Volume 5, Issue 6- June 2, 2004
GGI RapidNews is published approximately once a month.

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In This Issue

2004 METRICS SURVEY

NEWS & NOTES - New Webmaster

MANAGEMENT PRODUCTIVITY - APQC R&D Productivity Benchmarking Study

MANAGEMENT PRODUCTIVITY - Mastering Innovation

MANAGEMENT PRODUCTIVITY - NPD Best Practices: Success Rates

2002 BIENNIAL SURVEY - 2002 RD&E Survey Results available now

NEW iSTORE PRODUCTS - New Articles, Technical Papers, and Quotations

NEW WEB CONTENT - Updated Calendar

FEATURED iSTORE PRODUCT - PPRD Coursebook

CONFERENCES OF INTEREST - BDI Forum on DFMA, MRT Metrics

WEBINARS OF INTEREST - APQC Benchmarking Study, Sopheon's Winning Practices for Product Development

TELEVISION EVENTS - Alexander Haig's World Business Review

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2004 BIENNIAL METRICS SURVEY

GGI's 2004 Biennial Product Development Metrics Survey is now under way. The purpose of this survey is "the processes of product definition, product selection, and intellectual property management; and the relationships and interrelationships between the types of processes, tools, and people involved in these activities -- prior to the approval of a project/product for development." The survey will take less than 45 minutes to complete, as verified by all of our beta testers. By popular request, we have just extended the deadline to complete the survey to June 15, 2004. We have heard from many folks that, with Memorial Day and graduations, they need a few extra days to complete the survey. Please take advantage of this opportunity to participate.

In addition to the Respondent Profile, there are five sections to the research questionnaire. The middle four sections are the theme of this biennial survey. The last section repeats in every biennial survey to continually benchmark the metrics that industry considers to be important at any given time. The questionnaire contains the following sections:

A. Respondent Profile
B. Product Selection Process
C. Product Selection Tools
D. IP Management Process
E. IP Management Tools
F. Top Corporate Metrics Used In Industry RD&E

The survey is now available on our web site. To download a copy of the questionnaire, go to http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/biennial.shtml. All participants will receive a complimentary copy of the detailed 40-50 page Executive Summary of the Survey results which will include a graphical analysis and detailed narrative analysis of each question; and a summarization of the survey results as a whole -- if a completed survey is received in the required time frame.

NEWS & NOTES

New Webmaster: Alan Kwan has just joined the GGI team as Webmaster / Manager of Information Technology. Alan was a co-op student with GGI last year. Alan previously worked for Barefoot Technologies, in Andover, MA, as Web Developer, programming an Active Server Page application for real-estate clients. He has also worked for Sun Life Financial, in Wellesley, MA, as an Assistant Business Systems Analyst, testing and reporting bugs and issues for the company's main software application. Alan graduated with a BS in Computer Science from Northeastern University. He calls Boston Latin School his alma mater. Alan hails from Charlestown, MA.

MANAGEMENT PRODUCTIVITY

APQC R&D Productivity Benchmarking Study

The American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) has just launched its latest consortium research and benchmarking study, "Measuring R&D Productivity." Goldense Group, Inc. [GGI] is serving as a subject matter expert for this study. If you act today, you can sign up for a free webinar given jointly by APQC and GGI, which will be held tomorrow, Thursday, June 3, at 11:00 AM EDT (10:00 AM CDT). Please go to the APQC web site to register for this free webinar: http://www.apqc.org/portal/apqc/site/events_register?eventID=10400004.

In order for organizations to gain and sustain a competitive edge, they must continually invest in new and improved products and services. The purpose of this consortium benchmarking study is to research how leading organizations focus, manage, and measure their R&D and new product development activities to provide maximum benefit to the corporation. APQC with GGI expert support, along with consortium members, will examine how best-practice organizations maximize R&D productivity and how they measure it.

The APQC consortium benchmarking study addresses the following three areas:

1. Identify the areas where improved attention, knowledge, and education would lead to higher R&D productivity.
- Understand how leading-edge companies manage portfolios and the focus and number of innovative new product or service ideas.
- Identify common elements, processes, or strategies that increase the productivity of both research and development as opposed to those that are effective for just one or the other.
- Learn how leading-edge organizations take steps to operationalize a strategy for innovation.

2. Use measurement to increase visibility and awareness, which in turn will facilitate enhanced performance in R&D.
- Determine what to measure (overall R&D performance, product/service development project performance, functional performance, improvement project performance).
- Examine how leading-edge companies use performance management practices to drive the efficiency and effectiveness of R&D to the bottom line.
- Identify qualitative and quantitative metrics.

