[Mathias Bengtsson Revolutionizing Product Dev Elopement Summary Chapter 5-12

8/14/2019 [Mathias Bengtsson Revolutionizing Product Dev Elopement Summary Chapter 5-12

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Chapter 5 Structuring the Development Funnel

The development funnel provides a graphic structure for thinking about the generation and

screening of alternative development options, and combining a subset of these into a product

concept. It creates the architecture for the set of development activities that must occur as part

of a successful development project. One should remember that there are several ones and notjust one funnel. There are three things that are desirable and challenging when designing the

funnel:

Widen the mouth: The organization must expand its knowledge base and access

to information in order to increase the number of new product and new process

ideas.

Narrow the funnels neck: Management must screen the ideas/concepts to focus

its resources on the most attractive ones. (Think about the aggregated project

plan and that they have a similar purpose.)

Deliver the anticipated objectives: To ensure that the selected projects deliverwhat they are supposed to.

As mentioned, there are several different tunnels which are more suitable for different

occasions. They are distinguished of its process to develop projects, its means for achieving

convergence to a focused product concept and last are its commitment to the market through

final testing. Here follows three different models.

Model 1: Technology-driven survival of the fittest approach, common in

larger, technology-intensive firms which rely on their R&D group to generateideas for new products and processes. Creativity and innovatively is the key

words, which forces the funnel to have several screens, commonly at least three

which have different purposes (technical, manufacturing and specific customer

preferences). One problem might be that they arent that coordinated which

might make some of the finished projects quite similar. Some downsides are that

its expensive and it might be hard to the R&D groups to kill their darlings, it

is also rather complicated.

Model 2: All the eggs in one basket model which is common and morefavourable to smaller firms (the market needs are to complex otherwise and the

environment it rather fix). They use several sources to collect ideas and combinethese into a single project aimed at meeting a set of market needs which is

launched as soon as possible. Some other problems might be that its harder to

kill of these combined projects and it might be quite slow.

Model 3: Is a combination of model two and three and it is called innovative

and focused. This model tries to widen the mouth and gather ideas from a

variety of sources and not only through R&D, they also try to encourage

innovations and input from the organization and its surroundings, the functional

maps are also vital. The screenings and narrowing of the neck is also important,

before the first screening advanced development is of essence and is followed

by the first screening which is more of a monthly review of the status of the projects in the funnel and they are evaluated by how they will fit in the


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aggregated plan. It also has the important task to see so the different projects

arent that similar. And if the idea is found to be complete it moves on to the

next stage where it will be more specified, with defining and creating the

appropriate sequence and set of platforms and derivate development projects. In

the second screening the projects are selected that will become development

projects. So in advance to the second screening the information has to beadapted so the management can make rational decisions.

The design funnel may be used as a diagnostic tool to the managers making them understand

how their development process is now and by that understand how it might be improved. The

three most important issues which usually emerge from this study are:

The importance of the managerial roles: middle management has to do more ofthe day-to-day planning meanwhile the senior management should set an agenda

and determine the organizations focus. The managements role could be

determined by the screens.

The importance of competing projects: When, where and how the competingconcepts and projects should or shouldnt be encouraged or even allowed. This

competition between different projects might be allowed until the second

screening in the third model.

The importance ofthe project mix: The mix of development projects, must as anaggregated project plan, should build both on market position and the

capabilities in certain new areas. As for the managers the screen might be used

to evaluate the right balance of projects.


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Chapter 6 A Framework for Development

To be an outstanding development organization requires a coherent architecture and process

that is well understood, highly capable and in control. It should be rather detailed, addressing

such things as how to execute and control the processes, how the organization is structured

and who will do what. To make this possible the senior management has to be focused andattend development. Some basic elements of the framework that should have a continuity

must be discussed, they are;

Project definition: This determines how the firm sets the scope of the

development project. It should set the goals, objectives and the resources

required to finish. Avoid fuzzy specifications.

Project organization and staffing: This defines who will work on the project and

how they will organize to be successful. Cross-functional teams might be an

option.

