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Volume 3, Issue 8 - October 4, 2002
GGI RapidNews is published approximately once a month.
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In This Issue
BOOK REVIEW - Weird Ideas That Work, by Robert I. Sutton
NEWS & NOTES - New personnel
NEW BIENNIAL SURVEY - 2002 RD&E Survey in analysis phase
MANAGEMENT PRODUCTIVITY - Collaboration in High-Tech NPD
Processes
TELEVISION EVENT - Alexander Haig's World Business Review
NEW WEB CONTENT - New GTKs: Performance Management/Balanced
Scorecard and E-Commerce Solutions
FEATURED I-STORE ITEM - 1998 Product Development Metrics
Research Summary
UPCOMING CONFERENCES & SEMINARS - Sopheon Webinar. Management
Roundtable's 7th Annual Metrics
Conference, IQPC's R&D Measurement Conference, and Worldwide
Business Research's Innovate 2002 Conference
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BOOK REVIEW
Weird Ideas That Work - 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing,
and Sustaining Innovation, by Robert I. Sutton, Free Press,
1st edition, October, 2001; 224 pages
Robert Sutton, consultant and professor at Stanford Engineering
School, presents counterintuitive ideas to promote
creativity for the future of any organization, while maintaining
effectiveness in handling current issues. Sutton explains
that
the standard rules of management are the opposite of what
is needed to be innovative. A nontraditional approach will
help
a company do at least one these three things:
… Increase the variance or variety in available knowledge,
… Help the company to see old things in new ways, or
… Break from the past.
In order to spark innovation, try some "weird" ideas,
such as
1. Hire slow learners of the organizational code. These folks
will use their own knowledge and skill or will invent new
ways to get things done, leading to innovation.
1.5 (an extension of #1) Hire people who make you uncomfortable,
even those you dislike. Diversify by finding competent people
with the right skills who have different beliefs, knowledge
and skills than "insiders." [The "1.5"
is why the book's subtitle is "11 1/2 PracticesŠ
.."]
2. Hire people you probably don't need. To bring in new ideas
and fresh perspectives, hire people with skills that seem
unrelated now but might help in the future.
3. Use job interviews to get ideas, not just to screen candidates.
Ask about promising technologies, business practices and models
they have learned about in school or in other companies.
4. Encourage people to ignore and defy superiors and peers.
Allow space and time for people to develop ideas and projects
in their own creative ways. Some companies even use reverse
mentoring, where newcomers teach old-timers how to think and
act.
5. Find some happy people and get them to fight. Encourage
intellectual conflict (over ideas) and minimize interpersonal
conflict through humor.
6. Reward success and failure, but punish inaction. Creativity
and innovation are largely a function of sheer quantity, so
you must try many things, some of which will fail. Learn from
mistakes and reward people for taking risks to try something
new.
7. Decide to do something that will probably fail, then convince
yourself and everyone else that success is certain. Use the
power of positive expectations and the "self-fulfilling
prophesy" phenomenon to encourage high performance.
8. Think of some ridiculous or impractical things to do,
then plan to do them. Use stupid or bad or even absurd ideas
to help reveal good ones.
9. Avoid, distract, and bore customers, critics, and anyone
else who just wants to talk exclusively about money. Limit
interactions with outsiders who might kill innovation by trying
to drive short-term results.
10. Don't try to learn anything from people who say they
have solved the problems you face. Have people with little
experience and new perspectives work on key problems.
11. Forget the past, especially your company's successes.
Free yourself from the "success traps" of the past,
and start doing things differently.
Sutton concludes with 10 principles to help apply the weird
ideas above. These provide a great guide for what managers
and leaders can do to create an environment where more ideas
are generated and tested. These new ideas can lead to the
next best thing in your organization.
