New Product Development as Business Process and Best Practice Models
Apa itu NPD (New Product Development) ?
Activity of business, engineering, design, and technology. All of them integrated as overall projects and organized as a process. Therefore, it has an identified target of developing and launching a new product type. It requires business case (written or implied), and expectation of commercial success.
NPD versus R&D :
- NPD aims to commercial success. It usually refers directly to the company’s product.
- R&D aims to explore new opportunities/chances/technologies, either directly linked or not to the company’s product.
Why do we need NPD ?
- Present product’s revenue tends to decline after few years/amount of time
- The company has targets to grow the revenue
- Use NPD to fill the growth expectation-vs-reality gap
Product Life Cycles :
- The products are only generating revenue in a limited time (called product’s window).
- Use ROI(Return of Investments), ROS(Return of Sales), NPV (Net Present Value), and IRR (Internal Rate of Return) to describe the product’s life.
Loss in Profits due to Various Cost :
- Normally, delay in product shipments affects a lot more than overrun development cost.
- Refer to product’s life cycle.
Kind of People that’s Needed to manage NPD :
- Good self-expression
- Careful
- Confident
- Courageous
- Bold
- Imaginative
How to learn NPD Management :
- Structured course (take-aways, homework)
- Debate (swap ideas/experience, workshop)
- Involvement (observe how organizations work, how people behave, how you behave)
Needed Thinking Ways :
- Lateral thinking (divergent, creative, brainstorming)
- Critical thinking (analytical, linear)
- Convergent thinking (focusing, decision-making)
Concerns:
- Avoid manufacturing inputs too little and too late
- Get parties (the people with real decision power, not dummies) involved in designing interfaces (eg. Design for Manufacturing).
- Build cross-functional teams instead of team from single function.
- Send NPD team members to other functions that’s not following the game rules
- Avoid unrealistic planning
- Give the managers : Worst Cases, Likely Cases, and Best Cases
- Characteristic of qualified project team leader :
- Have experience in successful team
- Have knowledge in interpersonal skills : managing your bosses, your college, and your bottomline
- Have knowledge in decision making
- Have technical skills : deeper is better, since no one will underestimate your decisions.
- Have inherited power from upperline manager
- Have good networks
- Not so important : older age than the other team members and doing the work longer.
- Avoid lacks of cohesion / diligence :
- Indoctrinate the clear vision and mission to the team members
- Relate the rewards to the team’s cohesion / diligence
- Feedback communication : ask the team member to talk back about the team’s vision/mission/job.
- Informal communications : football team, company’s holiday
- Avoid unmeaningful reviews :
- Don’t manage projects using reviews. Directly talk to the people who’s responsible for it.
- Use review to check team’s progress.
