Business Psychology - Latest Findings |
Article No. 98Business Practice Findings, by James Larsen, Ph.D.Just Do It!Research discovers the best tactics to accelerate product development.Here are a couple of good day/bad day scenarios for
manufacturers: It's a good day when you launch a new product
(or product innovation) and find you've beaten all your
competitors and have the market to yourself. It's a bad day
when you're the one who's beaten and you must stand aside and
watch a competitor take all the business.
Now if you tend to have good days like these, the future
looks bright for you. But if you tend to have bad days, then
all your days are numbered. The key, of course, is speed: to
the fastest product developers go the riches of success.
Management experts generally agree that a strategy called
compression best achieves accelerated product development. This strategy
includes extensive planning, early involvement of suppliers
in design decisions, reliance on computer-aided design
programs, overlapping development steps, and using
multifunctional teams. But little research has ever been
conducted to support or refute the value of these tactics,
and some writers doubt their value. They point to the role
improvisation plays in stimulating rapid change in music and
chemistry, and they believe a strategy based on improvising,
called prototyping, offers a better way to accelerate product development.
Prototyping includes building numerous prototypes, testing
them frequently, and meeting often to assess the state of
development projects.
Kathleen Eisenhardt and Behnam Tabrizi, of Stanford
University, recently directed a study of the world computer
industry to compare compression and prototyping strategies.
They examined 72 development projects in 36 companies. They
noted projects completed quickly and projects plagued with
delays, and they compared tactics used with each group. They
were surprised with their findings:
Extensive planning always slowed development. Early
involvement of suppliers and a reliance on computer-aided
design also slowed projects unless they involved predictable
products for stable markets. Overlapping development steps
demonstrated no effect, while using multifunctional teams
consistently accelerated projects. So most compression
tactics slow project development!
In contrast, prototyping tactics worked very well:
building many designs, testing them frequently, and meeting
frequently to evaluate progress. Prototyping tactics speed
development, and including multifunctional teams creates an
optimum strategy to speed product development.
Why?
Developing new products requires that people trace an
uncertain path through shifting markets and technologies.
Acceleration demands that people rapidly build intuition and
create flexible options so they can avoid problems and
exploit opportunities. Planning demands stability, and when
plans suddenly make no sense, people freeze. Before they can
move again, they must overcome the inertia created by plans
based on faulty assumptions.
Early in a development project, suppliers are often not
clear. Computer-aided design programs usually automate
well-known design calculations rather than calculations
needed for unfamiliar applications.
Building prototypes gives people a feel for the product they're designing. They gain an intuitive
understanding of the design requirements and of the benefits
different designs offer, and comparing prototypes reveals
strengths and weaknesses.
Frequent testing reveals design errors early in the
development project and eliminates attachment to one
variation which can cause conflict. It also builds
confidence: individual failures are small, designers quickly
learn how to overcome obstacles, and they're anxious to build
and test new prototypes.
Frequent project review meetings force people to look
often at what they're doing, and to check progress against
evolving markets and technologies. They're motivating and
provide a sense of order and closure. Including people from
diverse functional backgrounds enriches projects with fresh
ideas at critical moments.
Eeisenhardt and Tabrizi's research is a rare and valuable
contribution to our understanding of management, and for many
of us, it will completely change how we develop new products
and innovations. We can abandon labored tactics that slow
progress and embrace energetic tactics best expressed with
the words: Just do it!
Reference: Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. and Behnam N. Tabrizi (1995).
Accelerating Adaptive Processes: Product Innovation in the
Global Computer Industry. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40 (1995), pp. 84-110. www.businesspsych.org
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