NEWS & NOTES
New Member Of GGI's Team: John R. (Dick) Power has just joined
GGI's staff as Director of Executive Education. Dick has been
practicing in the advanced and new product development and
production areas for over thirty years. He is highly experienced
in project management of large and complex high technology
products from initial phases through production, distribution
and sustaining support. Dick served as a US Army Signal Corps
officer for thirty years, retiring as a Colonel in 1992. For
most of that career he was a leader in acquisition of electronic
systems for the Army. More recently, Dick worked at GTE (before
its merger with Bell Atlantic to form Verizon) as Director
of Total Quality and later as Corporate program manager for
information security. Dick holds a BS degree in Business Administration
from Northeastern University and an MBA from Babson College.
He is a graduate of the Defense Systems Management College
Systems Acquisition course and the Industrial College of the
Armed Forces. He also holds a Diploma in Financial Management
from Boston University. He is a Certified Financial Planner
(CFP) and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).
NEW BIENNIAL SURVEY
2002 RD&E Survey - Resource & Capacity Management:
GGI's 2002 Product Development Metrics Survey is now in the
analysis phase. Thanks to all of you who completed the survey.
All participants will receive an acknowledgement letter in
the mail soon. Any survey respondents who do not receive an
acknowledgement letter from us by October 15 should contact
Anne Schwartz at ars@goldensegroupinc.com
or 781-444-5400. We will also be following up with selected
folks who decided not to participate this year to find out
how GGI can better serve their needs in the future.
MANAGEMENT PRODUCTIVITY
"An Examination of Collaboration in High-Technology
New Product Development Processes," by Avan R. Jassawalla
and Hemant C. Sashittal, J Prod Innov Manag 1998;15:237-254.
Now more than a decade into new product development processes
using cross-functional teams and eliminating
organizational boundaries, Avan Jassawalla and Hemant Sashittal
look at what is next for organizations to improve NPD.
The authors suggest that companies need to move from integration
toward collaboration. A study of 10 high-tech firms led
them to identify factors to increase collaboration as well
as characteristics of organizations and participants that
affect the
level of collaboration.
A detailed discussion of the definition of integration versus
collaboration reveals new thinking about these practices.
The authors define NPD cross-functional collaboration as "a
type of cross-functional linkage, which in addition to high
levels of integration, is characterized by participants who
achieve high levels of at-stakeness, transparency, mindfulness,
and synergies from their interactions." This translates
into the following key features: a) "at-stakeness, i.e.,
a condition where participants have equitable interest in
implementing jointly developed agendas, and feel equal stake
in NPD related outcomes; b) transparency, i.e., a condition
of high awareness achieved as a result of intense communication
and exchange of hard-data that makes the motivations, agendas,
and constraints of all participants explicit; c) mindfulness,
i.e., a condition where new product decisions and participants'
actions reflect an integrated understanding of the breadth,
and the often divergent motivations, agendas, and constraints
that exist, at all times; and d) synergy, i.e., the accomplishment
as a result of cross-functional linkages of NPD outcomes that
reflect capabilities significantly beyond those participants
individually bring to the process." Further, the authors
assert that participants in collaborative processes "understand,
accept, and internalize the differences that exist and agree
to focus on common objectives. [They] explore new opportunities,
enhance creativity, and open doors for new, innovative ways
of thinking, organizing, and taking action."
Based on a study of 10 high-technology firms, the authors
found a number of factors that increased collaboration in
NPD
processes, summarized below:
I. Organizational Factors ("Macro-environmental forces")
A. Organizational priority of NPD at the senior management
level
B. Decentralization of new product decisions, i.e., empowered
participants
C. Nature of leadership, i.e., the right leader selected (not
appointed) by senior management
II. Participant-Related Factors ("Micro-environmental
forces")
A. Propensity to change
B. Propensity to cooperate
C. Level of trust
D. Managerial initiatives, i.e., actions taken by managers
to enable their teams and to improve interactions with and
among
other participants in NPD
III. Structural Mechanisms
A. R&D sponsored interface management
B. R&D - Marketing partnership team
C. Concurrent engineering team
D. Cross-functional team (young)
E. Cross-functional team (experienced)
These concepts and practices should be applied in companies
already using cross-functional teams. The authors have
found that high levels of collaboration can be achieved in
companies "after they have attained high levels of interfunctional
integration, overcome structural-functional impediments to
cooperation and resolved many of the problems associated with
linear-sequential NPD related work-flows." In speaking
of the implications of their findings, they show how collaboration
goes beyond integration through the vehicle of cross-functional
teams. Organizations can extend from mere integration to
collaboration by supporting NPD at the top and throughout
the firm with the above-mentioned organizational and
participant factors as well as structural mechanisms.