Project management and leadership: Here the roles and nature of the project

leaders are defined and how the project should be sequenced. It also involves

how to divide and group the work in different phases. (When to integrate the

process?)

Problem solving, testing and prototyping: This has more focus in the individual

work steps, how it is conducted and the needed knowledge for the certain task.

This ends up in the use of testing and prototyping and how it is conducted to

validate the progress.

Senior management review and control: How the management reviews and

evaluates the projects over time, also how the responsibilities is empowered to

the employees which will create morale and motivation.

Real-time/midcourse corrections: This takes care of feedback and revisionsduring the course of the project because of the uncertainty which always is

included in decision.

Some common pitfalls:

A reactive process, engineering focus, leaderships that shifts by phase, batonpassing, narrow focus on functional problems, fire fighting, late involvement,

bad communication, no cross-functionality, no slack

Some key mechanisms:

Customer mission statement (the attributes the customer is interested in), the use

of gatekeepers and stakeholders (to guide the project, good with cross-

functionality in this stage), well-defined procedures (creates a common

philosophy which will lead to discipline and clarity) and senior cross-functional

advisory groups.


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Some different approaches to project management that are suitable for different situations are;

Phases and gates: Strong functional orientation with discipline and focus in theprocesses. Uses phases, gates and customer mission statements. Is usually used

to manufacturing processes and projects where technical advancement is of

importance.

Tollgate process: Functional orientation but with some element of cross-functionality. Uses tollgates with project managers to review milestones.

Commonly used to enhancements and incremental improvements, technology is

of importance, but a balance with the cross-functionality is vital, speed.

Contract-driven/Cross-functional teams: Teams focus with functional supportand a clear link to senior management. Consists of dedicated core teams and a

general manager as project leader. Used to platform/nest-generation projects

where the system solution is crucial and speed is critical.

Tiger teams: Fully dedicated teams with control over resources and process.They are co-located and have full budget authority, CEO might be leaders with

hand picked teams. Used for breakthrough projects and projects with high risk.

Some common themes and basic principles for an effective development process are:

Customer Focus: A challenge is to achieve integration across function and yet

obtain excellent solutions to a functional problem. The challenge with the

customer is to understand the future customer requirements and unmet needs

and to translate these to understandable attributes.

Discipline: To cope with complexity discipline is essential. The use of phases

and a clear criterion for moving forward is important to clarify the process. It

cant be too strict though.

Coherence in Detail: To have a good coherence between functions might be a

challenge, i.e. to have the managers and co-workers to head in the same

direction, so the integration of management is vital.

Fit with the Mission: To establish a fit between the process and the competitive

market and technical imperatives is essential. An understanding to thesurrounding environment is therefore crucial.

Sharing a Pattern: A pattern for development where a model of how ideas aretransformed into commercial products. This will become a shared language

within the organization. It might also improve the communication.

Some good questions for a manager to ask himself are:

Do we have a strong customer focus in our process? Do we have discipline and

thoroughness in what we do? Do we have coherence in the details? Is there a

good fit with the mission? Have we articulated and shared a pattern?


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Chapter 7 Cross-Functional Integration

Outstanding development requires integrations across functions, if not, suboptimizations

might occur when the separate function only maximize their own output. One other issue to

consider are the timing, communication of requirements, sequencing and involvement of all

the tasks and functions, and by optimize these lower the TTM through lower developmentlead time. The general goal with cross-functionality is to make several functions influence and

shape each other in an early stage. The integration can also go outside the organization to

provide firsthand information from suppliers. Another approach is to choose the right

customer to ask about the product so he is representative for the market and the future

demand.

Its all about making the development process more parallel with the deferent functions and

making the downstream activity come closer to the upstream. But this is not easy and requires

some supportive functions to be possible, i.e. some kind of information system. Milestones

and visualisation is also important, making the different parts more tangible to each other and

makes it easier to see how the different phases fits together.

