The Growth Forum: The Place Where Conflict is Celebrated

Guest Comment from Stephen A. Uban, Director of Research and Advanced Technologies at Wheelabrator Engineered Systems and PDMA Vice President of Publications

Illustrated by Kevin L. Miller, Innovation Focus
Research Assistant: Judy Y. Tso, Innovation Focus

Introduction

The Growth Forum is a game of "Mental Volleyball." We have always worked to bring an "everyday" feel to the topics we explore. Best practices are important but the experiments and experiences of real practitioners as they strive to achieve the best-in-class ranking also have a place. No journey of this magnitude is void of ups, downs and risky blind alleys. Therefore, the Growth Forum's domain is all things related to the New Product Developer's personal path. We have had discussions on Fun and Failure, Selling Up and Sizing Down, Creativity and Intuition, and Futurism and Globalism to name a few. Nothing is too great or too obscure for us to consider.

In the process of this search The Growth Forum has involved:

49 Practitioners
10 Service providers
13 Academics
3 Guest Editors
51 Pieces of Original Art
18 Articles (54,000 words)
1 Research Associate
1 Artist

And every bit of advice, each piece of art, every side bar has been done by volunteers who felt that they had something important to say to you.

This Growth Forum is an annotated bibliography of all of the articles. It is also a recognition of the dozens of you who have helped to make the forum a reality.

(Annotated Bibliography)

Ron Dressler of Hershey shared his experience facilitating the high performance Desert Bar team; a team and company responding with its product to the war in the Gulf in the best way it could. When at their best, teams are a natural outcome of a group in real need. Top teams take care of the task and each other. Ron's experience is discussed and dissected by Clif Smith of Boston University, Bill Souder of the University of Alabama and Mike Basch of Service Impact. On the Desert Bar team a variety of models were at work, good practices were followed and yet a number of generally accepted rules were broken. Knowledge of good practice combined with a willingness to change the rules when they did not fit led to success. (June, 1991)

This article can be summed up as follows: Oops, I didn't mean to lose your $1,200,000, but gosh we learned a lot. In the field of innovation we have to be experimental. The professional should possess the ability to learn from the experiments and the mistakes and move on. The first step in learning from an error is to laugh at yourself. Joel Goodman of the Humor Project led the way in suggesting how to laugh and learn and was joined in the discussion by Alexis Driscoll of Ameritech Publishing, Joe Appicello of National Liberty, Ron Dressler of Hershey and Steve Doolittle of Ingersoll- Rand. Kevin Miller began his regular contributions of art with this column. Good humor means good mental health and is critical to the long term success of anyone in a high stress profession. (September, 1991)

"Bringing technology closer to the service of humanity is the motivator," says Ken Gullen of the AECL (Canadian Government Labs). Compensating the new product development professional is a great topic to get into at any PDMA gathering. Most agree with Dan Stifter (now working on Fruitopia for Coke) that the best motivation is, the mortgage, but the Gee Whiz factor is also a real kick. This Growth Forum team lists an incredible array of other options for the individual and the team. Bruce Lenderking of Westinghouse describes the delight and satisfaction associated with getting your idea "out there." John Maverick, Carrington Laboratories, talks about the feeling of real influence and impact. Other participants included Richard Reich of Lifeline Systems, Susan Herbst Murphy of Commerce Bank, Clif Smith of Boston University and compensation expert Catherine Meek. Professor Larry Feldman of University of Illinois at Chicago described one of the most notable things about the area as "the dog that did not bark:" the things that do not effect compensation, and how little work has been done on the topic. (May, 1992)

There are "goods" and there are "services" and they are both products. The line between the two becomes increasingly fuzzy as products are more and more often wrapped in a strong service shell. The flow goes both ways, those who provide services see "goods" as a way to store value; and those who provide goods know that the days you can let an 800 number ring without answering are coming to an end. Customers expect services to come with their goods. Many companies are also intrigued by the idea of converting internal services, core competencies, like the training department, into a profit producing product. Participants included; Janet Frankl, Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston; John Stockton, Advanta; Joyce Flornoy, National Liberty Marketing; Susan Herbst- Murphy, Commerce Bank; and Peter Salmon of the Food Network. (September, 1992)

Guest Editor, Professor Merle Crawford of the University of Michigan Business School. At the 16th PDMA International Conference Merle moderated a discussion of the job in new products and his closing comment is a good summation; "If the team manager sees the need for technical understanding, gathers the right team members, sees to it that they are located where they can participate, and then manages with great skill communications, inspiration and other things; there can be job satisfaction and success." Participants were Sally Evans of SmithKline Beecham, Jack Salvato of Ross Laboratories, Doug Laplante of Bausch & Lomb and David Friedman of the Performance Marketing Group. At the following year's conference Professor Crawford notes that none of the panel participants were in the same job and only one was with the same company. (January, 1993)

