Amazon.com
IDEO, the world's leading design firm, is the brain trust that's behind some of the more brilliant innovations of the past 20 years--from the Apple mouse, the Polaroid i-Zone instant camera, and the Palm V to the "fat" toothbrush for kids and a self-sealing water bottle for dirt bikers. Not surprisingly, companies all over the world have long wondered what they could learn from IDEO, to come up with better ideas for their own products, services, and operations. In this terrific book from IDEO general manager Tom Kelley (brother of founder David Kelley), IDEO finally delivers--but thankfully not in the step-by-step, flow-chart-filled "process speak" of most how-you-can-do-what-we-do business books. Sure, there are some good bulleted lists to be found here--such as the secrets of successful brainstorming, the qualities of "hot teams," and, toward the end, 10 key ingredients for "How to Create Great Products and Services," including "One Click Is Better Than Two" (the simpler, the better) and "Goof Proof" (no bugs).
But The Art of Innovation really teaches indirectly (not to mention enlightens and entertains) by telling great stories--mainly, of how the best ideas for creating or improving products or processes come not from laboriously organized focus groups, but from keen observations of how regular people work and play on a daily basis. On nearly every page, we learn the backstories of some now-well-established consumer goods, from recent inventions like the Palm Pilot and the in-car beverage holder to things we nearly take for granted--like Ivory soap (created when a P&G worker went to lunch without turning off his soap mixer, and returned to discover his batch overwhipped into 99.44 percent buoyancy) and Kleenex, which transcended its original purpose as a cosmetics remover when people started using the soft paper to wipe and blow their noses. Best of all, Kelley opens wide the doors to IDEO's vibrant, sometimes wacky office environment, and takes us on a vivid tour of how staffers tackle a design challenge: they start not with their ideas of what a new product should offer, but with the existing gaps of need, convenience, and pleasure with which people live on a daily basis, and that IDEO should fill. (Hence, a one-piece children's fishing rod that spares fathers the embarrassment of not knowing how to teach their kids to fish, or Crest toothpaste tubes that don't "gunk up" at the mouth.)
Granted, some of their ideas--like the crucial process of "prototyping," or incorporating dummy drafts of the actual product into the planning, to work out bugs as you go--lend themselves more easily to the making of actual things than to the more common organizational challenge of streamlining services or operations. But, if this big book of bright ideas doesn't get you thinking of how to build a better mousetrap for everything from your whole business process to your personal filing system, you probably deserve to be stuck with the mousetrap you already have. --Timothy Murphy
Book Description
IDEO, the widely admired, award-winning design and development firm that brought the world the Apple mouse, Polaroid's I-Zone instant camera, the Palm V, and hundreds of other cutting-edge products and services, reveals its secrets for fostering a culture and process of continuous innovation.
There isn't a business in America that doesn't want to be more creative in its thinking, products, and processes. At many companies, being first with a concept and first to market are critical just to survive. In
The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelley, general manager of the Silicon Valley based design firm IDEO, takes readers behind the scenes of this wildly imaginative and energized company to reveal the strategies and secrets it uses to turn out hit after hit.
IDEO doesn't buy into the myth of the lone genius working away in isolation, waiting for great ideas to strike. Kelley believes everyone can be creative, and the goal at his firm is to tap into that wellspring of creativity in order to make innovation a way of life. How does it do that? IDEO fosters an atmosphere conducive to freely expressing ideas, breaking the rules, and freeing people to design their own work environments. IDEO's focus on teamwork generates countless breakthroughs, fueled by the constant give-and-take among people ready to share ideas and reap the benefits of the group process. IDEO has created an intense, quick-turnaround, brainstorm-and-build process dubbed "the Deep Dive."
In entertaining anecdotes, Kelley illustrates some of his firm's own successes (and joyful failures), as well as pioneering efforts at other leading companies. The book reveals how teams research and immerse themselves in every possible aspect of a new product or service, examining it from the perspective of clients, consumers, and other critical audiences.
Kelley takes the reader through the IDEO problem-solving method:
>Carefully observing the behavior or "anthropology" of the people who will be using a product or service
>Brainstorming with high-energy sessions focused on tangible results
>Quickly prototyping ideas and designs at every step of the way
>Cross-pollinating to find solutions from other fields
>Taking risks, and failing your way to success
>Building a "Greenhouse" for innovation
IDEO has won more awards in the last ten years than any other firm of its kind, and a full half-hour Nightline presentation of its creative process received one of the show's highest ratings.
The Art of Innovation will provide business leaders with the insights and tools they need to make their companies the leading-edge, top-rated stars of their industries.
Customer Reviews:
Kudos to Ideos.......2007-08-28
Excellent book with good insights. If you are in the business of innovation, this is one book that you shouldn't miss. I also recommend EIGHTSTORM: 8-Step Brainstorming for Innovative Managers.
Innovation for All.......2007-06-29
Through anecdotes, Kelley demonstrates how stumbling blocks to innovation can be overcome. He shows an appreciation for experimentation, momentum, and embraces failure as a true path to knowing. Failed prototypes are wonderful learning tools. Kelley's perspective keeps spirits high. He leaves much of the innovative process open ended - nearly encouraging innovation on innovating.
Interestingly, Kelley notes how medicine is becoming personalized and that the future can not be perfectly predicted. Still, he says we must aim at it. This was an important nugget of wisdom for me, a research coordinator at a think-tank-like public health research group, the Healthcare Innovation and Technology lab at Columbia University. On a daily basis we deal with innovation to improve healthcare and need to effectively innovate. Given that we tread a very specific territory - health and technology - and that Kelley's book could be so useful to us, it is obvious that he really has something to offer to everyone.