Then, how to achieve cross-functional integration? The underlying reason to why cross-

functional teams are needed is because of todays more dynamic markets and technologies

where time is crucial to be competitive. True cross-functional integration occurs at the

working level between functions with a common goal. To make this integration successful a

good communication is vital, and the pattern in which it is delivered, off course feedback is of

importance. The quality of the communication pattern depends on four dimensions;

Richness (Sparse: documents, computer network => Rich: face-to-face, models)

Frequency (Low: one-shot, batch => High: piece-by-piece, on-line, intensive)Direction (One-way: monologue => Two-way: dialogue)

Timing(Late: completed work ends process => Early: preliminary begins the process)

There are four modes to how the communication between up and downstream can be handled,

and different degrees of how parallel they are. (See page 178 for a good pic)

Serial mode: This is the classic relationship where the downstream group waits until

the upstream group is entirely finished, which is transmitted through a one-shot

transmission of information (a batch of information). Not that good

Early start in the dark mode: This links the two groups in time, but still uses a batchstile of communication. Often forced upon the downstream team because of a

deadline, but as the name implies, they might be surprised with what they get from the

upstream group. Some parallelism, but the result might be a longer lead time because

of the bad communication.

Early involvement mode: In this mode is there an engagement between the functions

and a bit interactive pattern of communication. The important issue with this mode is

that there is two-way communication enabling the downstream group affect the design

of the product at the upstream group. The net effect is that they are able to complete

their work with a fewer delays and downstream changes.


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Integrated problem solving: Links the two groups both in time and in the pattern ofcommunication. The downstream engineers dont only have a good two-way

communication with the upstreamers, but they also use the information to get a flying

start on their own work. The communication has to be rich, bilateral and intense if the

integrated problem solving should be successful. It also requires real time coordination

between the groups.

In the end the real time coordination requires a specific set of capabilities, attitudes and

relationships depending upon if you are an up- or downstream engineer. Some of them are:

Upstream Capabilities: The challenge is to meet the performance objectives and still

complement the downstream work in a good manner.

Downstream-friendly solutions: The upstream groups have to have knowledge about

the constraints and capabilities of the downstream function. Methods as DFM, value

engineering, FMEA and different Taguchi methods are common which makes the

upstream function able to predict the consequences of their own actions.

Error-free design: Minor details often have insidious consequences. This might be

possible through effective design reviews, testing, engineering discipline and by

Poke-yokes.

Quick problem solving: Faster design-build-test cycles in the upstream group andfacilitating short feedback loops and quick mutual adjustments. Standardization?

Downstream Capabilities: The challenge is to get a flying start on development before

getting complete information.

Forecasting from upstream clues: To start on a bit fuzzy definition and forecast

these in an effective manner is vital. This is often based upon experience from

previous tasks. Regular communication is also important.

Managing risk: To know how to make trade-offs between the risks and the benefits

from an early start. This requires skills in applying deliberate and detailed analysis

and calculations in support of a fast change.

Coping with unexpected changes: the downstream group has to be flexible and

skilled at quick diagnostics and solutions. This might be possible by having skills inproblem diagnosis, organization capability in mobilizing resources and to prioritize

the most important problem.

Another important issue is the attitude of the teams. A sense of mutual trust and shared

responsibility (i.e. for the result) is essential to integrated problem solving. The role of senior

management is also of importance, and their role goes beyond to just establishing frameworks

and patterns for the groups. The combinations of team members must also be considered, a

homogenous group isnt the best solutions, conflict and different attack angles might to some

extent be crucial. The team, and its members, must have the right amount of education,

training and experience to be successful. One final thing to discuss, and a potential pitfall is

the organizations policies and compensation which might be a reason to conflict betweenfunctions.


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What kind of teams that the organizations have depends on the size of it and in which area it

acts and it usually evolves over time. It also depends in what kind o project it is, like if it is a

derivate or a breakthrough project. For smaller projects, the functional might be suitable,

because it doesnt need that much integration, meanwhile smaller and more revolutionizing

organizations which are technology intensive the tiger teams and for new platforms and

breakthroughs the heavyweight teams might be more appropriate. As mentioned, the mix ofprojects, as an aggregate project plan, must have a good mix of projects. Another mix which

is of importance is the human resource allocation, because its often here the limit might be.

