Project Paper Requirements
May 25th, 2007Project Requirements
These are the following topics that must be addressed in the final paper.
Executive Summary
Provides a two paragraph overview of the product/service and your principal argument
Product / Service
A Full Description of the Product or Service
Business Case
This sets your argument for the proposed case. It should include:
Target Market
“First Market” (if necessary)
Branding
Addressable Market Logics (rationale for why your target will purchase it)
Competitive Profile
Proposed Pricing and Revenue Model
Extra: Follow-on or Related Products
Product Design / Service Guidelines
Do you have concrete or general ideas about the appearance of the product?
Do you have concrete or general ideas about the service delivery?
Do you have a list of dos and don’ts?
Appendix
Evolution of your Product / Service Idea
Lessons Learned
Course Materials
May 1st, 2007 Course Syllabus (Revised May 8, 2007)
Lectures
Introduction (March 27)
Paul O’Shaughnessy (March 27)
Second Lecture (March 29)
Third Lecture (April 3)
Nature of Disruptive Products (April 5)
Conjoint Thoughts (April 12)
David Miller (April 19)
Role Induction (April 24)
QFD Looks (April 26)
Blue Ocean Strategy (May 1)
Product planning discussion (May 10)
Exam Questions
April 30th, 2007You are allowed up to 50 pages of cheat sheets. Two people can use the same cheat sheet, but no more than two.
Introduction
What elements have been traditionally encompassed by Competitive Engineering
Paul O’ Shaughnessy
What type of product development approach does Paul rail against? Why is it such a problem with high tech products?
What is a stage-gate process? (short answer) How does Paul envision a generic stage-gate process?
What are some thoughts he has regarding “idea generation”?
What is encompassed in Paul’s business case stage? Why should it also include some guidelines regarding planning? (Bring your thoughtful answers to bear on the last question)
Why does Paul like the measurements of success defined early in the project?
Matthew Carmean
What are some thoughts that Matthew had about making a product portfolio?
Why is Matthew concerned with getting primary rather than secondary market research for his PicoP product? What does Matthew hope to get from a focus group that he can’t get from a survey or surfing the web for reports?
How does Matthew view the future revenues for future mobile entertainment?
What is conjoint analysis?
How does Microvision reorganize to improve its product commercialization?
What are some typical pricings and revenue figures for consumer electronics?
Mission and Team Process
What is the class mission?
What were two “interesting” factors that defined student success in developing winning products?
What comprises “effective team meetings” in this course?
Contrast Autonomous and Heavyweight Teams vs. Functional Teams. In what situation(s) should you consider deploying functional teams vs. autonomous teams?
Contrast the following terms: Innovation vs. Creation
What is the relationship between product innovation level and return on investment? Why are “medium innovation” products characterized by poorer returns? How should these facts impact your approach to developing new product concepts for Cingular?
Can you discuss the relationships among the following: project time penalties, product complexity vs. newness, team autonomy vs. project manager skill and team process management?
In terms of this course, what proposals does Alan have for idea generation?
What does he mean by mini-mortems and “meta-design” comments? For that matter, what does he mean by “meta-design”?
What is meant by empathic design? Can you discuss the nature of delight?
What are some elements in Alan’s adaptation of Stage-Gates?
What is meant by having “wisdom about your customer”?
What are some common practices to nurture innovation in small teams?
Can you discuss some novel ways of benchmarking for innovation?
Nature of Disruptive Product Development
Can you describe the basic experience of doing research for new product development?
Can you define and describe the long-tail phenom? How does it related to interviewing strange and off-beat people?
Do new disruptive products launch as works of art? What is the typical evolution for such products?
Conjoint Analysis
What is it? Why even present a list of choices rather than ratings?
What are some important elements in choice-based conjoint analysis?
What are some issues and tips regarding “making it real”?
What are use cases?
David Miller and Competitive Intelligence
How does DM define it? Why does he use this particular definition?
Define macro vs micro levels. Which does DM sees as taking precedence?
What are some key concepts espoused by DM?
What’s the deal with “two customers” (in traditional product development)? Don’t you just have one? What are the differences between dealing with these two customers? How is this relevant for your project?
Role Induction2
What is role induction? How does new and custom product development in high tech and software resemble therapy?
What are the documented benefits of using role induction tactics? What are some typical methods used in role induction?
QFD
What is QFD? What is the house of quality? What is their purpose?
Do you understand the simplified QFD structure? What four questions are addressed in the simplified QFD?
What is the Pugh Concept Selection? How does it related to the QFD?
Blue Ocean / Red Oceans
Define and contrast the Blue vs. Red Oceans
What is wrong with traditional strategic planning? How does it generally lead one to traditional red oceans?
How might you proceed to get insight into Blue Oceans? What’s the difference between planning vs. futuring?
What are three different customer segments that are beyond existing demand?
After having gathered your insights, what 4 things should you examine to create a “new value curve”? How does Cirque du Soleil typify this?
Assignment 2
April 24th, 2007Assignment Due Thursday, May 2
Role Induction
Role induction was discussed in class Role induction and vicarious therapy pretraining focus on educating a client as to the nature of therapy and effective therapy behavior. Iinstruction has been the technique most frequently used to prepare individuals for therapy. Role induction, also referred to as anticipatory socialization, focuses on educating clients about the rationale for therapy, therapy process, realistic expectations for change, prognosis, and examples of therapist behavior and good client behaviors (e.g., self-disclosure, reflection, regular attendance). Role induction is especially useful for naive or first time clients, and a large body of research indicates that it increases motivation, attendance, and productivity especially in the early meetings. Role induction procedures have included simple brochures, brief homework assignments, videotapes of typical therapy sessions, and role playing. Lectures, by the way, have been rarely used.