Innovation and creativity "how-to" guide.......2007-06-07
The Art of Innovation explains many of IDEO's creative techniques and in so doing paints a picture of the physical context in which all that creativity occurs, namely IDEO's office, your average geek's idea of paradise brimming with high-tech prototypes, foam cubes, "tech box" caddies with giant Post-Its and coloring pens ... and yes, it does look more like a playschool than Dilbertesque gray cubicle-land. Teamwork, friendship and a shared passion for helping clients innovate is clearly what binds people together and stimulates their creativity, while a supportive and forgiving management structure doesn't just tolerate weirdness, it actively encourages it. IDEO seems to have taken Tom Peters' advice "If you want to do weird, hire weird people" to the next level. In IDEO-land, "normal" people would probably stand out a mile.
Two creative techniques - brainstorming and prototyping - are particularly well described, in a way that encourages the reader to try something different. I've learnt some new tricks and even started applying them since reading the book.
El arte de innovar estilo IDEO.......2007-06-01
IDEO ha hecho de la innovación un arte, el cual es un proceso sistematizado, con pasos muy definidos, congruentes y faciles de llevar por las personas que conforman dentro sus empresas los equipos de innovacion y diseño.
Skip it and go right to 10 Faces.......2007-03-19
I recently read both this book and the Ten Faces of Innovation. My recomendation is to skip this book. It is written more like an advertisement for IDEO and was left feeling like Tom has crossed the line into arrogance. If you read it as a stand alone book there is a lot of useful information. However most of the concepts are covered in Ten Faces. If you have time read both books but if time is of the essence then jump right into the Ten Faces, you won't be disappointed.
Book Description
The completely revised and updated "bible"of new product development: The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development, Second Edition.
The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development, Second Edition provides a comprehensive, updated picture of what you as a manager need to know for effective new product development. The book's concise, map-like detail acts as a compass, offering practical information pertaining to every stage of the product development process -- from idea generation to launch to the end of the life cycle.
Whether you're a novice or an expert, this edition is ideal as it provides both fundamentals and reliable information on advanced and emerging concepts such as accelerated product development, new product development globalization and benchmarking, and Web-based concept development.
Customer Reviews:
Second Edition.......2007-04-11
This is the "Bible" for NPD professionals. An excellent addition to the guides by Cooper and Crawford.
PDMA - Handbook for new product development.......2007-01-12
Haven't read from cover to cover, but proving to be an excellent reference. Good examples from industry reinforce key messages. Haven't learnt anything groundbreakingly new, but it has been a good confirmation or fine-tuning reference when needed.
Product Marketing Professionals - BUY THIS BOOK!.......2002-03-14
The PDMA Handbook is one of those rare and valuable books that characterizes a "body of knowledge" for a professional discipline. It was produced by the preeminent industry organization for New Product Development (NPD) professionals, the PDMA .... This text describes current, best practices in NPD and includes contributions from knowledge leaders in academia, consulting, and industry practice. If you are a CEO, COO, CTO, Marketing Manager, Product Manager, Product Planner, Engineering Manager, Project Manager, Program Manager, or any other professional involved in new product development (especially for technically complex products like hardware and software) you really need this book.
Product Managers (should) perform the nitty, gritty, roll-your-sleeves-up: opportunity analysis, business case formulation, and requirements management for new products. Research shows that judicious performance of this critical pre-work is a key determinant in the ultimate market success of new products and is usually performed inadequately. Unfortunately, most professionals in such roles have had no formal training beyond an MBA (sometimes). The PDMA Handbook provides a comprehensive treatment of virtually all the subject areas new product development (business) managers need to understand to drive the success of their endeavors. Want to know the key success factors for new products, understand value proposition, differentiation, features vs. benefits, uniqueness, sustainable competitive advantage, the fuzzy front end, pipeline management, how to plan a new product launch, manage a product portfolio, and more? This is the book you need. The PDMA Handbook is the Gray's Anatomy of product management. Buy it and READ it at least twice.
This book should have been read when it was published!.......2001-08-19
This book seem to be written by persons who really know what NPD (or NPI) really is. All those described mistakes possible to be done is made by me during last five years...this is a good book.
The area of NPD is large. Luckily people in PDMA have come to the right conclution: it is not possible for one person to handle the whole area throughly. Every chapter in this book is written by expert on his/her own area. Unfortunately the maximum size of one book restricts the possible space per one writer to include only the most vital parts into this book.
To whom I can recommend this book? --- To anyone who will to increase his/her own scope of NPD and especially to a person who already have gained some experience on this field and is able to compare his/her own experiece to this book.
Wonderful!.......2000-02-02
I purchased the PDMA Handbook on the strength of a review and have been very glad I did so. After quoting a few passage to my staff they began to borrow it, and now the Handbook has made the rounds of the office. It is worn and dog-eared, and quoted from on a daily basis.
The message of "treating each other with respect and dignity" by author Holahan et al has really struck a chord around here. Many of us believe she must be staunch Christian, one who lives her faith on a daily basis.
The PDMA Handbook has provided guidance in mapping out strategies for new services we hope to bring to market as well as the way our organization is managed. It has changed the way we do business and the way we percieve the world.
Book Description
If you're in new product development, or simply work in management and depend on new products for your livelihood, this is definitely the must-read of the decade. You're going to love the increased productivity and the freedom to be creative of this new product development system.
Where do you suppose it originated? Toyota, wouldn't you know. If familiar with what's going on in industry today, you're already aware that the Toyota Production System is the envy of Western manufacturing. Companies like Dell Computers and Pella Windows are using it to sock it to their competition. But did you know that Toyota's new product development system is just as important to the ongoing success of Toyota? Consider this. Toyota's new product engineers are 400 percent more productive than those employed by most companies. Talk about productivity. It's enough to make top management want to dance a jig. This book explains that system and how it can be implemented.