The heavyweight team might be the most important one, so here is some more information

about that one. They offer improved communication, stronger identification with and

commitment to the project and a focus for cross-functional problem solving. Functions as

human resources and accounting/finance might be included. A clear vision for the entire team

is also important to become successful.

Some challenges for a heavyweight team thus might be the relation to senior management and

their control. There are quite free and sometimes they might become tiger teams, working onthings that arent prioritized. You could say that they sometimes have too much power. Some

things that could restrain this might be to establish make-buy guidelines and clear priorities.

Another challenge might be to create a balance between the needs of the individual projects

and the needs of the broader organization. The lack of deep knowledge might also be a

downside compared to the functional ones.

Some ways of managing these challenges will now be discussed:

The project charter: A heavyweight team needs a clear mission. A projectcharter is a good tool to enable this by visualizing and set up the performance

objectives, these could be stated before selecting the teams.

The contract book: This defines, in detail, the basic plan to achieve the stated

goal. Then the team establishes their own detailed work plan by how they will

conduct the project and estimate the required resources and its result.

Staffing: Typically there is a cross-functional team with one core team memberfrom each primary function of the organization. The members should be viewed

both as individuals and as a collective. The relocation of team members is also

important to solve real-time problems. The usage of employees should also be

considered.

Project leadership: These leaders are concept champions and have a lot of

authority in the project. His task is to communicate the vision to the team

members and evaluate the process. He shouldnt spend that much time at a desk,

he should prioritize to manage the process and overview the communication

flow. There are five roles/tasks for a project leader; provider of a direct

interpretation of the market and customer needs, to be a multilingual translator,

to coordinate and direct the engineering subfunctions, to keep the project in

motion and to be a concept champion.

Team member responsibilities: There are two main ones, the functional hatwhich involves the responsibilities of the individuals of the team as


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representatives for their function. The other one is the team hat which is

includes the responsibilities of the overall team.

The executive sponsor: He has a role as a coach and mentor for the project

leader and the core team. They should stake out some guidelines upon the

decision-making criterions and when they should call for him. Some areaswhich he might want to keep control over are; resource commitment, pricing for

major customers, slips in milestones, reviews at major milestones and rewards,

etc.

Some final comments, the heavyweight teams should be used in platform or next-generation

development projects, to use them in smaller ones might be overkill. These teams could also

be considered as the aggregate project plan, there has to be a balance between them, you

shouldnt only have the heavyweight ones. But if the organization heads to use heavyweight

teams, its hard to keep the functional structure as it is.


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Chapter 9 Tools and Methods

All things previously mentioned are important, but without a detailed problem solving at the

working level an outstanding development process is almost impossible to achieve. An

important issue regarding problems is that they often might cut across functions, so to solve it

where the root-cause is vital, to do this a thorough problem definition is essential.

The essence of product and process development problem may be defined as a performance

gap between current practice or designs and the desired target. Two other important aspects

which has to fit and have in mind is the design parameter(tolerances, number of parts etc.),

which are the decisions under the control of the design or engineers and the customerattributes/customer requirements (wait time, sound, reliability, might be good to try toquantify these numbers if possible). Each of the design parameters might affect several

customer attributes, so its important to strike an effective balance between them. This is

where the design-build-test cycle gets in the picture.

As it is a cycle, problem solving is a learning process which leads to that the engineers has togo through several iterations, the quality actually in the number of iterations. They must also

be linked to the overall system to be coherent. (See pic. 9-3 page 224) The characteristics of

the phases are:

Design: In this phase the developer frames the problem and establishes goals forthe problem-solving process, the problem framing is crucial (some kind of root-

cause analysis?) and the definitions of the gaps to find the underlying reason to

these. The frame also depends upon how the objectives are defined. When the

problem is framed the design phase continuous to thegeneration of alternatives.

These alternatives depend on the skills and understanding of the relationshipsbetween the design parameters and the customer attributes, the purpose of a

design might well be to find the relations between these. (Pugh?)