3. Determine effective change management activities to support the realization of improved R&D productivity.
- Understand the effect of the measurement system on R&D performance.
- Understand the behavior-based challenges related to implementing and maintaining the performance measurement system.
- Learn how leading-edge organizations evaluate the productivity of knowledge workers.

The price to participate is $16,000 for APQC members and $22,000 for non-members. The kickoff meeting will take place on July 20, 2004, and the study will be conducted with site visits during August and September, 2004. Knowledge transfer session occurs in mid-November.

For information about this study, go to http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/apqc.shtml.

For specific details about this R&D Productivity Study (including goals and pricing), download this document: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/R&DProductivityProposal.pdf.
For background information on APQC's methods for the conduct of sponsored consortium benchmarking studies, download this document: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/APQC ConsortBmkgMethod.pdf.
If you wish to see the tool that will be used to identify and screen the companies that have truly adopted best practices, download this document: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/BPScreeningSurvey.doc.
Sponsors considering participation in this R&D Productivity Study should download and complete this questionnaire which contains a series of short questions relating to their needs, interests, and expectations. The response is discussed as part of the decision process of becoming a sponsor with APQC to insure that there is a good match between the study intent and the sponsor company's needs: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/SponsorInterestsQuest.doc.

For more detailed information about the APQC/GGI Consortium Research Study, please contact Don Stewart, our Director of Special Projects, at 781-444-5400 or dms@goldensegroupinc.com.

For general information about APQC, go to http://www.apqc.org.

For general information about Goldense Group, Inc., go to http://www.goldensegroupinc.com.

MANAGEMENT PRODUCTIVITY

Mastering Innovation

Summarized from "Mastering Innovation: Exploiting Ideas for Profitable Growth" A Deloitte Research Global Manufacturing Study, Deloitte & Touche USA LLP. 2004

The majority of companies face an "innovation paradox," according to this recent study by Deloitte. Companies paradoxically recognize that innovation drives growth and profits, but they have not structured their operations to support innovation. The research, which studied 650 manufacturers from North America and Europe, predicts that revenue from new products will rise to 34 percent of sales by 2007, compared to 21 percent in 1998. To achieve profitable growth, companies will need to master the complexities of global markets. Based on the practices of those few "complexity masters" the study recommends the following steps to profitable growth through innovation:

1. Create innovation: generate and evaluate ideas, including "sustaining" innovations (to grow existing business) and "disruptive" innovations (to create and grow new business, which potentially threatens existing lines).
2. Exploit innovation: turn ideas into growth and profits through the entire product lifecycle.
3. Build innovation capabilities: gain visibility of costs and profitability through the value chain; promote flexibility in product designs and platforms and in the supply chain network; collaborate with customers and suppliers; and use advanced technology for innovation and product lifecycle processes, such as product lifecycle management (PLM), product data management (PDM), customer relationship management (CRM), and advanced planning and scheduling (APS).

MANAGEMENT PRODUCTIVITY

NPD Best Practices: Success Rates

Summarized from "Benchmarking Best NPD Practices - 1," by Robert G. Cooper, Scott J. Edgett, and Elko Kleinschmidt, Research Technology Management, Vol. 47 Issue 1, January-February, 2004, pages 31-43.

We described above the current APQC benchmarking study in which GGI is involved. As an example of the great information resulting from these studies, this article describes the most recent APQC benchmarking study on best practices in product innovation, with subject matter expert Robert Cooper, creator of the Stage-Gate(TM) product development process and renowned expert on NPD. The study covered many aspects of the NPD process, but we summarize just the product success information here.

This APQC research focused on best practices in new product development and sampled 105 business units on quantitative measures of NPD practices and performance. They also studied five "best practice" companies in detail, using site visits to gather and analyze qualitative data on NPD practices. One of the key metrics studies was the NPD success rate, specifically what percent of projects entering full development are ultimately commercially successful, commercial failures or killed prior to launch. The average success rate is 60%, but interestingly, the best performers (top 20%) have a success rate of nearly 80% while the bottom 20% of businesses have less than half that rate, 37.6%. The failure rate for the average business is 20.8%, while the bottom 20% of businesses have a failure rate of 28.4%, more than triple the 8.1% failure rate of the top 20% of businesses. The research also revealed an average of 19.0% of projects killed prior to launch, with the bottom performers killing 25.7% of projects prior to launch, nearly six times more than the top performers' 4.3% kill rate.