Hold on. Before you click the order button, or surf to another site, let us make you aware of one more very important thing. The Toyota new product development system this book explains has very little if anything to do with the Toyota Production System. The former is how Toyota develops new products. The latter is how Toyota manufactures them. Both systems deliver extremely high productivity, both free people to do their best, but beyond that, there really aren't many similarities. You need to read this book to find out why. Believe us when we say, no company that depends on an ongoing flow of new and improved products can afford to ignore the revelations it contains or the potential advantages in terms of productivity and creativity that can accrue from following the method outlined in Product Development for the Lean Enterprise.
Customer Reviews:
Almost Perfect.......2006-09-01
Everything written is a bullseye with the exception of glaring ignorance regarding Six Sigma - what it is and isn't. What is written relative to Lean here should be taken verbatim as applying to Six Sigma also - there is no difference. Similarly, the written characterizations of Six Sigma should be ignored. To quote Senji Nihwa, Taiichi Ohno's lieutenant at Toyota for decades, in a good-natured ribbing, "You Americans, always trying to categorize things. Call it Lean, call it Six Sigma, it makes no difference to us...it's all the same." And so it is.
The book is extremely well written and accurate with the exception noted above. If readers can simply meld the descriptions as also being characteristic of a Six Sigma organization, and discard the mischaracterizations of Six Sigma as written, they are in for a very positive learning experience.
Thumbs up!.......2006-04-03
Thumbs up, but I'd recommend you attend his workshops over the book if the opportunity presents itself.
The book is written as a fictional account of a company's journey from process hell to an environment where engineers can devote themselves more completely to the craft they love. It is complete with protagonists and antagonists. The many men and women who have devoted large portions of their careers to wrestling with new product development process issues and trying to improve the quality and efficiency of product development processes may justifiably take offense at being cast as the antagonist, but it wouldn't be much of a story without the villains.
The book raises some very good issues and points out some very good practices that have contributed to Toyota's success. Toyota's design philosophy is optimized for lowest possible risk to model year goals. American management teams would do well to think about optimizing for low risk instead of highest efficiency and lowest development cost. For many companies the cost of developing a new product is a fairly modest portion of their overall cost structure and the price they pay for missing new product introduction dates is far greater than the gains from tailoring their internal processes for the lowest cost development.
The implementation of highly redundant development paths (called sets in the book) will be far less revolutionary than the book would have you believe. It really comes down to a willingness and ability to make the necessary investments. Readers who have studied Japanese companies will find much that is familiar. Publicly held Japanese companies are far less driven by quarterly results than are their American counter parts. Japanese companies typically have few (if any) small stockholders looking for short term gains. The largest stock holders in a Japanese company are often other Japanese companies. They tend to set long term strategic goals e.g. to dominate the world car industry in 5 years. While these businesses must make money to sustain themselves they are content with smaller earnings than their American counterparts making it possible to re-invest larger portions of their revenues back into the company. Some of that reinvestment shows up as investment in engineering work that reduces risk to new product introduction dates. But make no mistake about it, there are no miracle cures. During the initial stages of introducing a risk adverse strategy you are getting less (new features) with more (investment), but on time, likely with better quality, and you can build economically on that investment for a future stream of new products.
Efficiency can be a huge problem, but not always. In many organizations engineering efficiency is disappointingly low. The book tries to make the case that Toyota's engineers are 4X more productive than the engineers of the fictitious company in the book (approx. 80% productive compared to ITRs 20%). The measure of productivity is not explained, but it is implied that it is simply the number of hours/week that engineers spend engineering instead of (presumably) unnecessary process compliance. It is unlikely that Toyota's engineers are on average really 4X more productive than the best of American engineering teams. A comparison between Toyota's engineering and one of America's best is probably a better comparison than a fictitious engineering team. The book does not sight any objective evidence for the 4X claim. Although few companies share their productivity numbers, 65% is a widely accepted number for staff utilization. If Toyota's staff utilization really is 80% then that would put them about 1.23X more productive. In actual fact productivity is far more complex to measure and since it is so complex many observers chose a metric and then measure changes rather than focus on an absolute #. Lack of evidence aside, the book does highlight some interesting opportunities for improvement in the area of knowledge retention and reuse.
I have no doubt that there are companies whose developers are 20% productive. Lack of stability in the organization is certainly a contributor. The ineptitude and unending churn of engineering management teams is a frequent cause. Many companies have suffered at the hands of corporate management teams looking for quick fixes to the perception that their projects take too long, cost too much, and fail too often. They are often executives who have no engineering experience and no way to objectively assess the performance of their teams. They are driven by fear and uncertainty. They have often set goals that are hopelessly impossible to begin with. The result from the engineer's perspective is an unending stream of organizational change meetings to roll out the new engineering management team, introduce their dramatic new ideas, and get the teams trained. This is immediately followed by or coupled with a call to heroic self-sacrifice in an effort to meet the hopeless goal with the new structure. Sound familiar? If you we're drawn to this book it probably does.
The first thing that any student of Japanese industry learns is its strong reliance on life-time employment. While there has been some decline in longevity in recent years it remains the expectation for most Japanese employees entering the workforce. The long-term expectations and thorough understanding of the company and its markets which the most senior managers obtain during their long careers fosters more emphasis on incremental improvement rather than radical re-birth. Either strategy can work, but the highest probability of long-term success is with the incremental improvement paradigm.
Mr. Kennedy is a joy to talk to with a refreshing directness and wealth of experience. The book has a "sensational" tone, but you'd expect that in a work that was intended to get your attention and interest. The advice he offers in person is well reasoned and sound. Well worth the price of admission.
Highly Recomended for anyone interested in Product Development.......2006-03-23
For anyone interested in the next stage of Product Development -- this is a must read. The Toyota system encorporates what I felt has been missing in the product development process for so long. It takes into account the chaos that exists during development and actually encourages it instead of covering it up.