Now let’s apply this role induction to helping us have better meetings with our software or”future technology” customers. In a general sense, role induction is about “training or educating” our customer to “be a more effective customer”. With respect to this project: your interviewees will be unfamiliar with what you’re trying to accomplish. How can you preface your interview so they can give you more effective feedback.
We software developers have typically walked into our early meetings without giving our customers anything more than a rough agenda. Is preparing our customers a worthwhile exercise? You do the math.
Role Induction Homework Questions
Once again, at this point, you are merely proposing these techniques. Don’t use them on your first customer. I’ll give you the go-ahead to make your first formal interview with our second customer.
1. Can you mention specific ways in which role induction might be able to assist your teams with interacting with your potential customers or interviewees? Propose some techniques that might prove useful for increasing the productivity of your customer meetings. For example, you might outline a brochure about software development and the types of information that customers should provide.
2. Your techniques should also address the following: a) inform the customer about the process that will occur between the both of you (what’s it like? what should they expect? when should they expect it?); b) How can you induce the client to give you valuable information?
Pitching for Information
You’ve all wondered about what each group is doing. You can now unveil so that the other groups can start sending you resources. We’re now at the point where it’s difficult to replicate ideas. If your groups already have similar ideas, then complementary products can be made.
Most times, you pitch to persuade. You now pitch to quickly explain your business concept but also ask your cohorts for information (”What questions do we really need answered?” “How shall we question our interviewees?”)
A pitch has 5 elements: a) What is thy unique product or service? 2) Who is thy customer? 3) How do you reach that customer? 4) How do you make money? 5) What personnel are required to make this happen?
Some of this is more important than others, because you’re doing a product concept for AT&T.
1) Construct a 30 second pitch and a 2 minute pitch. Write up the 30 second pitch. Make slides for a 2 minute pitch
2) Construct a 15 Minute Presentation for the class; don’t hand this in to the instructor
3) Submit questions you want to pose to the class. These questions could refinement of strategies and tactics for gathering customer reactions, or it could be getting the audience reaction as if they were your customers.
Docomo & Nokia Fun
Docomo Conceptual Phone Models
Nokia’s Cool Future (Collaboration)
Nokia’s Cool Future (Sharing stuff & Personalization; Terrible Music)
Nokia’s Cool Future (Smarter Wireless Homes & Messaging for Families)
Questions
1. What was the coolest feature that you observed? What makes it cool to you?
Matthew Carmean’s Visit - April 10 2007
April 10th, 2007Matthew is an alum of the UWB Business Program. He’s the product manager for the wonderful PicoP product. We asked Matthew to visit our class, on the spot, to talk about how ideas are brought to market.
Some Thoughts
Most ideas fail.
Apple came out with the Ipod, but there were iterations to the product. It created a portfolio.
Matthew intends for the first product to get into the market, get some information, and then create a portfolio of products.
“My objective is to figure out what’s important to you”
***What should it look like?
***How should it be priced?
***How shall it be shaped? Should it go into the pocket?
On Matthew’s side, he’s wondering what market to target.
For this reason, Matthew is holding focus groups. Secondary research doesn’t get the following info:
- Dynamics associated with a group of people (”It’s cool” “It’s more convenient than a laptop”)
- Find out what people will actually pay
- Pose certain situations to panelists (e.g. If you want a large display, will tolerate a darkened room?)
For every product or feature that Matt consider, he asks: How will it increase value for the end user?
The 18 to 24 year olds are the “cellular generation”. The older fogeys are into the internet.
By 2010: 360% growth in mobile music ($18B), 466% growth in gaming ($8.6B), and 3148% growth in mobile video ($16.4B). (Anne Sweeney, Disney Media Networks). The average person pays out about $1,400 per year in consumer electronics. Steve Jobs believes the customer should by a new Ipod every year.
What is conjoint analysis? It’s a way of presenting different feature combos to understand consumer preferences. This helps us to understand what features really drive product desirability. Matthew says it’s important to distinguish between what the we think vs. what we know.
How did Microvision reorganize to improve its ability to commercialize? What were the lessons learned?
- You can’t manage a zillion projects at the same time
- Got disciplined managers from GE
- Don’t get spread out too thin; there’s a zillion ideas out there.
- Be able to say no to distractions
Assignment 1
April 9th, 2007Due on Tuesday April 17 at Class
You may complete this assignment with your team
Team Dynamics
1. Create a peer eval form to be used by team members to turn in to the instructor at the end of the term.
2. Frequent, but quick and efficient meetings are a sign of effective small product dev teams. What guidelines will your team develop to promote this?
Product Stage Gates
1. In the first stage, you’ll be collecting potential ideas. What constitutes a good idea for your team? What are some guidelines to use to pass (or reject) ideas into the next stage? For example, do you want a cluster of ideas that appeal to the same target customers? Do you want these ideas to be related? Or distinct? Do they have to involve big markets? Or just tweak tiny markets? Do you have a preferred risk-reward? Coolness factors?
2. Conduct a mini-mortem after you gather to discuss your first round of ideas. Can you provide a summary of lessons learned? These issues should be addressed: did you want to change the format of your ideas? The way you search for ideas? (e.g. put additional guidelines down for good ideas) Change priorities? Hand in your main lessons learned as a group. Begin to keep a small paragraph that sums up progress made at each meeting - please nothing elaborate or too time consuming.
Competitive Engineering - Coolness Defined
March 1st, 2007Competitive Engineering Brochure