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I s s u e F o u r t e e
n
December 21, 1999
c o n t e n t s / t h i s m o n t h :
1 > Who Wants to be a
Heavyweight Product Manager? (Part 2/2)
2 > NPD On the Web: eBusiness Research
Center
3 > Time Capsule - APEX Best Practices
4 > Top Ten Signs You Have a Lame Product
Development Process
5 > MRT News - Our 20th Anniversary!
6 > MRT Calendar of Events
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a r t i c l e - o n e :
WHO WANTS TO BE A HEAVYWEIGHT PRODUCT MANAGER?
(Part 2 of 2)
 |
Missed part 1? -
click here
Heavy bass theme music fills the
room. A man's silhouette raised on a round platform comes slowly into focus. A spotlight
appears suddenly and the camera zooms in to the smiling face of our host.
"Good evening America, I'm Alex Cooper
and welcome back to another episode of Management Roundtable's 'Who Wants to
be a Heavyweight Product Manager?' We're back with our contestant, Tim Smith
from Aurora, Illinois. On our last show Tim successfully answered four questions and
attained the position of manufacturing engineer. Now he's just four more questions away
from becoming our newest heavyweight product manager.
"Now, Tim, you still have two lifelines left: the
50/50, where our computer removes two of the wrong answers from the question, and you can
also ask our studio audience for help. Tim, are you ready to start?"
"Ready as I'll ever be, Alex. Let's go for it."
"I like your spirit, Tim. For the position of 'Design
Engineer", please answer the following question:
"What does the acronym 'MTBF' stand for?
"Is it:
A) More Technology, Better Features
B) Mean Time Between Failure
C) Mean Time Before Funding; or
D) Mayo, Tomato and Bacon on French bread"
Tim grinned ear to ear.
"I definitely know this one, Alex. The guys at the
office call this 'Mutt-Buff.' It means B, mean time between failure."
"Mutt-Buff? I don't know if we can air that on
television, Tim, but maybe the censors will go easy on you. B. Is that your final
answer?"
"Final answer, Alex."
"B is correct, the answer is 'mean time between
failure.' You have now earned the level of design engineer. You've also reached another
milestone, Tim, because our next question is a stage gate question. If you answer
correctly, you will be guaranteed the position of 'Marketing Manager.' Your question is:
"Which of the following is a name given to the data
used in determining product requirements and influencing design specifications?
"Is it:
A) Function Points
B) House of Quality
C) Conjoint Analysis; or
D) Voice of the Customer"
"It must be my lucky day, Alex, if we keep having
questions like these, I just know I'll win."
"Don't jinx yourself, Tim. That happened to Dr. Juran
on last week's show and now he's cold calling distributors on the West Coast."
"I'll be careful, but I know this question at least.
Function points are a software metric. House of Quality is part of QFD. Conjoint analyis
is just what it says, analysis, not the name of a type of data. Our CEO talks about it all
the time. The answer is D - voice of the customer, and yes, that's my final answer."
"Pretty cocky, Tim. You sure sound sure of
yourself."
"Better to burn out than to fade away, Alex."
"I guess 'D' is your final answer. I know you said
that, but I have to ask you anyway."
"Yup. D."
Alex looked at his blue index card and frowned. "You
seem so darn confident you know the answer, Tim. Myself, I would have been tempted to pick
function points." Alex smiled. "But that's not the answer, because it's 'voice
of the customer', congratulations, Tim, you're now guaranteed the job of marketing
manager!
Trumpets blared.
"Two more questions, Tim," reminded Alex.
"Nervous?"
"Hanging in there," said Tim.
"Remember, you can quit at any time and remain at
your current level. There is no risk on the next question. You also have two lifelines
remaining. Are you ready?"
Tim took a deep breath. "Let's go for it."
"For the position of 'Team Leader', answer the
following question:
"In a product structure, what is the term used to
refer to the appearance of a particular part or module that occurs more than once?
"Is it:
A) Instance
B) Attribute
C) Redundancy; or
D) Applet"
"Now I know how Dr. Juran felt. I think I spoke too
soon."
"Two lifelines left, Tim. And by the way, I told you
so."
"You certainly did. I'm gonna have to take you up on
those lifelines, Alex. But I want to use them intelligently. Please first give me the
50/50."
"The 50/50 it is. Computer! Please remove two of the
wrong answers." C and D both disappear from the screen. "Alright Tim, your new
choices for the question: In product structure, which term refers to the appearance of a
part that occurs more than once?