Bob D'Amico, Director of Product Development at Lipton put on his N.Y. Mets T- shirt, pulled down the brim of his cap, and used the analogy of baseball to describe the Marketing-R&D interface. Teamwork, raw skill and a lot of practice make the game more fun. The marketer and developer are pitcher and catcher, but it is often unclear which is which. In a follow- up discussion on the article Paul Belliveau asked the question: "So who plays the role of the ball?" (April, 1993)

Intuition is a management tool and your friend. Use the hunch; the gut reaction. This discussion made a strong case for having a few people in the NPD effort with decades of experience. But there is also value in the naive enthusiastic perspective on the team. We also examined the value of team diversity based on psychological type. Professor Jeffrey Durgee of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute drove home the point that the engineer needs to develop an intuitive feel for the customer and that the "feel" dare not be confused with an "assumption". Joann Davis Brayman of Armstrong coined the term Informed Intuition. Other participants were Bill Duwe of United Video, Robert Samuelsen of AT&T Global, and Cynthia Daub, personality type specialist. (July, 1993)

This was the first article in the Growth Forum's Blue Period, the era of business rengineering and downisizing. We found a number of volunteers to talk off the record, but only a few brave souls were willing to step up and describe the reality of failure. Special thanks to Professor Abbie Griffin at the University of Chicago, James Stryker of Ingersoll- Rand (Outstanding Corporate Innovator), and Richard Lockwood of Century Bank. With failure rates ranging from 10 to 96 percent in product development, there is reason to get the issue of failure on the table. One great statistic we uncovered for this article was that in 1915 Ty Cobb took the base stealing record in part by failing almost 20 times more often than the runner up. The Impact of failure is both personal and professional. There is a lot of difference between the failure of a modest tactical effort that can be perceived as a good learning experience and a major strategic failure that has an impact on Wall Street. (October, 1993)

This article was published at the depth of the downsizing mania. Three interesting downsized product development professionals participated in the discussion; Ken Laramee who left Avery and took a new product position with Norton, Dennis Burd (Ken's former boss at Avery, who was let go shortly after he let Ken go) and now has a more sales oriented marketing job with Coverbind; and Al Carlson, the guy who saw women going into the work force in the 60s (a need) and an underutilized spice blending competency (a technology) at Lipton and put them together to create Lipton Cup- a- SoupTM, now of Carlson Creative. Of the 25 million American workers being displaced through the reengineering effort our panel agreed that despite the personal pain of the process, the new product development professional is better prepared to face the rigors of out- placement than others within the company. NPD may make you susceptible to the ax, but the NPD skills are the skills you need to survive and to find or build your next job. (January, 1994)

Steroids for new product development? This article was about the "just do it" mentality; open the check book and the cloak of secrecy around your proprietary information and just get the job done. As Doug Laplante at New Pig (Outstanding Corporate Innovator) suggested we not worry too much about secrecy: our aim is to be so fast that we are on to the next innovation before the competition understands the implications of the current introduction. The virtual team increases your reach and reduces your control. Participants included Craig Stromer of Thomasville Furniture, Kathleen Pierz, Ameritech, Bill Capio, Bausch & Lomb, Burt Kehoe, Hunt Manufacturing and Sophie Vlessing of Nabisco. (April, 1994)

Using three very different perspectives this Growth Forum sought to identify the types of processes that support the creation of new product ideas. Three categories were discussed: the Organizational Sweep, Consumer Methods, and Professional Push. Effective new product development teams do not spend their time on insignificant things. Finding, and knowing that you have found, the significant idea is sometimes the hard part. Varying your search process will help to assure that you cover new territory. Participants included Doug Hershey of New Pig, Alexis Driscoll of Ameritech and Al Carlson of Carlson Creative. (July, 1994)

NPD is still more art than science, but we have learned a great deal about what enhances the probability of success in the last 20 years. Selling your company on the importance of adhering to a quality new product development process is an important function for every practitioner. Al Edwards of Procter & Gamble supports the notion that strong selling skills are critical to NPD success. These skills are no different than the ones your company is probably using with your customers today. Barbara Zimmer, a project leader for Baxter Diagnostics, describes how she spent most of her time not managing the team, but selling and reselling the project. Nancy Imbalzano of Elizabeth Arden suggested that any new idea is different; be prepared, people resist the difference. Your sales skills will help you push through the resistance. Chris McDermott of the Canadian Intellectual Properties office concurred with this point of view. (October, 1994)

