Dates & Location:
 October 21-22, 2008 / Oak Brook, IL

COURSE OUTLINE

— DAY ONE —

SESSION I -
Agenda & Introductions

SESSION II -
Understanding the Challenge

• Introductory sessions – issues and challenges

• The profit impact of new products and speed to market

• Benchmarking performance results – how well are you doing at NPD? What do top performing companies do differently when it comes to product innovation?

• The seven major reasons that new products fail

• The six major time wasters in NPD and how to eradicate them

Team Exercise:
Problem Detection - Time & Profits

SESSION III -
Introduction to the Seven Principles of Lean, Rapid and Profitable NPD (LRP NPD)

• Defining productivity in new product development

• Lean manufacturing and how this approach applies to New Product Development

• The seven principles to maximize productivity in New Product Development

SESSION IV -
Key Practices in NexGen Stage-Gate® — Building in Three Principles of LRP NPD

• Implement a customer-focused strategy and learn how to effectively:

  • Identify and exploit shifting competitive advantage

  • Better understand customer needs – learn the subtle differences between voice-of-customer, voice-of-salesperson, and real market needs and requirements

  • Develop differentiated, superior products with a compelling value proposition

• The critical importance of front-end loading:

  • Improve the odds of success - select the right up-front homework to do

  • Determine the right amount of homework to do - how much homework is enough?

  • Getting to sharper product & project definitions

  • Working with ever changing customer requirements and flexible product definitions

• Spiral development

  • How to effectively manage changing information and flexible product definitions – get the product right

SESSION V -
Key Practices in NexGen Stage-Gate® - Continued...

• Creating effective cross-functional teams

  • How to build teams for speed

• Metrics, Accountability and Continuous Improvement

  • Implementing performance metrics – what to measure and what not to measure?

  • Establishing accountability for project teams based on agreed upon success criteria

  • Continuous learning and improvement

• Strategies for Effective Portfolio Management – a funneling approach and resources in place

  • Winnowing down the pipeline to fewer projects – but better projects (those with a higher -value)

  • Understanding the value of adequately resourcing project teams

Team Exercise:
Translating Hi-Productivity NPD Principles into Practice

— DAY TWO —

SESSION VI -
NexGen™ Stage-Gate® Idea-to-Launch Processes

• The NexGen Stage-Gate™ process – less bureaucracy, less waste and increased speed

• Effective strategies and methods to streamline your NPD Process – focus on the Value Stream

• Understanding how the NexGen Stage-Gate™ process works – more details on the changes to stages and gates

• Customizing Stage-Gate™ for both large and small projects: XPress and Lite

• Tailoring NexGen Stage-Gate® for open innovation projects

Team Exercise:
Moving Forward – the Seven Principles

SESSION VII -
Designing and Implementing NexGen Stage-Gate® in Your Business

• Learn how to diagnose, assess and overhaul your current idea-to-launch process your NPP to handle different types of projects

• Find out when and where to use different types and versions of idea-to-launch systems – Stage-Gate™ XPress & Lite

• Discover new ways to accelerate gate decisions, work with limited information, and preserve project integrity

SESSION VIII -
Selecting Projects to Maximize Productivity – Portfolio Management

• How to maximize the value of your development portfolio –

  • Select the right projects – focus on value to the company and profitability

  • Better project prioritization – learn how to use scorecards and the productivity index to increase portfolio value

  • Maintain a healthy mix of high-risk/high-reward projects and low-risk/low-reward projects

  • Balance projects with available resources – don’t overload your pipeline

  • Pruning your portfolio to eliminate wait time and ensure that higher value projects are properly resourced

  Team Exercise:
  Prioritizing Projects

Back to Your Business –
Next Steps and Q&A

• This final session of the workshop provides an opportunity for participants to reflect on and discuss what they plan to take back and implement at their respective businesses.

• Each participant will take-away a step-by-step action plan to adapt and implement the many key learnings and insights addressed at the workshop.

® Stage-Gate is a registered trademark of Product Development Institute and Member Company Stage-Gate Inc.

Instructor:

Robert Cooper
[Bio]
Renowned product development expert and author of the best-selling books, Winning at New Products and Portfolio Management for New Products