2002 BIENNIAL SURVEY

2002 RD&E Survey - Resource & Capacity Management: Complete results from our 2002 Product Development Metrics Survey are now available, including our most detailed "RESULTS" report. The RESULTS report is the only version published that contains cross-population cuts of the data, in addition to analysis of the survey population as a whole.

The 2002 Survey focused on the following 5 areas of resource and capacity management:
- Loading the RD&E capacity pipeline,
- Providing capacity for RD&E activities,
- Balancing cross-functional resources (staffing ratios),
- Using systems, tools, & metrics to manage capacity, and
- RD&E metrics used in industry.

The 3 versions of the 2002 Survey results reports that we offer for sale to the public are

1. 2002 SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS: A text-only report (65 pages),including the full text of all the results and analysis of the survey population analyzed as a whole,
2. 2002 SURVEY SUMMARY: A report of composite results, where the survey respondents are analyzed as a whole (116 pages, including a full set of graphics), and
3. 2002 SURVEY RESULTS: The most detailed report, complete with the composite results and "special cuts," where the survey population is segmented and analyzed in the following groups: Public vs. Private, Smaller vs. Larger, Process vs. Repetitive/Discrete vs. Job Shop, Higher Technology vs. Lower Technology, and More vs. Fewer Employees (223 pages).

These reports are available in the Market Research section of GGI's iStore (http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/iStore/store.html). The original survey questionnaire as well as a description of the survey (including survey focus and demographics, tables of contents for the 3 reports, and examples of key findings) can be found at the Survey Information page at http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/biennial.shtml or in the Market Research Reading Room at http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/readmarket.shtml.

NEW iSTORE PRODUCTS

New Items: GGI's iStore has now been updated with 3 new Articles, 5 new Technical Papers & Presentations, and 2 new articles where GGI is Quoted. See details below, or go directly to GGI's iStore storefront:

http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/cgi/catalog.cgi

New Published Articles

A52 - "Architectural Trade-Offs & Target Costing For Co-Design" Best Practices Report, Management Roundtable, Inc., April 2004 [3 pages]

A51 - "Two-Step Selection Process Helps Limit NPD Products In The Pipeline, According To Study" Visions, Product Development & Management Association, April 2004 [4 pages]

A50 - "Architectural Trade-Offs & Target Costing For Co-Design" Best Practices Report, Management Roundtable, Inc., December 2003 [3 pages]

New Technical Papers & Presentations

T46 - "Launch Readiness: How Good Is Good Enough" Brandworks 2004 Conference, Lindsay, Stone, and Briggs, May 25, 2004 [73 pages]

T45 - " Linked Metrics Portfolio Method Š Applied To Two R&D Strategies" Product Development Metrics: Linked Portfolio Method Seminar, Goldense Group, Inc. and Management Roundtable, May 3, 2004, [29 pages]

T44 - "Key Pipeline Practices Drive Effective Capacity Management" Resource & Capacity Management Conference, Management Roundtable, March 30, 2004 [57 pages]

T43 - "Decision Frameworks & Measurement Maturity" December 2003 Morning Program, Society of Concurrent Product Development, December 4, 2003 [25 pages]

T42 - " Linked Metrics Portfolio Method Š Applied To Three R&D Strategies" 8th Annual Metrics Conference: Product Development and R&D Metrics: Quantifying Innovation, Portfolio Value and Resource Capacity, Management Roundtable, January 8, 2004 [31 pages]

New Published Quotations

Q23 - "The Role of IT in New Product Development Today" Visions, Product Development & Management Association, January 2004 [4 pages]

Q22 - "Record Number of New Product Development Professionals Attend PDMA 2003 International Conference in Boston" Visions, Product Development & Management Association, January 2004 [3 pages]

For detailed descriptions of each item and information on how to order them, go to GGI's iStore:

http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/cgi/catalog.cgi

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

Calendar of Industry Events MEGA Gateway is one of our top 3 MEGA Gateways. It contains a listing of links to Conferences, Seminars, Distance Learning Centers, Webinars, Colleges & Universities, Executive Education, and Corporate-Sponsored Universities. The calendar has just been updated with nearly a hundred new seminars and conferences. If you are looking for a conference or other learning opportunity, check out the Calendar first. This free service for our readers is now front and center on GGI's Home Page. Or, go directly to the Calendar of Industry Events MEGA Gateway at:

http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/gateway/calendar2.shtml

FEATURED GGI iSTORE PRODUCTS

Featured Item: GGI's iStore features one deeply discounted offering, which changes periodically. The current Featured Item is the "Proactive and Predictive R&D Metrics - PPRD Coursebook" (S3).