Build: In this phase of the problem-solving cycle the developer builds working

models of the design alternatives. The purpose of the phase is to build

alternatives designs into a form that allows testing. Depending in which phase of

the building the developer is, computer simulations like CAD might be to great

help in the beginning meanwhile closer to the testing real physical prototypes

might be necessary.

Test: This phase tests the prototypes from the previous phase, both workingmodels and computer-generated ones. It also has the function of understanding

the connections between different design parameters which impossible without

real testing. Which kind of test that is conducted also depends upon which phase

the cycle is in, early cycles might focus on more detailed problems and so on.

The fidelity of a test refers to the extent to which the test being conducted

reflects the actual case of interest, thus it might be hard to interpret the results of

testing. To understand how and were the customer uses the product might also

be of interest.

A variety of methods are used to improve the problem solving, most of them could just be

seen as a structured form of common sense, but he difficulty is in finding a method and logicthat works where people, information, objectives and capabilities interact in a complex


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system. One of the most common pitfalls is the lack communication and shared vision

between the function. There are two good methodologies that shall be discussed now, the first,

QFD, is often used in the early stages of development where the targets are set and the basic

product or process architecture is established, meanwhile the second, DFM, is applied to the

later stages of development where detailed engineering is in focus.

QFD (Quality Function Deployment): AKA the house of quality This will only be

discussed very briefly because the knowledge is already quite good regarding this tool. The

method is used to identify critical customer attributes and to create a specific link between

customer attributes and the design parameters. It organizes information and helps the

developer to answer three questions; what attributes are critical to our customer? What design

parameters are important in driving those customer attributes? And, what should the design

parameter target be for the new design? To fill this house, there are five stages (see page 229-

231 for these). One thing to remember is that the QFD is only a summary of information, its

the usage of it that is powerful, and it is also good because it visualize the problem making it

easy to understand through a common framework. It also helps in an early stage to identify

gaps in the engineering and marketing knowledge.

DFM (Design for Manufacturability): This methodology brings the manufacturability into the

design process earlier. There are two kinds of DFM methods, design rules and design for

productivity.

Design rules: These express the constraints and boundaries that themanufacturability has over the design. One way of doing this is by establish

setting rules and guidelines to what the manufacturing department actually can

do. There are some usual rule of thumb to have in mind; minimize the number

of parts in the design, minimize the number of part numbers, eliminate

adjustments, eliminate fasteners and eliminate jigs and fixtures. These design

rules could result in significant reduction in assembly time, reduction of number

of parts which drives the overhead cost, reduces the number of tools needed and

finally it might reduce the number of suppliers.

Design for Productivity: Quite similar to DFA (Design for Assembly), which

focus in individual parts and consider ways to simplify these by combine them

with other parts or making them easier to assembly. One downside though might

be that the parts becomes to complex (i.e. the mold might be to complex). So to

calculate the impact of manufacturing performance (over the lifetime) might be

good, where such things as labour-, material-, system-, capital and time cost areconsidered. The flexibility also has to be considered in respect to variety and

responsiveness to shift the product mix. An approach is the combinatorial

method which concerns the design for modularization. In this approach the

interfaces between parts is essential.

The implementation of DFM is framed within these three terms; establish the envelope for the

existing process, identifying important connections between design choices and

manufacturing system performance and establishing key dimensions of the product

architecture and its impact on the overall manufacturing system. Wheelwright and Clark

introduce the house of productivity which consists of a design matrix (which links

product/process parameters) and a manufacturing performance matrix (which connectsprocess design parameter and manufacturing system performance (see page 240).


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Chapter 10 Prototype Test Cycles

The old approach was that prototyping manly was a technical tool to be used by engineers

responsible for the progress of technical activities and related development (usually divided

into concept, design verification, engineering verification and pilot production). Nowadays

prototyping is the build and test activities of each design-build-test cycle and seen as a keymanagement tool for guiding development projects and not just a technical one. Management

can use prototyping cycles to guide and pace development projects and to assess their

progress, pinpoint unresolved issues and focus resources and attention to certain projects.