I've beginning to incorporate these concepts into our process and am excited about the results I'm seeing.
Best book available on lean development........2006-01-31
Even in the academic literature, there is no better reference. Note: do not buy the book "the minding organization" where the author refers to in the book.
Interesting Perspective.......2005-07-29
I like this book. The "story-like" format of this book is entertaining but it gets a little old for a hard core techy like me. I definitly gained some interesting insights into the Toyota development system but would have liked more focus on the facts and the theories than on the story that was used to convey the message. The ideas are very enlightening, surely valuable, and worth the read. I can over look the style to get to the ideas. It was an easy read and the "story" moved along nicely. I recommend this book but would like to find one without the fluff of the "story" vehicle.
Book Description
The definitive guide on how to manage your company's product portfolio for maximum long-term growth-fully updated and expanded.
In this fully updated edition of Portfolio Management for New Products, the authors present a rigorous and practical approach to managing a company's product portfolio as you would a financial portfolio-investing for maximum long-term growth. With its field-tested, step-by-step framework, the book provides corporations and managers with the strategies they need to assess and realign their current R&D operations; determine which products are most worthy of resource allocation; design and implement a portfolio management process; maximize the value of their portfolios; and recognize and solve challenges as they arise. This book will be an essential resource for any company whose profitability, and very existence, relies on the products it chooses to develop and the speed with which it brings them to the market.
Customer Reviews:
Comprehensive catalog of portfolio management techniques.......2007-08-17
Three professors, Robert G. Cooper, Scott J. Edgett and Elko J. Kleinschmidt, wrote this book. The good news is that they really know their stuff; the less-than-great news is that they write like, well, professors. The book is hampered by academic prose, qualifiers, tangents and a scholarly, if balanced, reluctance to commit completely to most propositions. We find that readers seeking a comprehensive catalog of product portfolio management techniques will benefit from the detailed initial chapters. Meanwhile, readers who are in search of practical, applicable information will find more of what they want in the later chapters.
Portfolio Management.......2007-04-11
Great guide for those with multiple NPD projects in the pipeline. Best when used in conjunction with "The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development, Second Edition."
Actionable approach and excellent reference.......2004-03-30
The purpose of this book is to provide the reader with an actionable approach for implementing a product-oriented project portfolio management process which corporate leaders can use to ensure that the organization's portfolio delivers value, is balanced, and is aligned with strategy.
While the book addresses product-oriented projects, it seems well suited to limited generalization to aid the non-product based project portfolio.
The Thesis
The authors state that a portfolio process is key to success since projects operationalize strategy. To determine how well organizations manage their product project portfolio, they evaluate leader satisfaction with the process the organization uses along six metrics:
* Projects aligned with business's objectives
* Portfolio contains very high value projects
* Spending reflects the business's strategy
* Projects are done on time (no gridlock)
* Portfolio has good balance of projects
* Portfolio has right number of projects
While I think this is a good list for any project portfolio manager to begin using, I note that this survey is simply a ranking of leader satisfaction with leaders in organizations which use portfolio management. The authors did not try to link leader satisfaction with business success. It is difficult to prove that portfolio management led to business success, but one might assert that a measure of portfolio management on business is not fair because what one is really measuring is strategy success. The goal of portfolio management then might be stated as alignment with strategy, not business success. I think an organizational survey asking senior leaders to rank satisfaction along the six metrics might be interesting - how many of the questions can they answer at all? Presumably, knowing the answers and being dissatisfied with them might be better than not knowing the answers.
Actionable Information
This book is well organized and appears well researched. This is not surprising given that it was written by academic professionals. What is a little surprising, given the authors' profession, is that is so thoroughly action-oriented. The authors never seem to loose sight of the fact that if portfolio management is to help an organization it must be implemented. Over and over again, they point out pitfalls, limitations, cautions, and implementation steps for overcoming these. I expect to use this book often to fill in the gaps in other approaches, leaning heavily on the best-practice implementation suggestions they authors recommend in suggestions tailored to specific goals.
Among the useful, researched insights was this one: "Those businesses that use financial models as the dominant portfolio selection method end up with the poorest-performing portfolios!" (p 169). One reason for this (in product portfolios) is that the sophistication of the financial tools exceeds the quality of the predictive value data. Conversely, businesses that rely principally on strategic models outperform the rest. Allocating resources to strategic areas seems to work well, and we are reminded that "strategy begins when you start spending money" (Ibid).
Conclusion
Many books are over-blown magazine articles. This is not one of those books. The authors did a lot of plain hard work bringing this book together and it shows. They authors never forget that someone must sell the notion of portfolio management to senior leaders, then provide them with specific, relevant and actionable information to make difficult and important project decisions with strategic impact. I appreciate the fact that the authors frequently provide suggestions on how to keep thinks simple, starting small and scaling sophistication as processes are prototyped, then refined and adapted in specific organizations.
There is a possible limitation in how appropriately one may generalize these approaches to non-product-oriented project portfolios. This book does such a good job talking about project portfolio management that the reader can forget at times that the book is about product project portfolio management. It may be that some of the research findings do not apply or cannot be generalized with validity to other types of project portfolios. The reader should keep his grain of salt handy. However, there are still too few project portfolio management books available, especially books based on research, so this is a very useful reference. By way of balance, it does not seem too far a stretch to use this book for other, non-product project portfolio management since the aim of the process is to align projects with strategy, obtain high value from projects, and obtain a balanced portfolio of projects. These are good goals for any portfolio, and organizations are free to define and measure dimensions however they wish.
Possibly the highest compliment I can pay the authors is to say that having read the book, my copy is full of underlined passages and pages encumbered with sticky-notes. This book will not gather much dust on my shelf - at least not for quite some time.
