of the marketing and R&D functions within the firm. Because these functions are reciprocally interdependent, their success in reducing uncertainty requires integration and collaboration between them. A contingency framework is developed which shows the effect and the determinants of interfunctional information transfer. It is argued that the synergistic results of integration can best be understood as a within-role increase of uncertainty reduction, and a between-role convergence of functional uncertainty reduction. The implications of the model are discussed.
Radical or “discontinuous” products based on new technological breakthroughs are playing an ever‐increasing role in the success of firms. However, little research has been conducted that investigates the roles of marketing and industrial design (ID) in the development of these types of products. Further, past research has tended to overlook the role that industrial design, and the impact of the marketing‐industrial design interaction, can have on the development of discontinuous new products. Frequently, the term design is used broadly or is equated with engineering; thus, while the marketing–research and development (R&D) interaction is studied, the marketing–ID as well as the industrial design–R&D relationships are not considered. This article examines the roles of marketing and industrial design in the product development process for discontinuous innovations. Specifically, questions concerning how and the degree to which marketing and industrial design are integrated into the development process are investigated. The investigation employs multiple methods, or triangulation, in order to secure an in‐depth understanding of the roles of these disciplines. In the course of examining these questions, key factors influencing industrial design and marketing involvement are identified and preliminary models are examined.
The research, which was conducted in two phases, employed a mixed‐method, multiple sample design. The methods used included a survey, field observation study, and depth‐interviewing. Data were collected from three different samples: R&D managers, project team members (including personnel from various disciplines—marketing, R&D, industrial design, engineering, etc.), and industrial design managers. The use of the different data sources and sampling of various groups of managers was employed in order to provide a rich context for investigating the research questions of interest. In addition, a preliminary analysis of factors (e.g., degree of product discontinuity, product innovation objectives, process discontinuity, process formality) identified in the first phase was conducted, and these relationships were explored further in the second phase of the research.
Findings across the two phases of this research suggest that the development of discontinuous new products involves a process that is different from more conventional new product development—particularly as it concerns the roles of marketing and industrial design. The high degree of discontinuity inherent in such projects, along with the strong R&D orientation often surrounding them, results in delayed involvement of marketing and ID, as well as altering their roles in the new product development (NPD) process. Factors such as the degree of product discontinuity (DPD), process discontinuity (PCD), and process formality (PF) seemed to exert a differential influence on the involvement of marketing and ID. Although their roles and involvement are altered in discontinuous new product development, this research suggests that marketing and ID roles in this context involve increased challenges with respect to validation of key assumptions and product application directions. Additionally, managers operating in this development context need to explicitly consider the influence of factors such as discontinuity level in undertaking NPD projects with respect to how it affects the execution of industrial design and marketing activities.