- What are the various troubles incurred in the office products?
- What differences do the processes for the different products exhibit?
- How critical do you think resource sharing is in office case?
- Optional Reading: Cooper R. G. "Third Generation New Product Processes", Journal of Product Innovation Management, 11, 1994, 3-14
- What are the most important user needs in the water purifier market?
- Interview one or two wilderness enthusiasts that you know.
- Optional Reading: Griffin A., and Hauser J. R. 1993. "The Voice of the Customer", Marketing Science, 12 (1), pp. 1-27
- Optional Reading: Lynn G. S., J. G. Morone, and A. S. Paulson, "Marketing and Discontinuous Innovation: The Probe-and-Learn Process" California Management Review 38, Spring 1996, 8-37
- What do you think are the reasons that the Kittyhawk project failed?
- What do you think of the product concept the Kittyhawk team pursued?
- What is your view on the concept selection process?
- Optional Reading: Bower J. L. and Christensen C. M. "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave", Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb 1995
- Identify the core characteristics of the concept generation process at IDEO
- What according to your view makes service design harder?
- Optional Reading: Rayport J. F. and Leonard-Barton D. "Spark Innovation Through Empathic Design", Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec 1997.
- Brainstorming problem will be announced in due time.
- Just bring an old VCR tape, it may not survive, so please be prepared!
- How does 3i Infotech compete? What are the core elements of their strategic position?
- What is the contribution of product development (GDCs) to the company strategy? Derive a mission for the GDC.
- Think about 3i's strategic repositioning; what made it feasible?
- Optional Reading: Markides C. "A Dynamic View of Strategy", Sloan Management Review, 40 (3) 1999.
- What do you think makes the process of project choice a difficult one? Is this the case in all industries that you are aware of?
- Identify what would be the portfolio choices in later stage developments of your team concepts (this will be useful also for your team presentation).
- Optional Reading: Terwiesch C., and Ulrich K. T. " Managing the Opportunity Portfolio", R&D Management, Sep-Oct 2008
- Does ULG have enough capacity to accept all projects proposed by the 3 brands? If not, which ones should be postponed?
- If they accepted all the projects what would be the utilization rate for the formulation labs?
- How are the formulation lbs organized? Would you propose an alternative organizational structure to improve their operational efficiency?
- Optional Reading: Adler P. et al. "Getting the most out of your Product Development Process", Harvard Business Review, March-April 1996.
- What organizational problems is Magnus Norborg facing at Gemstone?
- Do you feel that R&D can be measured in conventional ways (e.g. financial measures)?
- Optional Reading: Loch C. H., and U. A. S. Tapper "Implementing a Strategy-Driven Performance Measurement System for an Applied Research Group", Journal of Product Innovation Management, 19, pp. 422-436
- Do you think Dragonfly has any chance to make it on time? Would you invest your money in it?
- What could be a derailing factor for timely completion of the project?
- Identify the different contingencies that Crossair faces while undertaking the project.
- Make a small revision from your MGT 6600 course of decision trees. It will be necessary in order to go through the case.
- How would you evaluate Team New Zealand's use of simulation in the design process? What are its advantages and disadvantages?
- What yacht construction strategy should Team New Zealand follow? Why?
- Thomke S. D. "R&D Comes to Services: Bank of America's Path Breaking Experiments" Harvard Business Review, Apr 2003
- Putting yourself in the position of the two boards of Cleveland Cliffs and Lurgi AG in the summer of 2000, would you invest the additional $45 million, or would you decide to write off the facility?
- What do you see as the key problems that caused the start of commercial production to be delayed to March 1, 2001?
- Optional Reading: DeMeyer A., C. H. Loch, and M. T. Pich "Managing Project Uncertainty: From Variation to Chaos", Sloan Management Review, 43 (2), Winter 2002, 60-67.
- When should PayMyBills.com their new product?
- What recommendations do you make concerning the outsourcing of the paper works? How do you evaluate the scalability (cost of handling a customer with more customers signing on) of the product?
- What are the unique characteristics of the video game industry?
- Compare the Dreamcast development with the one of Saturn.
- What should Sega do in this difficult situation?
- Optional Reading: Terwiesch, Christian, Roger E. Bohn, K. C. Chea, "An Exploratory Study of Product Transfer and Production Ramp-up in the Data Storage Industry", R&D Management
- Class Participation: 30%
- Case Write-ups: 15%
- Course Project: Intermediate reports (deliverables) and presentations: 20%
- Course Project: Final report and presentation: 35%
MGT 6326: Collaborative Product Development
Professor: Stylianos (Stelios) Kavadias
Office: 452 Technology Square Management Building
Phone: 404-894-4370
Office Hours: With Appointment.
Course Description and Learning Objectives
The development of new products and services (NPD/NSD) has emerged as one of the key themes of competitiveness after the 1990s. And yet, it is still treated in many firms as a "black hole" into which management allocates lots of resources (money), hoping that enough useful things will come out to sustain the company for a few more years on the run. Have you worked in marketing, finance or sales? Then you are likely to be familiar with that view. The recent times of economic distress have renewed the emphasis on innovation identifying it as the major thrust for the sustaining competitiveness of the US economy (Innovation Economics, Business Week, September 2008).