No theory behind an incomplete collection of case studies!!.......1999-03-18
Huge disappointment. Chapter 1, page 1 starts with "Those
companies that succeed at new product dvelopment are the future
Mercks, HPs, 3Ms, and Microsofts; those companies that fail to excel
at developing new products will invariably disappear or be gobbed up
by the winners. .....". Despite this quite promising catch
phrase you will not find a single word on how the above mentioned
companies develope new products.
Things actually get worse. What you
will find in this book are random generated case studies on various
portfolio models the authors encountered in the few firms willing to
meet them - no theoretical framework is given on portfolio management,
criteria to be included and best practices in various industries.
As
a major disappointment I found the fact that not a single case/best
practise study came from the pharmaceutical industry and the software
industry, those industries where portfolio management/selection are at
the very heart of the strategic management process. It would have been
a huge (and logical) opportunity to cover in this book how Merck or
Pfizer steer their new product development processes. But don`t look
for clues to this questions in this book. The case studies you will
find in this book are about a small Canadian bank, a small US chemical
company, and about Hoechst US. The last case study offered at least
some ideas useful for improving the portfolio management process (that
is the main reason for the second star).
Somewhat disturbing are
platidudes widely used throughout the book (e.g. " ....Remember:
understanding the problem is the first step to a solution!
.... (p. 184)). If esclamation marks after platitudes make you
nervous, then you will probably throw this book away before reaching
page 100.
The only bright side of this book are the first 20 pages,
where the authors discribe present shortfalls of the portfolio
management process currently used in some firms (i.e. in the firms
they interview, and these firms are underperformers). It helps to get
an idea of what effective portfolio management should do - and these
points are very agreeable indeed (e.g. value creation, balance,
strategic fit). That these questions are inadequeately and only
empirically adressed in this book, is a source of frustration for its
readers. I would give only a very very weak recommendation for this
book....
databaseU
An analysis of current thinking in portfolio management.......1999-03-09
In this text, the authors thoroughly review the methods currently being practiced in companies to make decisions about their investments in new products and technologies, and the success of these various methods. They recognize the difficulties of making such decisions, especially by relying on simple processes without understanding shorfalls of the process and the robustness of the data. They focus on the goals of maximizing value, achieving a balanced portfolio and linking the decisions to business strategy. They tie this process into other key processes in the company, including the product development process and the new product strategy. By far the most valuable aspect of the book, however, is the link between process and real operation provided by the "Points for Management to Ponder" commentary which runs throughout the book. This is a current, encyclopedic and practical guide to this very difficult business process.
Customer Reviews:
Informative but blatantly self-serving.......2007-10-07
I liked this book and learned a lot about a market-research technique that I had hoped might apply to the needs of a small business-to-business company. The book made me enthusiastic about the potential to test product concepts before we spend a lot of money taking final products to market. The approach the authors advocate appears to be able to dramatically reduce risk for companies that are trying to get their offering right. The focus of the book is primarily on consumer-goods companies and their products, though the technique has also be used for B2B offerings.
As I got into the book, I was disappointed that the only practical advice the authors offer is to contact them about using their on-line research tool. Good as their tool may be, it appears not to be well suited for the needs of my small B2B business.
I now feel I've paid about $20 for the authors' elaborate marketing brochure, and I have no way to apply what I learned unless I choose to work with their company. Use of books to promote the authors' business is a consistent trend in the publication of business books. I don't object to it if the book provides real value the reader can apply even without engaging the services of the authors' company. This book fails that basic test, as do many other such books. If the trend toward self-promotion continues without regard for the lasting value a book provides to the reader, I think the entire market segment will lose credibility.
By the way, in contacting the authors' company I learned that the cost of their services comes to about $10,000 per study. That's very reasonable for companies bigger or more mature than mine, but its well beyond what we can afford at our stage of growth.
I'll be selling this book soon on the Amazon.com marketplace. I only wish I had bought it there.
Develop New Products Rationally.......2007-09-19
The authors argue Rule Developing Experimentation (RDE) is the key to developing new products.
Unfortunately for shareholders, during the past 15 years marketers have dominated product development. The result: more than 90 per cent of product launches and re-launches fail.
RDE is a process of designing, testing and modifying alternative ideas, packages, products, or services. It is disciplined. It reveals to the developer and marketer what appeals to the customer, even if the customer can't articulate the need.
It contains seven steps:
1. Consider the problem; identify features that may comprise solutions.
2. Mix and match the features in experimental designs.
3. Show the prototypes to consumers.
4. Analyze their reactions.
5. Optimize your prototypes.
6. Identify attitudinal population segments.
7. Apply the rules to create new products.
Howard Moskowitz is experimental psychologist in the field of psychophysics. Alex Gofman is widely published, technology-oriented experimental psychologist. They argue RDE delivers cost-effective actionable results tied to business directives. As a shareholder, I argue, RDE is worth a try.
Learn how to turn your old products (pink elephants) into new products (blue elephants).......2007-08-11
When I first saw the title of this book, I was reminded of a skit I once saw featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergin and Charley McCarthy. Charley asks Bergin "How do you kill a blue elephant?" and when Bergin asks the question, Charley's response is "Shoot him with a blue elephant gun." Charley then asks Bergin "How do you kill a pink elephant?" and after the straight line from Bergin, Charley's response is, "Squeeze him until he turns blue and then shoot him with a blue elephant gun." I laughed when I saw that memorable comedy bit and the fact that I can remember it decades later is an indication of how much of an imprint it made on me.
The incongruity of that comedy bit has relevance to the message that the authors of this book are trying to make. Sometimes the making of a great new product is nothing more than taking an existing product (the pink elephant) and squeezing it so that it looks like a new product (the blue elephant). However, before that you need to know if there is a substantial market for the new product.