The economy of the People's Republic of China, amounting to 25 percent of the world's population, has been growing at a double digit rate for most of the 90s. This will have both direct and indirect impact on almost all product developers. Inspired to tell the story behind their JPIM publication on the subject of NPD in China, Professor X. Michael Song of the University of Tennessee and Professor Mark Parry of the University of Virginia participated in a discussion with Barri Blauvelt of Innovara, Mike Jennings of Armstrong and Judy Tso of Innovation Focus. The article ends by suggesting that entering China will be a career defining event for many of today's product developers. PDMA must discover ways to support the membership in this effort. (January, 1995)

Guest Editor Paul Belliveau, current President-Elect of PDMA, was joined in the discussion by Richard Lockwood of Century Bank, Dick Barrett of Tempil, and David Hoo of Schering- Plough. Small companies demonstrate quickness and agility in NPD while large companies have discipline and depth in their process. The new product developer who has experienced both is at a special advantage. The small company can take advantage of an experienced new products professional and can move fast but is resource poor. Most often there is a reluctance to spend the up front money required for marketing. The large company has the resources and is accustomed to using them, but is challenged to move those resources where they can have the greatest impact. (April, 1995)

Creativity is a very personal matter for many of us. We delight in our creativity in the garden or kitchen and yet are quick to point out our own inadequacies in creativity at work. When we formalize processes around the creative effort there is a danger that we will confuse useful parallel processes like brainstorming with creativity and creativity exercises with process. There is a fear that while being acknowledged as useful, creativity is not rewarded in some companies and in fact may be punished in some corporate cultures. We were fortunate to get the participation of Professor Emeritus Sidney Parnes, of Buffalo State, a past Chair of the Creative Education Foundation and a protege of Alex Osborne, along with Nancy Hann of Armstrong and Jerry Klos of Kodak. (June, 1995)

If the voice of the customer is good, can we take a further step and make the customer into a product developer? This article was an effort to look at four different approaches to creating customer synergy. Mary Rodas, the 19-year-old V.P. of Marketing for Catco toys, told her story about starting with the company at 4 and becoming a V.P. at 14. Al Baron of Polk Audio described the experience of how even a customer-created company like Polk Audio can lose touch with the customer. Cam Erekson of NIBCO brought in the experience of being an engineer in residence, co- located with a major customer, in a former job. Diana Laitner of Ameritech discussed how she used every resource possible, including her own 13-year-old son as interpreter, to get under the skin of the customer. (October, 1995)

Futurism for the product developer requires the ability to dance between the hard components like technology assessment and demographic studies and the softer components like the desire to wish and visualize a future that does not yet exist. This complexity is confounded by the fact that we cannot look at just one future but must examine alternative futures and work to determine how our company will be able to add value in these different facets of the same tomorrow. Participants included Professor Allan Shocker, Guest Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (University of Minnesota), Jacqueline Sturdivant of the Quest Program at Bell Laboratories and Marie Wayman of Detroit Edison. (January, 1996)

Many of us in PDMA rarely get the opportunity to go to more than a few of the many excellent conferences offered each year. One of the best parts of these conferences are the occasional, non- podium conversations, about "how it really is" in the world of product development. This is when you find out how the best, best practice, is who you know; and that accidents of process, often create great new paths for innovation.

At a recent Great Lakes Chapter Conference, I was a part of an informal discussion that started with the question: "Are entrepreneurial NPD teams possible?", moved through compensation, and took a turn into the personal toll taken by noted high performance teams. Like this conversation, the Growth Forum tends to follow its own path too. We use humor to make the tough points, imagery to drive ideas home, and find value in the conversation itself.

As editor of the Growth Forum my hope is to continue digging into the personal side of being a New Product Development Professional. We are in the trenches, as Ken Gullen said, "One of those moving technology into the service of humanity." Our personal story should be told.

Comment by Steven Uban, VP PDMA Publications

Where there is conflict there is new thought.

As a long time student of new products, I have enjoyed the Growth Forum since its beginnings. Over the years, it has explored many diverse new product issues. The subjects have always been timely, but its strength has been in its approach to the subject at hand.

The concept of presenting a new product issue through the experience of multiple participants has been wonderful. Each person has brought their own perspective with their input and at times this input has conflicted with others participating. When this is combined with our own knowledge the collision is wonderful! It is what produces new thought.

Most of the time we are left to draw our own conclusions from an article rather than a prescribed lesson that may be too generic to be of use. And even if no conclusion can be drawn, it's comforting to know that others are out there sharing in the struggles of new product process.

I look forward to the "next generation" of Growth Forums. The place where conflict is celebrated.

If you would like reprints of any of the Growth Forum articles, fax your request to Marybeth Neblett of Innovation Focus at (919) 362- 5606, or e-mail to Whatif@nando.net. You will be billed a $5 handling fee for a single article, or $25 for the full set of 18.  

 

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