Case Study Presentations

"...the conference provided a good overview of metrics used in the commercialization process and fortified the need for a gated process..."
—Tom Rizzo, Lord Corporation

Whirlpool | Medrad | Hewlett-Packard | DTE Energy
Teledyne | British Telecom | Nokia | Ameriquest Mortgage

Embedding Innovation as a Core Competency at Whirlpool

Dr. Henry O. Marcy
Vice President
Innovation & Technology
Whirlpool Corporation

In 2000, Whirlpool Corporation began a journey to embed innovation as one of its primary core competencies. Today, its innovation strategy is both a top-down and bottom-up initiative; innovation is an operational requirement with executive compensation explicitly tied to innovation revenue and earnings. Comprehensive innovation training programs have resulted in certified "I-Mentors" and "I-Consultants" whose roles are to make innovation a part of every employee's job. The innovation pipeline from early opportunity identification through the stage-gate development process and into the growth of ongoing businesses is explicitly tracked and reported on from both product and brand perspectives in terms of projected value and actual results.

Specifically, Whirlpool defines innovation as how a new product or concept measures up against the following three criteria:

• Is it a new and compelling solution from the consumer's point of view? - Measured in terms of rate of growth.

• Can it be sustained in the competitive environment? - Measured in terms of sustainable presence and pricing in the market.

• Can it deliver differentiated financial results that are substantially better than average?

Dr. Marcy will discuss the actions and key metrics around these tenets that Whirlpool developed to determine which new business opportunities to pursue and increase overall returns on R&D. He will also examine current challenges to developing behaviors and tools that will drive higher value solutions around the financial models and cost structures that shape existing businesses as well as enable the rapid creation of value from new business opportunities.

Key Take-Aways:

• Effective strategies and approaches for implementing a top-down and bottom-up innovation strategy

• Process and metrics for early opportunity identification and how to measure the impact on the growth of ongoing businesses

• How to create your own organizations' definition of innovation and develop metrics to drive overall R&D performance

Metrics to Drive Successful Innovation Portfolio Decisions

Donald M. DeLauder
Director, Product Innovation
& Advanced Development
Medrad, Inc.

MEDRAD is a global leader in the field of diagnostic image enhancement, having grown at a compound annual rate of over 15% for almost 20 years. Its success has led to a market leadership position in each of the clinical modalities in which it operates (CT, MR, angiography). How can the company continue to grow given that it already commands significant market share in most or all of its business areas? What decisions should shape the portfolio of innovative opportunities? What mechanism should be used to help decide between investing in current business areas versus the exploration of opportunities which are new to the company?

Mr. DeLauder will explore these questions in a case study format. In particular, he’ll review what MEDRAD is doing now to maintain and grow its market leadership position. Along the way, Mr. DeLauder will share many of MEDRAD’s insights into the issues associated with building a portfolio of new opportunities, structuring for innovation, and establishing methods that lead to creative new ideas that connect with the strategic requirements of the business.

Implementing New Product Development Metrics to Drive Growth and Profitability – A Small Company’s Perspective

Bill Foster
Director of Engineering
Teledyne Isco, Inc.

Teledyne Isco Inc. (formally Isco Inc. of Lincoln, NE-USA and founded in 1958) was plagued by stagnated growth in its two divisions in 1995. The company decided to merge the two divisions and overhaul its Product Development Process. The result of this effort was a company that now had the vigor of a start-up organization combined with senior management check points within each major product line of the company. An economic feasibility tool was developed to select new projects from the product pipeline. Product development metrics were implemented to measure the new product’s value and the product development process’s effectiveness over time. Mr. Foster will present the impact of the last 8 years of product development metrics including key successes and lessons learned.

Key Take-Aways:

• Strategies to engage more than Engineering into the Product Development Process

• Different approaches to build excitement and ownership throughout the organization for new product development

• Action steps for setting up Product Development Process audits for continual process improvements

Focusing on the Right Things: Efforts, Resources and Rewards

Phil H. Davies
Head of Organization Design
British Telecom

In this session you will learn how BT's IT Development and Operations division has undergone a major transformation in the year leading up to this conference. According to Phil Davies, "we have re-oriented the organisation to facilitate a much tighter focus on the things most important to BT's future and concurrently released people to work on the new business we're winning in the Digital Networked Economy. Organisationally we've brought our delivery programmes much closer to our customer facing businesses. We have changed rhythm to drive for a more regular impartation of value into BT and its customers, installed a review system to measure that value, and aligned performance and reward systems. For us this is a time of driving for growth without losing sight of cost control. It means distilling, concentrating, focusing our efforts and resources on the right things."