In this book, the authors demonstrate a tactic that can be used to explore the possibilities for new products. It is called Rule Developing Experimentation (RDE) and it is a systematic process to develop and test new ideas for products or different ways to modify existing products to make them more desirable. The particular emphasis is on the development for a product that the potential market does not yet realize that it would want. As all marketing directors understand so well, this is an inherently complex problem.
Nearly all businesses want to expand, and there is only two ways to do that. You can either sell more of your existing product line or develop new products. The strategy for the second requires a significant amount of predictive ability, which can only be generated by detailed study. The RDE process is a sound business strategy that can be applied almost anywhere. Several case studies of specific products are presented as examples of how things can be done, although the general tactics used are not specific to the product.
If you have just attended a meeting where the CEO has said that your company must introduce new and profitable products quickly and you are responsible for it, there are two things that you should do.
*) Sit down and take a few deep and relaxing breaths.
*) Reach for this book.
Both actions will help you solve the problem
Poorly done.......2007-08-08
Interesting concept extremely poorly written. Very confusing. I'd be hard pressed to actually put it into practice after reading this book. I'd read the Gladwell articles and that should give a basic idea. I just wish it was done better.
Simple concept overdone.......2007-07-27
I was disappointed in this book. Wasn't worth the $15.00 I paid, let a lone the $28.00 retail price so many probably paid. Very simple concept that could have been explained in one small chapter, not a whole book. I was bored to tears and kept looking for something else to explain why I bought the book. Great title and interesting chapter titles but did little to give me applicable information beyond the simplistic "RDE" concept. I kept saying, "Ok, ok I got it" and expected more - but there wasn't anymore. Find out what RDE is online and save your money regarding the purchase of the book.
Book Description
One of the key determinants of success for today’s high-technology companies is product strategy—and this guide continues to be the only book on product strategy written specifically for the 21st century high-tech industry. More than 250 examples from technological leaders including IBM, Compaq, and Apple—plus a new focus on growth strategies and on Internet businesses—define how high-tech companies can use product strategy and product platform strategy for competitiveness, profitability, and growth in the Internet age.
Customer Reviews:
very good - lots of examples.......2007-01-19
the Core Strategic Vision approach for determining strategy is interesting, and is a good framework to develop a realistic vision.
The boundaries test to determine whether your vision will deliver what you expect (it forces you to expect something!) is something companies can't forget.
And the vision of a set of product's as not only one offering, but as one containing a platform and its pre-planned offerings, with pricing strategy, is essential to get profits for a long time.
It is full with examples, specially from the software arena. Recommended.
Comprehensive coverage.......2006-03-12
This book offers a study of the strategic options for high tech firms. The coverage is wide and detailed. This is a great book.
A first approach to Product Strategy.......2006-01-31
A big number of business examples, and good explanation of concepts. A deeper vision could be found in another books about this subject, so in my oppinion this book could be a good starting point, not recomended for advanced IT product managers.
targeted for core products at large companies.......2004-05-22
I love this book: the concept of a "vector" for product
development is a terrific way to think about competition.
IMHO, this book is a must-read for all product managers,
product marketers and people involved in strategic decisions,
i.e. all senior executives.
That said, speaking as a five-time startup engineer, the advice
and examples in this book seem geared towards the core product
lines in larger companies, where you can credibly talk about
"two years from now" as opposed to wondering if you'll even be
in business, which is also the problem for new product lines at
large companies. The experience for the book comes from the
PRTM consulting firm, which was made famous for their work with
parallel product development at Intel. We hired them in the
early days at Inktomi, and found mixed success with their
process because we were terrified of immediate failure, and
they wanted to talk about version 3. Obviously, there's a
successful middle ground because Inktomi was a huge success in
the short term, but ultimately lost its strategic direction.
watch out cost to implement in ur office before do it.......2003-12-05
For example, author addressed the benefits to have a product platform strategy are focusing managemnet on key decision at the right time;enabling products to be deployed rapidly and consistently; encouraging a longer-term view of product strategy; leveraging significant operational efficiencies; helping management anticipate replacing a major product platform.
However, he may forget to remind readers that these require cost before enjoying the benefits, such as you need to hire a new tier of middle management if you company is too small to afford before; to establish the new channel capabilities to justify the investment on the platform bcz to access new markets; the IT system to calculate operation efficiencies such as engineering head count, material cost, and supply chain cost is also not cheap if you only have the option to use turn-key solution.....
It may be reasonable to equip product platform strategy only when benefits are greater than costs.
Book Description
Treating such contemporary design and development issues as identifying customer needs, design for manufacturing, prototyping, and industrial design, Product Design and Development, 3/e, by Ulrich and Eppinger presents in a clear and detailed way a set of product development techniques aimed at bringing together the marketing, design, and manufacturing functions of the enterprise. The integrative methods in the book facilitate problem solving and decision making among people with different disciplinary perspectives, reflecting the current industry trend to perform product design and development in cross-functional teams.
Customer Reviews:
Is OK, but there are better options........2006-11-10
I have the pleasure of taking a seminar with the author, but I was disappointed at his writing. The book is hard to follow, and lack structure.
Clearly Better Than Stage-Gate.......2006-08-21
Ulrich has created an understandable companion text for product development. What is refreshing about this text is that it guides the developer through the elements of product development that are essential to reducing the concept of the product to practice. It is a great instructional guide.
Good reference text.......2005-03-16
This is a good reference manual for understanding the various techniques that are available for the fuzzy front end of product design. It would be a good text for project managers in product development.
PROs
1) It is well written and easy to assimilate.
2) Seems complete for the traditional manufactured consumer product.
CONs
1) Not strong on a current pre-emptive DFSS techniques for robustness and quality (such as QFD and axiomatic design).
2) Does not address system complexity issues and tools (software vs hardware, interface issues, complexity, functional flows).