TELEVISION EVENT
Alexander Haig's World Business Review: Based on the success
of GGI's August 4th appearance on Alexander Haig's World Business
Review, Brad Goldense was invited back for a longer taping
session in person with General Haig at his studio in Florida.
This new 22.5 minute segment with General Haig began airing
Sunday, September 29 and continues for the next few weeks
on PBS Business and Technology Network (a subscription service
available to companies) and Tech TV (a cable channel). This
piece will be edited to a 7.5 minute segment, which will air
later (date TBD) on CNBC as paid programming. The city-by-city
listing of airtimes for the 22.5 minute segment can be found
in the ..pdf document at this link for American cities:
http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/Airtimes_for_WBR_show1152.pdf
and here for International cities:
http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/Country_1152.pdf
This current program and the previous August 4th appearance
will be available soon on streaming video through the World
Business Review website, http://www.wbrtv.com,
and soon thereafter on GGI's website.
For more information on any of Brad's appearances on television,
go to http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/ggiontv.shtml.
NEW WEB CONTENT
GTK-Gateways To Knowledge: Your resource for industry and
product development related information and contacts offers
thousands of links to providers of technologies and services
for line management functions. The main entrance to GTK can
be found at: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/gateway/index.shtml
One of our top 3 MEGA Gateways is the Technology Providers
MEGA Gateway, which is a directory of hundreds of
links organized by technical topic (hardware and software).
The Technology Providers MEGA Gateway can be found at:
http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/gateway/techproviders.shtml
Performance Management/Balanced Scorecard: Find it in the
Technology Providers MEGA Gateway. This NEW Gateway offers
links to companies that provide Performance Management and
Balanced Scorecard software. The URL is located at:
http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/gateway/tech_perfmgt_balscore.shtml
E-Commerce Solutions: Find it in the Technology Providers
MEGA Gateway. This NEW Gateway offers links to
companies that provide e-commerce solutions software. The
URL is located at:
http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/gateway/tech_ecomsln.shtml
FEATURED GGI I-STORE PRODUCTS
Featured Item: GGI's I-Store features one deeply discounted
offering which usually runs for more than one month. The
new Featured Item is the "1998 Product Development Metrics
Research Summary."
This 88-page report presents the detailed results of GGI's
1998 Product Development Metrics Survey, which focused on
metrics systems in use in industry as well as rewards and
recognition for product development performance. The report
is
organized in 5 sections, each of which contains factual observations,
management analysis and a full set of graphics. This
report, which analyzes the survey population of 190 respondents
as a whole, will provide you with detailed information on
… Types, frequency of, and specific metrics in use,
… The state of corporate metrics,
… The state of project metrics, including standardization,
… Linkages from team performance in new product development
activities to rewards and recognition, and
… How companies are implementing metrics systems.
The price for the report has been dropped from $1760.00 to
$1056.00, a deep discount of 40%. For more information or
to purchase this valuable report, go to
http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/cgi/catalog.cgi?display_promo.