This course offers a systematic overview of the management issues that arise during the process of new product development (NPD). The development process requires integration across the traditional management functions. The course introduces tools and concepts for both linking development to strategy, and for managing the development process for speed, efficiency, and market impact. Through a combination of cases and reading articles, the course covers a wide range of topics.
The course is divided in two large components. The first one focuses on the theoretical perspectives and frameworks concerning the management of the development process. We follow the development process from the initial steps of identifying the customer needs and conceptualizing the product, to production ramp-up and product launch issues. A thorough understanding of the fundamental principles that govern the NPD process should emerge from the first component. More specifically, the notion that the NPD process entails "information processing and transformation" must be realized. The development of a new product concerns mainly the transformation of an idea (that is information at a raw, primitive stage) into an actual product or service (that is finalized information that fulfills consumers’ needs) through a number of intermediate stages (NPD process steps). Course participants will become familiar with the key stages, such as concept generation, evaluation and selection, together with strategic decisions, like product portfolio selection and technology choice, and operational methods such as project planning, prototyping planning etc. The insights that the course offers constitute the basis for anyone who wishes to get involved with the development of new products, independently of her/his function within the organization.
The second component is the application of the theory in practice. Students are expected to "develop" a new product in parallel to the course following the theoretical developments. This second component of the course aims to convey a basic principle that must not be overlooked in management: theory is always less complex than practice. Hence, it helps to recognize the intangible "bits and pieces" of reality in NPD, e.g. team cooperation and management. Students work in teams throughout the semester, and they have to achieve a modus operandi in order to attain the desired outcome. This "tacit" learning aspect offers important on-hand experience. Furthermore, the project offers the opportunity to apply some of the theoretical underpinnings of NPD in a project, finding out the limits of theory application in practice.
Course Tentative Schedule
Session 1: Introduction and Overview of the Course
Session 2: The Product Development Process
Case: Microsoft Office for Windows: The Next Suite
Session 3: User Need Identification
Case: SweetWater
Session 4: Product Specifications and the Innovator's Dilemma
Case: Hewlett-Packard: The Fight for the Kittyhawk
Session 5: [PRESENTATION 1] Team mission statement
Session 6: Generating Product Concepts
Case: Service Design at IDEO
Session 7: Brainstorming Exercise
Session 8: Design for Manufacturing
Session 9: Developing an NPD Strategy[CASE WRITE-UP 1]
Case: 3i Infotech: Transforming IT Outsourcing to IT Products
Session 10: Project Portfolio Selection: Implementing Strategy
Case: American Switching Systems: Development Project Choice
Session 11: [PRESENTATION 2a] Identidying Customer Needs
Session 12: [PRESENTATION 2b] Identifying Customer Needs
Session 13 and 14: NPD Portfolio Simulation Game
Session 15: Game debrief - Lessons learnt
Session 16: R&D Portfolio Management[CASE WRITE-UP 2]
Case: R&D Management at Universal Luxury Group (A)
Session 17: R&D Organization and Performance Measurement
Case: Gemstone Inc.: Measuring Research Performance
Session 18: Project Management: Beyond CPM
Case: Dragonfly: Developing a Proposal for an Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle (UAV)
Session 19: Project Management Under Risk
Case: Crossair: The Introduction of the Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS)
Session 20: Prototyping
Case: Team New Zealand (A)
Session 21: [PRESENTATION 3a] Concept Generation, Selection and Prototyping Plan
Session 22: [PRESENTATION 3b] Concept Generation, Selection and Prototyping Plan
Session 23: Managing Highly Uncertain Projects
Case: Cleveland Cliff Inc. and Lurgi Metallurgie GmbH: The Circored Project (A)
Session 24: Product Launching / Scalability [CASE WRITE-UP 3]
Session 25: Product Launching / Ramp up
Case: Project DreamCast: Serious Play at Sega
Session 26: Course Overview and Lessons Learnt
Session 27: Final Student Presentations
Session 28: Final Student Presentations
Course Grading Policy
Evaluations will be based upon the following components weighted as indicated:
Class Participation does not refer to regular class attendance; it goes beyond student simple presence in class. Students are expected to prepare the cases in advance, and participate actively in the class discussion enriching the views of their classmates as well as mine. Please, ensure that comments made do not insult in ANY way fellow classmates and/or the instructor. Although I will not take class attendance students should be aware that missing a session impacts the total grade through less participation. In addition, each session contains key elements to be used for the final project. This will constitute the individual performance part of your grade. In the past students complained ex-post because their grade was shaped by the class participation component; be aware I plan on measuring class participation as I have always done.
Case write-ups should address the questions that accompany the case assignment. In preparing your write up, you should be aware of two major points: (a) be concise and well structured; I am not supposed to guess what you may have implied by your write up; Note also that lengthy write ups DO NOT necessarily get better grades, (b) be punctual; late submissions will be penalized by 20% less on grading. The case write-ups will have to be done ONE by each team, and together with the course project they will determine the team performance part of your grade!
Course Project; see the details in the attached file.
Honor Code
The GeorgiaTech Honor Code applies. Students are responsible for the information contained in the Academic Honesty policies found here .