Great product development handbook!.......2004-01-04
This book provides a great hands-on approach to product development. Unlike other product development books that dwell too much on the philosophical aspects of product development, this book gives you practical advice on how to define meaningful product specifications to meet your customer needs and develop successful products. The book provides a very nice concept development process that I've found very useful.
This book is mainly focused on product development processes and does not provide much information on technology development. In addition, the book lacks depth in the strategic aspects of product development(such as market segmentation, strategic management of technology).
If you are looking for a very useful and powerful handbook for product development, this is the book you are looking for. However, if you are interested in the strategic aspects of product development, you may need other references.
great for teaching at any level, great methods.......2002-09-26
I have used this book extensively to teach undergraduate industrial design students, and graduate marketing, and engineering students who take small product development courses. It's focused, down to earth, practical, and students find they can grasp design issues better than in a more theoretical-philosophical way. I use it myself to guide my design consulting work, has helped me understand other product development (not design) issues that are relevant to me, and I have read it over and over.. great handbook. Production/design of the book is also very nice. It's a pitty McGraw Hill doesn't want to translate it to spanish (so the author told me once).
Book Description
A complete and practical, how-to exploration of each step in the strategy, opportunity identification, design, testing, launch, and profit-management stages of new-product development.
Revision of over 75% of the book ... offers a managerial focus - with an emphasis on understanding the issues and solving the problems by implementing a variety if state-of-the-art methods and perspectives ... integrates marketing, R&D, production engineering, and financial aspects of new product design and marketing ... uses real-world examples to illustrate issues and solutions.
Customer Reviews:
content OK, but printing and structure is bad.......2003-04-19
Content is OK, but 10 years old, so no recent new insights. The book is no fun to study. The quality of the printing is bad (like someone printed it on an old printer an then made some copies), some diagrams are hardly readable. Furthermore the structure is not recognizable in the formatting (for example paragraph titels), which makes it hard to know on which abstraction level you are reading.
Must read for marketing majors.......2002-09-11
I found this book very helpful for the marketing tools discussed for designing and marketing new products. It covers most issues for the pre-introduction phase of the product life cycle. Consumer measurement techniques are quite elaborate and simplified.
The only drawback is that the edition is old (1991) and hence misses out completely the high-tech products from the dot-com age. Can be used a good resource for most non-high tech products.
A good book.......2001-01-23
Its really a good effort to cover the product management.
Book Description
NEW PRODUCTS MANAGEMENT, 7/E by Crawford and Di Benedetto provides future new product managers, project managers and team leaders with a comprehensive overview of the new product development process including how to develop an effective development strategy, manage cross-functional teams across the organization, generate and evaluate concepts, manage the technical development of a product, develop the marketing plan, and manage the financial aspects of a project.
Customer Reviews:
Careful, this is the review guide not the text book.......2007-03-08
The review guide is okay. I couldn't tell from the listings that this was not the text book I needed but rather the review guide.
For daily needs.......2007-01-05
I manage a large portfolio and it is imperative that new products are properly launched. With this book I actualy have my responsibilities very nicely overviewed right in front of me.
It precisely describes the process, through which a new offering should be taken.
Great buy!
New Products Management.......2006-08-15
Let's face it, texts are not becoming any cheaper. While not escalating like tuitions, they are more than they used to be 20 years ago, inflation included. For that increased amount, the text better be damn good and chuck full of material to get the new student on the right path, and the professor on course with the latest material.
So does this book fit the bill? Yes and no. A lot of this is rehashed material from what I can see pertaining to methodology, but there is a strikingly large amount of mention to recent products. This may be because the book was originally written in 1983, with seven updates including the '06 version.
I am not an educator so will leave this one to the professionals to decide if the newer text warrants the wrath of the students for a new edition or not.
For educators and students and product managers who used to be engineers (there are more than you think out there).
Note: why do textbooks look like text books? The design is very 80's.
Quite useless.......2005-04-23
Many points/ideas are common sense.
Many points/ideas are repeated in multiple chapters.
It just uses too many words on simple topics.
This 550-page book can be easily rewritten in less than 100 pages.
A Good Overview of The New Products Process.......2001-01-30
The book is organized into five parts:
Part I - Overview and Opportunity Identification/Selection; includes an introductory section and The New Products Process, and Opportunity Identification and Selection.
Part II - Concept Generation; includes sections on Preparation and Alternatives, Problem-Based Ideation, Analytical Attribute Approaches.
Part III - Concept/Project Evaluation; includes sections on The Concept Evaluation System, Concept Testing, Full Screen, Sales Forecasting and Financial Analysis and Product Protocol.
Part IV - Development; includes sections on Design, Development Team Management, Special Issues in Development and Product Use Testing.
Part V - Launch; includes sections on Strategic Launch Planning, Implementation of the Strategic Plan, Market Testing, Launch Management and Public Policy Issues.
The book is a thorough overview of the product planning process, and a very useful validation for someone who had already been involved in product planning. The book could have been enriched considerably by the use of more case studies and examples. The Applications section at the end of each chapter was meant to be a method of reflecting upon and putting into practice some of the ideas learned in the chapter; but the questions were oddly written and there was no "answer key" or discussion of those questions, so I didn't find that section useful at all.