"Is it:
A) Instance; or
B) Attribute"
Tim scowled. "That's what I was afraid of. Those were
the two I was considering. Arrgh. I just don't know. I wanted to save it, but I'm gonna
use my last lifeline. I'd like to ask the audience please, Alex."
"You're in luck, Tim, these are some bright looking
folks sitting here. Everyone, if you can please press your answer into the keypad in front
of you. Tim has done half the work for you by taking his 50/50, so there are only two
answers to key in, A) instance or B) attribute. Please enter your answer to the question
now."
The camera scans the audience as the pensive onlookers
press their thumbs into the keypads. The room goes quiet as the focus returns to center
stage.
"Our audience's answers are in," said Alex.
"Can we show the results on-screen please." A graphic emerges with the
following:
"A) Instance - 59%
B) Attribute - 31%
C) Redundancy - 7%
D) Applet - 3%"
Alex's eyes narrowed. "Are some of you people asleep?
We did remove both C & D, didn't we? Tim, you can either go by these results or choose
your own response. Either way, I need your answer please."
"The numbers aren't quite what I wanted, Alex, it's
still a little too close for comfort. But heck, the audience is correct the majority of
the time. I'm guaranteed a pretty good job in marketing. I'll have to buy some new clothes
if I'm wrong, but let's go with the audience's answer. I'll take A - instance."
"A - instance. Your final answer?"
"Yes, my final answer."
"Don't rush out to the Big and Tall men's store yet,
Tim, A is correct, the answer is 'instance'. You're now a team leader and one question
away from the position of heavyweight product manager. Feeling good, Tim?"
"As my mother Peggy Hill-Smith would say, Alex,
'HOO-YEAH!' She's from Texas."
"Well your Mom must be mighty proud, Tim. Since we
started doing this show, you are only the second person to make it to our final question.
So far, nobody has gone all the way successfully. Are you ready for the big one,
Tim?"
"Hoo-yeah, Alex."
"For the final position of heavyweight product
manager, please answer the following question:
"Which of the following concepts can be attributed to
Preston Smith and Don Reinertsen in their book, Developing Products in Half the Time?
"Is it:
A) Disruptive Technology
B) Reengineering
C) Cost of Delay; or
D) The Law of Volatility Amplification"
Inadvertent groans can be heard in the background.
"Ignore those sounds, Tim. They're from the people
who voted for C and D on the last one."
"They must think this is an easy question, Alex, but
I don't think so. I did say on the last show I needed to read more. I've used all of my
lifelines, so I might have to risk it on a guess."
"Or you could quit right here, Tim, and walk away
with the team leader's job. Not too shabby."
"That's tempting Alex. But no risk, no reward. I'm
going to go for it. My answer is B - reengineering."
"Reengineering. B. You're sure about that?"
"It's a guess, but yes, I'm sure."
"Final answer?"
"My final answer."
Alex looked at his card. As usual, his face turned very
serious. But this time, there was no smile forthcoming. "I'm sorry Tim. B is
incorrect." Loser theme music filled the room. "You gave it a valiant effort and
took us all for quite a ride. You're a great player, Tim, and I'm sure you'll make a
fantastic marketing manager."
"Thank you Alex, it's been fun."
Alex turned to the camera. "Many of you at home were
probably groaning along with the audience at Tim's answer to the last question. The
answer, of course, is C - cost of delay. It may have seemed like a very easy one, but as
we've found out on this show, it's a very different proposition with all the pressure of
our hot seat and all the lights and cameras. Just like in product development, you're
faced with critical decisions that can make or break you, and you're armed only with
training, experience and your gut instincts.
"MRT will continue our search for a heavyweight
product manager who can handle the full load and meet the challenge of our game. Until
next time, we ask you to stay tuned to the Management Roundtable, and perhaps through our
publications and events, you'll pick up the knowledge that will give you the confidence to
jump up and raise your hand the next time someone asks:
"Who wants to be a heavyweight product manager?"
