The New Product Team:

Before we do anything else, we assemble a multi-disciplinary new product team.
The reasons for a multi-disciplinary team approach are:

  • To give the project the benefit of the different points of view and expertise from people in R&D, sales and/or finances. In many companies, those different functions do not communicate with each other so that, by simply bringing them together, one should expect some form of synergy.

  • To promote internal buy-in: Team members are not only participants in the new product development process, but are its sales arms within their own departments.

  • To foster creative tensions. Too often those disparate groups arrive at an agreement by seeking the lowest common denominator so as to preserve the appearance of harmony. Team members quickly learn to "go with the team" and mum their doubts or objections.

    At JRC&A we firmly believe that it is more important for a company's adaptability and new product development that people should learn to disagree rather that to simply ignore their differences. In fact we like controversy so much that we are likely to bring some form of controversy if we notice any complacency in the team's agreement. What we seek to generate is a/ a creative tension and b/the acceptance of differences. We believe that these are at the root of the ability of some businesses to constantly adapt to new circumstances. (See Richard Tanner Pascale's book "Managing on the Edge: How the Smartest Companies Use Conflict to Stay Ahead." Touchstone/Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-671-73285-4)


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    The Data Dump per se

    The objective of a "Data Dump" is to help us become smarter about the business. For this reason we like to look at the last 5 years of marketing data, including sales, new product history, competitive activity, etc. from internal and secondary sources.

    We also interview management to gain a thorough understanding of how it views new product, and of what their expectations are of sales and profits. From these interviews, we develop a document which we call New Product Vision and Role. Last, we will investigate all the new products that were worked on over the last 5 years, whether they were introduced or not. This gives great insight into the company's strengths and weaknesses in new product development.

    This insight will help define New Product Objectives and Strategies for the specific new product project.

    Note: We find it very essential to develop, at the project's onset, documents which clearly state what management expectations are for the new product. In our experience one of the major problems of new product development isn't always finding good ideas, but rather killing the bad ones.

    Output/Deliverables

  • Market Analysis
  • New Product Vision & Role
  • Assessment of past new product efforts
  • New Product Objectives & Strategy
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