Book Description
Advance praise for Developing Products in Half the Time Second Edition New Rules, New Tools Preston G. Smith * Donald G. Reinertsen "This is an exceptional book! Get a new highlighter before you start. There are so many 'ah ha's' in each chapter you will never make it through with an old one." Don LaCombe, Ford Motor Company, Product Development Process Leadership "An excellent book with a strong treatment of the cycle-time consequences of overloading your development capacity. It provides powerful and practical concepts for dealing with this issue." Andrew Aquart, Director Product Development, Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson Company "This is practical, useful stuff for people competing in highly competitive fast moving business." Dr. Paul Borrill, Chief Scientist, Sun Microsystems "3M has absorbed many of the tools from the original edition, and this new one will be even more useful. The topic of incremental innovation is crucial to us, and I really appreciate its balanced treatment." Ronald H. Kubinski, Manager New Product Commercialization Services, 3M Company "As the authors correctly point out, the Fuzzy Front End is the least expensive place to reduce cycle time. This book is one of the only sources of concepts, methods, and metrics for compressing this critical portion of the development process." David M. Lewis, Product Manager, Eastman Kodak Co. "Using these tools we've more than cut our time to market in half. The new edition of this classic crystallizes the synergy of the fast-to-market techniques, and the icons in the margins highlight the opportunities and pitfalls." Mike Brennan , Vice President of Product Development, Black & Decker
Customer Reviews:
Useful tools for shortening development time.......2007-08-27
"Developing products in half the time" is a collection of tools and practices that can be used to speed up the release of your new products. The book provides a well-balanced view on how to cut the development time and especially what the trade-off is that you will probably make. Many of the tools and practice are only touched upon and would require a book on its own.
Preston Smith and Donald Reinertsen start the book by tackling some important misconceptions about fast development. Their opinion is that it's not per definition good and you really need to have a good reason to speed up the development. They continue this theme in their second chapter which gives a basic financial model that they will use during the rest of the book. It explains what trade-off will be made when saving time in a particular way. The rest of the book provides practices to save development time: starting with "the fuzzy front end". In power of incremental innovation they argue that most products can probably be developed incrementally, which reduces development time and risk a lot.
Chapter 7 and 8 are key to the book, they provide motivation for using cross-functional development teams. How to create these, how do they fit within the organization and where should you locate them. This concept is repeated probably most throughout the book.
Developing in half time is an excellent read. It's full of small ideas which can help your development process to deliver faster and explains the trade-offs well. The only criticism to this book would be that all topics are discussed only shortly. Recommended reading.
Also for a Service Organization!.......2006-11-27
A comprehensive approach to Product development and lot of advices that can be used also in a Service Environment like my own; the best book on the subject of speed to market. I still continue to suggest it as a reading to my collegues and to the students in my teachings. I also strongly recommend the Reinertsen book "The Design Factory" and I am waiting for a sequel on Lean Product Development.
THE book about product development .......2005-10-20
This book giver clear insights about product development in general. What amazed me when I read the first edition is that agile software development methodologies are clearly aligned with these book findings. Preston Smith and Reinertsen did an excellent job and succeded to create a better book in this new edition!
Keep an eye open specially to the tools listed below(number is the corresponding chapter) and watch the link with agile processes:
2. Putting a Price Tag on Time --> how to convince upper management to do small releases and work in an iterative and incremental mindset.
4. The Power and Pitfalls of Incremental Innovation --> Why to be agile and how to mitigate risks described in the disadvantages section.
5. Capturing Customer Needs --> Why to work jointly with all stakeholders and stay focused in minimal and iterative specifications.
6. Using System Design to Compress Schedules --> Why software architecture is an important activity and why projects must be planned based on architecture.
8. Organizing for Communication --> Why Co-location brings benefits most of the times.
10. Controlling the Process --> why insitute essential metrics and which are these. Aligned with information radiators practice of agile software development teams.
11. Preventing Overloads --> One of the best in the set. With great empirical evidence the authors explain why most managers do the wrong thing and try to mantain 100% people allocation. In this chapter he gives light to why is not a good thing to split people between various projects and what to do: control the project list religiously! The agile methodologies also say: Control the feature list of each project religiously :-) !
Read this book, if you want to understand why agile and iterative development processes are the way to build most software products out there!
Lightweight Chat about New product Development.......2004-10-04
Using this text to teach MBA students about new product development.
Probably the worst text I've encountered for a course, never mind lacking useful information for guiding managers in this field.
Incrediably lightweight with passing comments about rigorous engineering tools, and of little use to anyone to actually do anything relating to creativity, innovation or technology commercialization. Pick up something like Ulrich/Eppingers's "Product Design and Development" for a much more thorough and useful approach.
Excellent must-read for senior managers.......2002-01-05
I found that this book was packed full of common sense, which is rare in a development management book. Although it has a lot of examples of manufacturing of phsyical goods, I found it great as a software manager. There aren't many spare words in this book, either -- it's terse and well edited, so you get the raw facts and the necessary stories to back them up, but not a lot (or any, really) fluff.
I am putting it on my bookshelf for software engineers, right next to Writing Solid Code and Debugging the Development Process, two classics for software engineers and team leads, respectively.
Books:
- The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual
- The Copywriter's Handbook, Third Edition: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells
- The Experience Economy: Work is Theater and Every Business a Stage
- The Infinite Asset: Managing Brands to Build New Value
- The New PR Toolkit: Strategies for Successful Media Relations
- The Simplest Path to Personal and Planetary Awakening, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND: 10 Keys for Unlocking Your Personal Potential, Achieving Spiritual Awakening, ... of Humanity's Ultimate Cosmic Destiny
- The SPIN Selling Fieldbook
- The SPIN Selling Fieldbook
- The SPIN Selling Fieldbook
- The SPIN Selling Fieldbook
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition
- Tough Kids, Cool Counseling: User-Friendly Approaches With Challenging Youths
- Norton Recorded Anthology of Western Music, Fifth Edition, Volume 1: Ancient to Baroque
- Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist
- StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup's Now, Discover Your
- This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland
- The Post-Birthday World
- Fiscal Incentives for Investment and Innovation
- Prosperity: The Coming Twenty-Year Boom and What It Means to You
- Nature Notes of the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady
Strategy & Competition
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization
Thoughtless Acts?: Observations on Intuitive Design
Harvard Business Review on Innovation
Making Innovation Work: How to Manage It, Measure It, and Profit from It
Designing Interactions