Fade to black. |
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a r t i c l e - t w o :
NPD ON THE WEB
"eBusiness Research Center"
Link: http://www.ebrc.psu.edu/main.html
The eBusiness Research Center (eBRC)
is an initiative by Penn State to study the impacts of the digital economy on business
practices, with emphasis on marketing and management issues. For some hefty annual dues,
corporations can join one of three different levels of membership and gain varying levels
of access to eBRC faculty, research findings, symposiums and other output. Of particular
interest to TCP readers should be their extensive list of publicly accessible research
papers. About 11 papers are currently available covering such subjects as:
- Measuring and Tracking eBusiness Strategies
- Rethinking Marketing Research for the Digital Environment
- Customerization: The Second Revolution in Mass
Customization
- eManufacturing: Exploiting IT in Design and Supply Chains
TCP reviews websites that are not typically known in the
Internet mainstream or not easily found on standard search engines. To appear in TCP,
sites must have something of value to offer to product development professionals rather
than commercial literature. Know a website we should review? Send the url to gregg@roundtable.com
a r t i c l e - t h r e e :
TIME CAPSULE - APEX BEST PRACTICES
The following is a list of "Top Ten
Best Practices for Product Development" which was a part of the conference summary
from the First National Conference on Product Development Excellence and the 1994 APEX
Awards. While these concepts are hardly new, it's interesting to see that the ideas around
what works in this area have remained stable over time. Then again, it's only been 5
years, a relatively short amount amount of time on the geological business calendar.
1) PLANNING FOR RIGHT-TO-MARKET
VS. SPEED-TO-MARKET
Although being among the first to introduce a new product,
or extension of an existing product, is a desirable position among the nation's
manufacturers, creating a product that will satisfy customers should be a higher priority.
It takes a large investment in time to research and understand how to satisfy customer
needs. Companies can often have greater success entering a market late, but with a better
product. Davidson Interiors/Textron's Flexible Bright(TM), Hewlett-Packard's 34401 Digital
Multimeter, the Thermos Electric Grill and IBM's ThinkPad(TM) notebook computers are all
good examples.
2) FOCUS INNOVATION FOR PRODUCT ELEMENTS THAT
ARE "VISIBLE AND VALUABLE"
With the ThinkPad, IBM sought out technological
innovations that would appeal to the customer, whether or not it was original to IBM.
Although things such as the revolutionary TrackPoint mouse are IBM inventions, the
ThinkPad developers looked to all available technologies that would give their product
more value for the customer, such as the active-matrix screen by Toshiba and the
computer's modular capabilities for convenient upgradeability. The amount of effort needed
for technological innovation should only be used to develop product features that a
customer will be aware of and find valuable, not for "window dressing" or
obscure and transparent features. For example, 10 years ago certain automobiles featured
digital speedometers, which were soon abandoned because customers weren't aware of it, and
also didn't think it added value.
3) GET PHYSICAL FAST
Producing tangible models of a product in the early stages
of development has several benefits. Engineers, designers and customers can often learn
more about a product by interacting with it, even if the model is simply a physical
mock-up. Facilitating technologies for this include various CAD software and rapid
prototyping systems. Rapid prototyping was especially important to the Thermos Electric
Grill, whose customer research relied heavily on a technique known as "contextual
inquiry", which basically means observing customers with a product in the user's own
environment. Thermos even videotaped users interacting with the product to capture this
information for all project team members.
4) HAVE TEAM INVOLVEMENT IN MARKETING RESEARCH
When it comes to researching customer requirements, it's
better to have too much than not enough. In addition to regular channels (surveys, quality
function deployment, focus groups, etc.), there are more innovative approaches that can
yield more useful data. The IBM ThinkPad team devised creative devices such as forming
industry and customer advisory councils, and "Customer Call Days" where members
of a development team will call customers themselves to discuss the product.
5) GO BEYOND TRADITIONAL MARKET RESEARCH
Customers want it all. If you ask if they are interested
in a specific feature, they will invariably say "yes". The Hewlett-Packard
Digital Multimeter team asked customers if they had to choose from a list, which features
would they keep. The information from "forced pain" questions adds quality to
quantitative data. APEX winners also found that it's not enough to capture the voice of
the customer, as it is just as important to see your product through the "eyes of the
customer." (See #3 - "Get physical fast")
6) HAVE A COMPLETE MODEL OF CUSTOMER NEEDS
APEX winners each had a solid grasp of the major
categories of excellence that impact customer satisfaction. The model used for the APEX
Awards is the $APPEALS model (as defined by Peter Marks in Defining Great Products),
which includes Cost, Availability, Packaging, Performance, Ease-of-use, Assurances,
Life-cycle costs, and Sanctions (or social influences). Although your own model may differ
slightly depending on the product, the $APPEALS format offers a good starting point to
understand your customers' buying behavior as well as factors that may change your
competitiveness.