Prototypes might answer questions regarding customer reactions, industrial design, durability,

fit and finish and manufacturing costs. As discussed previously, the number of cycles in the

design-build-test cycle determines the role of the prototype. Prototyping is a core element in

development and a major area of opportunity for management seeking to improve the

efficiency of the development process.

Traditional prototyping: The purpose is to demonstrate to the organization thatthe design has outstanding quality and high levels of manufacturability, it also

indicates how far the process has progressed. Depending upon which cycle it is

in, different functions is involved, usually the earlier in the process it is, the

cheaper it is to change. The stages are; concept (ends when a model

demonstrates feasibility of the product core concept), design verification (ends

when a prototype unit demonstrates the functionality required to meet the

performance requirements), design maturity (ends when a prototype works

reliably under stress and conditions that represents the customers environment)

and product verification (ends when the product passes test related to

manufacturability). A downside with this one is that the role of the customer

enters very late in the process.

Prototyping could be conducted through four different best practices, depending upon what

the goal is for the prototyping.

Low-cost prototypes: Often computer aided approaches which are easy to

change. To increase this type of prototyping is desirable.

Prototyping Process Quality: Making sure that the process is a qualitative one

may improve the reliability and learnings that occur in each cycle. Improving

the response time and shortening the feedback loop is also desirable, this could

be done through Rapid Prototyping. The faster a cycle might be done, thebetter, at least in early stages in the development when current thinking is if

importance.

Timing and sequence: It important to not overlap individual cycles, then people

lose track of status and what has been done and so on. So to ensure that testing

is completed and getting closure to the cycles is important.

Building Knowledge: To use the prototypes to capture and enhance theknowledge regarding prototyping will provide leverage to organizations. A bit

of continuous improvements.


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Another issue to consider is who builds the prototypes, in-house or out-house? Why this is

important is that they have different focus.

How the organizations uses prototyping could be divided into three models; the standard

traditional which has been discussed, the revised traditional (which uses milestones to a

greater extent, has an earlier functionality/fidelity and broadening of the test criterions) andthe periodic which we will dive deeper into in a while. The usage of milestones (to gradually

review the process) and test strategies (to get a representativeness for the entire project)

should be considered.

Through a managerial perspective prototyping has four roles:

Feedback and Learning: An organization might learn things regarding as form,style, feelings, functionality, performance and interactions with the customers.

These issues might get the organizations to see trends and usual outcomes. They

are technical in nature but some marketing knowledge might also be the result.

Communication and Information Sharing: They should serve as bridges betweenindividuals and groups with different backgrounds, experiences and interests. It

also visualizes the problem making it easier to communicate.

Outside Evaluation: Prototypes makes is possible to get feedback from

customers, but also the suppliers may be able to provide better feedback.

Prototypes may also help set the expectations and influence the behaviour on the

part of anticipated customers.

Establishing, pacing and monitoring the development schedule: To manage

these cycles is often the best way manage the rate of convergence and the cycle

time of the overall development effort.

Periodic pattern of prototyping: Is a restructured of the traditional cycle regarding itssequence, number and duration of cycles. It is promising in platform and next-generation

products carried out in cross-functional heavyweight (that it is a heavy weight team with

authority and responsibility is vital) teams. One definition of periodic prototyping is anapproach to prototyping that fulfils the technical role, but exploits managerial potential more

than the traditional model, could be of substantial value. The key is to balance the technical

and managerial roles, and integrate these throughout all cycles, even the early ones and the

prototyping is done on a regular schedule. It often leads to innovative solutions, which isrequired in the platform and next-generation products. Another special issue with the periodic

compared to the traditional is the amount of information exchanged which enhances the cross-

functionality. The support groups have a particularly crucial role to play. It also involves

much more testing, and therefore needs more prototypes.