Although their scorecard has not changed significantly, it is now concentrated on delivery against fewer but more focused objectives. During this session, Phil will discuss aspects of the organizational re-alignment, the measurement system that supports it, and the new approach to resource management they are using.

Key Metrics to Foster an Iterative,
Risk-taking R&D Environment

Bret Dodd
Section Manager
R&D
Hewlett-Packard

Sterling Mortensen
Section Manager
R&D
Hewlett-Packard

Increasing innovation requires approaches that help you and your employees think outside the box that you are trapped in. Corporations are systems and systems hide problems, bottlenecks, and inefficiencies. Brett and Sterling will examine some practical examples of metrics that can make the invisible visible.

Specifically, they will discuss:

• Metrics that can identify bottlenecks

• Metrics that can help locate and eliminate sources of waste

• Metrics that HP is using to create an R&D environment that allows for the iteration and risk-taking necessary for new product development

Measuring Team Engagement and Predicting Project Performance with the TEAM Score

Steven Baker
Methodologist
DTE Energy

 

Steven Ambrose
IT Director
DTE Energy

Have you or your team ever been surprised by a customer’s adverse reaction to a product, especially when the project’s suite of metrics indicated “green” status across the board? Have you wondered how you could anticipate and prevent this before it occurs by quantifying an intrinsically qualitative element of team dynamics?

In this case presentation, Mr. Baker and Mr. Ambrose will share how a successful agile software project nearly collapsed due to a fundamental assumption gone awry, and how with an organizational focus on metrics and continuous improvement, they identified a solution. They will describe the development and application of the TEAM Score, a practical metric with analysis techniques that targets a critical yet often overlooked aspect of any project – team engagement and collaboration.

Key Take-Aways:

• An understanding of the agile mindset toward frontier development projects, and a powerful engagement model for personal responsibility

• The Team Engagement Analysis Metric (TEAM) Score origin, definition, and measurement analysis techniques highlighting the metric’s predictive capability

• Practical techniques to apply and extend the TEAM Score in various environments and to maximize your team’s level of engagement and collaboration

R&D Metrics Across Projects:
A Portfolio Approach

Hannu Kokko
Head of Product and Service Quality
Nokia Networks

At Nokia, an R&D metrics portfolio is used to align corporate and project level goals. Resource allocation, quality, financial performance and productivity are measured across projects and then rolled up to the product and business level. At the project level, the metrics portfolio accommodates different project life-cycle models, working modes and project phases to give visibility and reduce uncertainty.

In this presentation Mr. Kokko will discuss which specific metrics have proven most effective over time, what gathering approaches work best, and how to cascade metrics throughout the organization. He will discuss critical success factors as well as pitfalls to avoid.

Key Take-aways:

• How to develop and implement metrics for better resource utilization, financial performance and R&D productivity

• How to build metrics at different levels (project, program, corporate) to align with strategy

• How metrics can provide visibility and reduce uncertainty at the project level

New Product Development (NPD) with Change Management Metrics

Anthony J. Lemus
Vice President
Six Sigma Operations
Ameriquest Mortgage Financial Company

Change management is often underestimated when creating and improving a product development process. Creating a long-term benefit vision of the change and additionally having it accepted by the business organization requires short-term feedback metrics to the skeptics that change is better. Unfortunately, new product development life cycle time frames sometimes do not provide immediate
metric outcomes quickly enough to satisfy the people barriers and to eliminate disruptions in organizational alignment. Not addressing this challenge can create deployment confusion, impact product approval committee (PAC) decisions, create failures in product development software integration, and disrupt product team communication effectiveness.

In this presentation, key metrics will be presented which facilitate NPD change management and the overcoming of execution barriers. Metrics used in NPD change management will be discussed from three perspectives: commonality, process improvement psychology, and “lessons learned” monitoring. Some techniques optimizing the use of metrics will also be discussed which include Malcolm
Gladwells’ theories on epidemics, and competency models enabling metric execution. Actual business examples will be provided to demonstrate typical issues, and to highlight solution results using the presented techniques.