7) THINK "TOTAL PRODUCT"
In the early 1980s, companies designed products to
increase sales. The U.S. population had more disposable income and had a
"single-use" mentality. Today's consumer is more educated and aware of
environmental issues, life-cycle concerns, and competing brands. A customer's relationship
with a company does not end with the sale, but continues through service, upgrades,
maintenance, etc. This is increasingly important considering the marketing theory that it
is more economical to sell more to existing customers than to find new customers.
8) EASE-OF-USE OPENS NEW MARKETS
When the Hewlett-Packard GCD team designed a more
user-friendly interface to their gas chromatograph, it opened the door for a whole new
segment of users. "Human factors" design, also known as ergonomics, can make a
product more accessible. The less specialty knowledge required to use a product, the
larger the potential market.
9) UNDERSTAND THE SCIENCE OF YOUR PRODUCT
To define a product's specifications, you must understand
its physical and technological limitations. For example, the electrical requirements of
the Thermos Electric Grill had a major effect on the size of the cooking surface.
Davidson/Textron's Flexible Bright(TM) required solid understanding of the product's
chemistry and careful materials selection. Knowing the tradeoffs of science and technology
up-front can make the path of product definition clearer.
10) CHOOSE YOUR TEAM CAREFULLY, THEN MAKE THEM
RESPONSIBLE
Make sure the functions represented on your team are
appropriate to the project. Depending on the product, it may or may not be appropriate to
include a representative from accounting, purchasing, or even the legal department. The
JBL SoundEffects team had a seat reserved at every team meeting to represent the customer.
Even when that seat remained empty, it still left a physical reminder for the rest of the
team to keep the customer in perspective. Once a good team is in place, give them the
means to complete their mission by a) making them accountable; b) providing support on all
levels; and c) rewarding success.
This information was produced with the
help of Peter Marks, Design Insight.
 |
Visit
MRT's conference follow-up section for downloads and links from many of our 1999 and 1998
events. |
a r t i c l e - f o u
r :
TOP TEN SIGNS YOU HAVE A LAME PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
...from the MRT home office in Waltham, Massachusetts
| 10. |
Six Sigma at your company refers to the on-time
schedule completion rate |
| 9. |
ISO 9000 auditor smears entrance with chicken
blood before entering your facilities |
| 8. |
More development time spent on engineering
decision making algorithms than engineering product designs |
| 7. |
Product Roadmaps referred to internally as
"The Big Dig" |
| 6. |
Your last stage gate after "ship" is
"pray to God the damn thing works" |
| 5. |
SEI invents new category for your maturity level -
"minus one - primordial" |
| 4. |
You decide not to refer to the process
documentation binder because you hate it when the lunch room table wobbles |
| 3. |
Engineers complain that marketing's promises to
customers are too realistic |
| 2. |
Project plans given funding based on cleanliness
of the napkin |
...and
the No. 1 sign you have a lame product development process: |
| 1. |
Nagging sense you may need to rethink that
"case of beer for every patent" reward system |
Send your Top Ten
List suggestions to gregg@roundtable.com
TCP Top Ten
List Archive 
Have a humorous and
absurd anecdote
about your product development experiences?
Share them with our readers. Read our "Call for the Absurd"
* * *
a r t i c l e - f i v e :
MRT NEWS
Happy Birthday to We
(But Still Not Legal)
For you, Y2K might mean system
downtime and stressful complaints from the IS department, but at Management Roundtable it
marks our 20th anniversary!
For the curious, when MRT was founded in 1980, our primary
focus was publishing newsletters for the growing legions of CAD users. As the CAD market
matured, MRT evolved to follow and supply information on associative topics, such as DFM/A
and concurrent engineering. As we examined where our customer's needs resided, we evolved
yet again to cover not just technology but the system of processes surrounding it. Hence,
our arrival at product development, and our current mission to help organizations maximize
their investment in product development activity while minimizing the risks through shared
knowledge and experience. Today we produce between 8-10 major conferences every year, publish newsletters and other research-based papers, and provide on-site workshops for group product development training.
As the world "E"-conomy continues to blur the
lines and deceive otherwise intelligent folk on what makes a profitable business
opportunity, MRT will try to maintain and report on sensible approaches to product
development. Who knows where the next 20 years will take us? Maybe by then the Internet
will actually be useful. We hope you stay tuned.
* * *
U p c o m i n g M R T e v e n t s
  
* * *
A D M I N I S T R I V I A
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