The environment of the project is determined by three characteristics, the importance of

advanced and innovative technical developments, the importance of balanced, total system

solution to customer choice and the importance manufacturability. Rapid response toengineering is well suited to technical breakthrough, it uses best practice, provides early

feedback and has a good balance between functions. Replicate manufacturing early is more

suited for incremental improvements where manufacturing is important. Finally matching themode of prototyping is essential.


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Chapter 11 Learning from Development Projects

The ability to sustain significant improvements in development over long periods of time rests

on the capability to learn from experience.

A framework for learning:The potential for learning is not limited to things gone wrong. However,

episodes where things go wrong (or sometimes, right) are the raw material for learning.

Critical events are also potential issues for learning. What makes an event critical is its

connection to an aspect of the development process that drives performance. While the event

itself may be a symptom, pursuing it can lead to a deeper understanding of the forces that

influence the speed, quality, and productivity of development.

Learning requires a lot of people within the organizations. Because the

development process is so complex and involves so many different people in different groups,

and because the issues cut across groups, departments, functions, and organizations, learning

is likely to require careful, systematic effort.

For the individuals, learning can be done thanks to learning by doing: you pay attention tothe task and develop ways to remember what you learned.

Organizational learning: Five crucial themes in successful systematic learning about theprocess:

-Learning as a Team Process: learning should be done within teams as teams members bringdifferent perspectives and different capabilities to the whole group.

- A Model of the Process: when solving a problem, engineers should understand the technical

determinants of the performance they search as well as the organizations processes designed

to carry out the specific technical tasks.

- Data and Analyses: Understanding of problems must also be achieved with data andanalyses of that data.

- Search for Patterns: The team shall compare its experience with other past examples in

order to try to recognized some patterns.

-Root Causes: Some causes might be uncovered even with a heavy search for understanding.

That is the reason why teams should also seek for deeper understandings of the root causes of

their problems.

Capturing Insight and Learning to Change the Development Process:

There are five areas of focus for an organization to focus in order to learn. They

establish the framework for development in the organization. These areas procedures, tools

and methods, process, structure, and principles provide ways for the organization toremember what it learns from development projects. Tools and methods is an important

area in those circumstances where the opportunity for improvement requires new capability.

The principles include concepts, ideas, and values that provide more fundamental guidance in

situations that may be unfamiliar.

One of the key learnings is usually to enhance integration across functions for improving

product development.

Armed with that framework the organization may interpret critical events that

raise questions about its current procedures, tools and methods, processes, and the structures

and principles it uses to guide development. In order to be effective, learning must also extend

to the introduction of change into the organization capturing the insight and incorporating it

into behaviours. These changes become integral aspects of the revised framework forsubsequent development projects, as the learning cycle begins again.


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The Project Audit: A Framework for Development:

The project audit is a systematic project review conducted by a cross-functional

team which is particularly useful in organizing and managing the search for understanding

and insight from specific projects. The audit is thus a learning project conducted by a project

leader and involving individuals from the key functions represented in development.

The purpose of the project audit is to help the organization learn from its experience.Senior management plays an important role in this kind of project.

Conclusions and Implications:

Learning from development projects is one of the most difficult things that an

organization can do.

Thus, from senior managements perspective, the important mission is to foster an

environment in which learning takes place at every level, and to create the capability to learn

about specific development projects through a process built of several elements, such as the

development audit.

Chapter 12 Building Development Capability

In order to be a source of sustainable advantage, development capability must be continually

expanded, upgraded, and improved. Building development capability takes determination,

persistence, and careful attention to those aspects of the development process that are most

crucial in a given organizational situation.

Four Approaches to Building Capability:

Sustained learning is the goal, and inevitably that requires a systematic, managed process of

improvement.

- Creating A Development StrategyIt is a useful starting point for building the required capability. Series of discussions and

analyses conducted within the senior management group will create a development strategy.

The goal is also to achieve a high degree of communication and a great shared understanding

of the development process and development strategy among the senior management group

and key functional executives in engineering, marketing, and manufacturing.

