Let’s declare victory. Fifteen years ago, few companies had effective product or technology roadmaps, integrated development teams were the exception and disciplined development processes were a rarity. Much progress has been made and more importantly, revenue and market share growth confirms the value. Victory!

That said every solution carries within it the seeds of the next generation’s problems. The multitude of process improvements has led to cases where process excellence often thwarts rather than propels execution. Leveraged product architectures have reduced not only risk and time but also the degree of real innovation as companies spew a never ending stream of poorly differentiated, ‘me-too’ products. We’re off-shoring the least complex aspects of development to reduce cost when some of the most insightful and creative ideas are being launched in so-called less-developed economies. Bottom line: Success could kill us.

In this keynote, Dr. Meyer will outline the issues that we must apply our own brand of innovation in order to continue progress. Some of these issues include:

1. Designing for customer experience versus features and benefits

2. Adding development methodologies beyond the phase gate that better support breakthrough innovation

3. Changing from internal product development focus to eco-system innovation sourcing

4. Re-defining multi-function to multi-organization development structures and processes

5. Addressing the global, creative leadership and technology leadership gap

Dr. Meyer is an internationally recognized speaker on the topics of innovation and time-to-market strategies and is also considered a leader in designing performance management systems, emphasizing approaches that support creativity, balanced with managerial control. He is the author of Fast Cycle Time: How to Align Purpose, Strategy & Structure for Speed and, Relentless Growth: How Silicon Valley Innovation Strategies Can Work in Your Company. Dr. Meyer has held executive positions at Silicon Graphics and Zilog and has served on the faculty of the University of Southern California, University of Minnesota, and as academic director of Fast Cycle Time Strategy at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. and masters in organization strategy and design from the University of Southern California, and holds a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce.

Achieving and Sustaining
High Speed in NPD

Speed is relative and can be measured many different ways and in many different areas of New Product Development (NPD) activity. Typically, organizational or process changes made to improve NPD speed deliver short-lived benefits that cannot be fully leveraged unless linked to the rest of the steps, processes and functional activities.

NPD/Innovation activity is typically iterative and has a financial impact on each function as well as on the top line and bottom line of businesses. Many companies are able to achieve and measure high speeds in different areas of the Innovation/NPD processes but are often very ineffective at sustaining this speed and at translating its direct impact on the overall financial performance and metrics of the organization.

Dr. Seshasai will provide a framework for how to systematically build the capability and culture to achieve and sustain high speed in your organization.

Specifically, he will address:

• What are the key phases and building blocks (within those phases) necessary to gain continuous overall improvement in speed within your Innovation and NPD processes

• What new steps are required in these phases and processes? What tools can help achieve speed goals in all functions and at all levels of planning and strategy development in a way that embeds them into the culture of the company?

• How to ensure that this increased speed will not negatively impact other metrics

• How to collectively leverage the high speed created in each area and tie its impact directly to your company’s financial performance

Dr. K.L. Seshu Seshasai is Group VP, Sanford Brands, Newell Rubbermaid.  Previously he was executive vice president, technology at Textron, where he instituted a series of major initiatives that improved the Textron (Inc) subsidiary’s ability to drive for market accepted new products.

His process initiatives effectively helped change the company’s culture to one that focused on and supported the innovation and new product development central to the business, along with the introduction of new metrics that tracked performance. As he emphasizes, “Implementing these processes and following them by tracking the metrics that are the key drivers for fostering continued growth.”

Seshu introduced metrics for individual performance, team performance, projects’ profits contribution to the bottom line, continual margin growth, intellectual property growth, and more. The two he considers as key relate to financial performance: 1) new product sales growth and 2) margin growth.
 

The quest for accelerated and leaner product development is stronger than ever. Facing heightened competition, increasingly demanding customers, and short term financial pressures, more than ever managements must figure out how to drive new products to market effectively and efficiently, and at the same time, not kill true innovation altogether.

In his keynote address, Dr. Robert Cooper will outline the latest approaches to accelerating the innovation process, including:

• Making your idea-to-launch process adaptable and flexible

• Accelerating activities and simultaneous execution

• Calculating the risk – balancing the cost of delay versus the cost of being wrong

• Scaling your idea-to-launch process to suit different types of development projects

• Removing waste by focusing on the Value Stream in development

• Ensuring that the resources are in place (and not overloading the development pipeline)

• Building in the Seven Principles of Lean, Rapid and Profitable new product development

• NexGen Stage-Gate® and how to overhaul your existing new product process.

With all this emphasis on time to market, Cooper also outlines some of the risks and downsides – “the dark side of acceleration” including incrementalism and lower value portfolios – and how to avoid these traps.

Dr. Robert G. Cooper, author of best-selling books Winning at New Products and Portfolio Management for New Products, has published more than 95 articles on new products, R&D and innovation management. Cooper is Professor of Industrial Marketing and Technology Management at McMaster University (Ontario, Canada) as well as founder and president of the Product Development Institute. Recognized as a world expert in the field of new product development, and founder of the Stage-Gate® process, Cooper’s methods have been introduced globally by many companies including P&G, 3M, ABB, AT&T, Carlsberg, Caterpillar, Dow Chemical, Dupont, Exxon Chemicals, HP, ITT, Kraft Foods, Kennametall, Lego, Pfizer, VISA and many others.