The Proactive and Predictive R&D Metrics (PPRD) Coursebook is your detailed guide to understanding and creating meaningful, forward-looking metrics for R&D. The coursebook accompanies the intensive seminar of the same name, and is useful on its own. The coursebook (and seminar) covers the following four metrics topic areas:

- Planning metrics
- Proactive metrics
- Predictive metrics
- Reactive metrics

The coursebook will help you move from reactive measures of past activity to planning, proactive, or predictive measures that improve the predictability of R&D and bottom-line results. You will also learn how to differentiate between a corporate and a project metric, as well as to create good project metrics that can be rolled up across business units to result in a good corporate metric. The coursebook contains many examples and case studies of different types of metrics used in different industries.

The price for the PPRD Coursebook has been dropped from $495.00 to $297.00, 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.

CONFERENCES OF INTEREST

2004 International Forum on DFMA (BDI): Boothroyd Dewhurst's 19th Annual International Forum on Design for Manufacture and Assembly will be held June 22-23 in Providence, Rhode Island. The goal of this conference is to provide expert opinion on DFMA and other early design technologies. Manufacturing leaders and research leaders will be on hand to answer your questions on such topics as cost management and reduction, product lifecycle management, shrinking time to market, concurrent engineering, and design for disposal and recycling.

At the conference on Tuesday, June 22, Brad Goldense will present "PLM: State-Of-Practice vs. Best Practice."

For more information and to register, go to BDI's web site: http://www.dfma.com/forum/index.html.

MRT 9th Annual Metrics Conference: Management Roundtable will hold its 9th annual conference, "Product Development and R&D Metrics: Metrics from Ideation to Commercialization," on September 28-30, 2004 in Chicago, IL. The conference will examine how leading metrics experts and advanced industry practitioners are deploying metrics further upstream to capture new product ideas faster and speed innovation efforts. The conference features keynote addresses, case studies, pre-conference workshops, and facilitated Q&A and networking sessions. This year's keynote speakers are Tom Kuczmarski, President of Kuczmarski & Associates, and Larraine Segil, Partner at Vantage Partners.

Brad Goldense will conduct a full-day, pre-conference workshop on Tuesday, September 28 on "Product Development Metrics Portfolios." Brad will also present the results of GGI's 2004 Product Development Metrics Survey on Thursday, September 30.

More information is available at MRT's web site: http://www.roundtable.com/Event_Center/MET04/MET04.html

WEBINARS OF INTEREST

APQC R&D Productivity Benchmarking Study Webinar: The American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) has just launched its latest consortium research and benchmarking study, "Measuring R&D Productivity." Goldense Group, Inc. [GGI] is serving as a subject matter expert for this study. If you act today, you can sign up for a free webinar given jointly by APQC and GGI, which will be held tomorrow, Thursday, June 3, at 11:00 AM EDT (10:00 AM CDT). Please go to the APQC web site to register for this free webinar: http://www.apqc.org/portal/apqc/site/events_register?eventID=10400004.

Winning Practices for Product Development: This free, online seminar series is co-sponsored by Sopheon and the Society of Concurrent Product Development [SCPD]. These one-hour, online events feature experts and leading practitioners who will share process knowledge and practical advice about ways to improve your product development performance and results.

There are currently no scheduled webinars.

For more information on these webinars, or to look at the archive of past webinars, go to http://www.sopheon.com/events_onlineseminars.asp.

TELEVISION EVENTS

Alexander Haig's World Business Review: Brad Goldense has made several appearances on Alexander Haig's World Business Review in the past year. Streaming video is available for all shows, which aired on August 4, September 29 and December 15, 2002 and on May 20, 2003. See below for details.

May 20, 2003 Broadcast of September 29th In-Studio with Alexander Haig (22.5 minutes): Streaming video for this segment is available at: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/ggiontv.shtml#wbr5

December 15, 2002 In-Studio with Alexander Haig (7.5 minutes) on CNBC paid programming: Streaming video for this segment is available at: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/ggiontv.shtml#wbr3

September 29, 2002 In-Studio with Alexander Haig (22.5 minutes): Streaming video for this segment (as well as the entire 30-minute show) is available at: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/ggiontv.shtml#wbr2

August 4, 2002 On-Location at GGI (3.5 minutes): This On-Location field report is available in streaming video on GGI's website. To see the program, go to: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/ggiontv.shtml#wbr1

The web page includes links to download a streaming video player, if you do not currently have one installed on your computer.

For more information on any of Brad's appearances on television, go to:

http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/ggiontv.shtml.

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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 and article reviews, key industry conferences and R&D information of interest to clients and associates. Please send communications to rn(at)goldensegroupinc.com. Thank you.