- Changing the Development Process

A fruitful starting point for bringing about significant change is often the overall architecture

of the development process. By introducing a restructured sequence of activities and

redefining both the phases of development and the milestones that characterize completion of

each phase, firms may create a new framework.- Creating Building Block Skill and ToolsA focused effort to substantially improve an organizations capability in executing that critical

activity can often result in significant development performance improvement. Improving

such critical activities often requires creating new or improved capability in basic tools and

skills. Furthermore, the introduction of new set of tools can create significant opportunities

for change in other aspects of the development process.

- The Demonstration ProjectSuch a project is designed to teach the organization a new mode of development by

employing new concepts directed at a specific product or process. The aim of such a project is

to become a model for subsequent development efforts; having demonstrated what was

possible and how it could be achieved in the company.


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Building Capabilities: A Comparison of Alternatives:

The selected approach (between the previous four) should both fill gaps in the organization

and exploit opportunities with large payoffs. Each approach has some advantages and risks

for being implemented in a special context: for more information, refer to Exhibit 12-1 page

324.

Creating New Development Capability: General Observations:

Although the starting points of each approach are different, there is no doubt that they are the

beginning of a series of changes that will, if successful, build support and momentum and

pervade the development system. It is also worth noticing that more than one of the

approaches may eventually come into play as the organization proceeds on its journey to truly

outstanding development capability. That is why this effort is referred as a journey.

Whichever point an organization chooses to launch its effort in creating new capability; it

must recognize that that effort is not a single step, but one of many along a path.

Perhaps one of the most powerful levers managers can use is the process of benchmarking

their organization against other similar organizations, thus building awareness of their

competition.

Building capability requires a development strategy which includes at least three kinds of

efforts:

Building capability through product and process development projects. Ongoing projects canoften be a vehicle for introducing new skills or tools, and may be used as demonstration

projects.

Independent efforts to build capability. Outside of ongoing product and process development

projects, the organization can undertake separate efforts to build new skills and tools, create

new processes, and in general create new capability.

Project audits. These ongoing efforts to identify opportunities for substantial change and

improvement need to be coordinated with and linked to ongoing efforts in product or process

development.

Thus, a capability strategy can also serve to improve identification, motivation,

and desire within the organization. Where it succeeds, this strategy and a path for building

capabilities does so because it increases the knowledge and skills of the individuals in the

organization.

Changing Behaviour and Overcoming Obstacles:

Building capability requires change, not just in systems or procedures, but ultimately in

individual behaviour. Thus, the challenge is to build capability while creating processes that

change behaviour.People in the organization must understand that learning is not just a nice thing to have, but an

essential element of successful development.

Building Capability: Management Leadership:

Managers recognize in the first instance that building capability is a journey, not a destination.

The critical problem is to chart a path and sequence of efforts over time that will address the

organizations opportunities and needs effectively.

There are three modes of management leadership that represent different objectives, styles,

and perspectives on the role of development in competition:

- Mode one: Seek relief: Change in this mode focuses on the product itself, not the

development process. Its focus is fundamentally short term and its impact on competitiveposition is unlikely to be lasting.


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- Mode two: Close the gap: Managers here define the problem they confront in terms of a gapbetween their own and important competitors performance. It gets at important underlying

issues and builds new capability. Managers focus on changing the organizations capacity to

act in ways that will make it more effective relative to its competitors. It misses, however,

some of the important long-term benefits.

- Mode three: Competitive Advantage. The hallmark of mode three is its focus on buildinglasting advantage in development. Managers operating in mode three, therefore, keep the

entire horizon both for long and short term within their purview. Managers focus not only

on how work gets done, but also on helping the organization discover what new things it

needs to do to be successful.

Leaders in mode three rethink the organizations approach to development and create a gap

that competitors may not have considered. Leaders in mode three concentrate on doing new

things better.

Leadership that offers a compelling vision of the new development path that provides

energy and momentum to the organization; encourages, coaches, and supports; developssubstantive principles and teaches them to the organization; and helps apply those principles

in solving problems is the kind of leadership essential to building development

capability.

Documents

[Mathias Bengtsson Revolutionizing Product Dev Elopement Summary Chapter 5-12