UPCOMING CONFERENCES & SEMINARS
Sopheon Webinar: On Tuesday, October 22, 2002 Brad Goldense
will present an on-line seminar, "Proactive and
Predictive R&D Metrics." This session will focus
on R&D management processes in the NPD body of knowledge
that are
most highly correlated with success and failure of R&D
investments. It will enable leading product developers to
raise the
measurement bar within their company's development organization
in order to achieve "best practices" in product
development. This seminar is a free, one-hour session beginning
at 9:30 AM CDT/10:30 AM EDT.
For more information or to register, go to: http://www.sopheon.com/news_webinar.asp
Management Roundtable - 7th Annual Metrics Conference: The
Management Roundtable will offer its 7th Annual
Metrics Conference in Chicago on October 28-30, 2002. The
focus of this year's conference is Metrics for Portfolio &
Resource Management. The conference features keynote speaker
Arthur M. Schneiderman, Former Vice President of
Quality and Productivity Improvement at Analog Devices as
well as expert clinics, pre-conference workshops and many
case studies from a variety of companies.
In these times of scarce resources and escalating financial
pressure, knowing which projects to invest in and which ones
to
cut is vital. This conference can help you to determine where
the real economic value is in your product portfolio, to
implement practical metrics for effective resource allocation
and to collect and benefit from real-time metrics.
Brad Goldense will be making two presentations at this conference.
He will introduce a newly developed one-day seminar
entitled "Developing Metrics Portfolios: Defining &
Selecting Key Measures for Product Development Performance."
He
will also make the first public presentation of the results
of GGI's 2002 Product Development Metrics Survey.
For more information go to: http://www.managementroundtable.com/Event_Center/MET02/MET02.html
or visit GGI's Calendar at: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/gateway/metricsconf02.shtml.
IQPC "R&D Measurement:" IQPC presents their
R&D Measurement Conference in Chicago on November 18-20,
2002. The theme of this year's conference is Lessons learnt
from best practice companies using performance
measurements to effectively manage for Quality in R&D.
You'll learn from leading-edge companies who have faced the
challenges of making R&D more productive. As a result,
they have designed & developed thoughtful and thorough
performance measurement systems to handle a range of vital
issues, including cycle times, increasing customer satisfaction
levels, process improvements, and product innovations. The
conference features keynote speaker Al Endres, author of
Improving R&D Performance - The Juran Way, in addition
to case studies, strategic workshops and an interactive panel
discussion.
Brad Goldense will make two presentations at this conference.
The first workshop, on November 18, is "How Metrics
Can Accelerate Product Development," which focuses on
getting started on measuring the product development process
in order to accelerate your company's performance. The second
workshop is "Implementing Proactive and Predictive
R&D Metrics," on November 20. This workshop will
focus on metrics that are used at the planning and definition
stages
of R&D, the crucial beginning stages of the product development
process, prior to the existence of a physical prototype.
For more information, go to: http://www.iqpc.com/cgi-bin/templates/103297361973904418945200001/genevent.html?topic=6&event=2769
Worldwide Business Research "Innovate 2002:" Worldwide
Business Research will hold its conference, "Innovate
2002" on December 4-5, 2002 in San Antonio, Texas. Innovate
2002 focuses on the theme of Optimizing collaborative
product design, engineering and manufacturing to increase
speed to market, improve time to volume and cut costs. The
conference features keynote speaker Mike Morton, Director
Global Product Development, General Motors, as well as
case studies and workshops.
As part of the Special Post-Conference Performance Metrics
& Benchmarking Summit on Friday, December 6, Brad
Goldense will lead a workshop on "Metrics For Managing
RD&E Resources & Capacity: A Survey Of North American
Manufacturers and High-Tech Companies." He will present
the results of results of GGI's 2002 Product Development
Metrics Survey.
For more information, go to: http://www.wbresearch.com/innovate2002/
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GGI RapidNews is an e-mail publication from Goldense Group,
Inc (GGI). Its subject matter includes survey findings, company
news, book reviews, key industry conferences and R&D information
of interest to clients and associates. Please send communications to rn(at)goldensegroupinc.com.
Thank you.
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