Carriers

One company established an NPD process with carefully staged decision-making, rigorous process reviews, and strict time lines. Yet, skillful project champions would maneuver to win continued support at each level of project review. The company then reassigned project managers so that the more empirically included truth seekers were in charge of early stage reviews, and more commercially included success seekers managed the later stages. That simple change improved NPD productivity.
Private sector experience in pharmaceutical industry.
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Anticipating and meeting customer demands requires more teamwork and participation of project personnel in decision-making. This requires an overall understanding of NPD business by team members and their leaders.
Survey of 87 manufacturers.
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By setting up clear-cut screens or hurdles, new product cross-functional teams as well as management will know the ground rules during any step of the process.
Author experience
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Corporate management commitment influences the outcomes of NPD processes directly by resource allocation and sponsorship, or indirectly by structuring the organizational context in which the project occurs. High level commitment should be sought at each Decision gate.
Three case studies supported by 18 interviews.
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Effective control is required for new product success. To achieve this, new product development projects should be regularly monitored and should enjoy grace periods.
Survey with significant findings.
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Experiential. During the first three or four stages of the NPD process, management is relying primarily on one person to make a recommendation about whether to proceed.
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Exxon/Mobil lists a key lesson as: Ensure that top management values and provides appropriate resources for on-going work, as well as process support for units doing NPD.
Industry experience.
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Four Best Practices in the NPD process are: 3) Metrics on how well the NPD process is working — These metrics focus on if projects are following the process and if effective gates are being held.
A quantitative survey of 105 business units, supported by team's experience in NPD modeling, consultation, application and analysis.
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Four Best Practices in the NPD process are: 4) Tough and demanding Go/No-Go decision points, where projects really do get killed. Some businesses claim to have gates but a closer inspection reveals that these are largely project review points with the result that projects rarely get terminated.
A quantitative survey of 105 business units, supported by team's experience in NPD modeling, consultation, application and analysis.
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Gate Reviews are scheduled for certain dates at which the NPD team either presents or explains why they need more time. For those projects experiencing delays, the Gate Review managers listen to the reasons for being late and help the NPD team to brainstorm solutions. Most Gate Review managers have some technical experience so they are generally helpful to the NPD team. In many cases, the Gate Review managers are one level up from the NPD technical community, so the decisions are made at a relatively low level for smaller projects. Larger projects are reviewed several levels higher and the gate review deadlines are firm.
Industry experience.
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Senior and Project Team management turnover issues are common in industry, and the effects on NPD are difficult to control. Good NPD protocols to manage Decision Gates mitigate these issues by verifying management match to project, supported by a plan of succession.
Conclusions drawn from case studies and experience.
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Senior management and the product development team review the work periodically at "review" points, when key managerial decisions are made. Such decisions include whether to finalize the specifications now or in a future review, and even whether to redirect or cancel the project because of the product's low profit potential.
Case Study. Researcher identified themes of the product development processes of three different firms.
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To ensure compliance with the FDA's Quality System Regulation, medical device manufacturers should use a structured product development process to instill discipline in the product life cycle. A hierarchical approach arranges activity from Stages (phases) to Steps to Activities and finally to Tasks. Each Stage has a unique theme and set of deliverables. For example: Stage 0 — Concept Research. This stage identifies new market opportunities, determines customer needs and conducts high-level evaluations of the opportunity and its strategic fit. This activity concludes with the management approval of an integrated business plan for the project, which is then updated at the conclusion of each subsequent stage.
Summary of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's regulations for the research and development process underlying Medical Device manufacturing.
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To ensure compliance with the FDA's Quality System Regulation, medical device manufacturers should use a structured product development process to instill discipline in the product life cycle. A hierarchical approach arranges activity from Stages (phases) to Steps to Activities and finally to Tasks. Each Stage has a unique theme and set of deliverables. For example: Stage 1 — Definition & Planning. This stage initiates design and quality control activities, where the whole product is defined and the remaining process is planned. Key deliverables include the formalization of the customer requirements and the product requirement specifications.
Summary of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's regulations for the research and development process underlying Medical Device manufacturing.
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Results from Process Quality Assessment Instrument and the Output Quality Assessment Instrument can provide essential information to support risk-based go/no-go decisions during NPD product life cycles.
Single subject case study
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Technical feasibility criteria are typically employed for go/no-go decisions during the development stages of activity. Criteria may include project total cost, product quality, availability of resources, and customer satisfaction.
Survey of 77 manufacturing companies
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Decision to implement development plan — The cost of commercialization (both people and financial) is understood and will be supported by top management. This necessitates early creation and discussion of financial projections that include the obsolescence of existing products or facilities (obvious, but frequently not considered in the analysis).
Conclusions drawn from case studies and experience.
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Designing appropriate screening and evaluation “gates” to help prioritize projects and select winners for advancement. Preliminary up-front homework may include such activities as broad screening based on key market and technical capabilities and a broad financial assessment. At a second stage this may include refining product concepts and specifications ensuring stronger customer input and assessment, improved technical evaluation, and financial analysis.
Survey. Manager implications drawn from results of study.
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Emphasizing financial criteria have a positive impact on new product success from the go-to-development gate to the first post-launch review; yet it is shown that the relative effect of financial criteria on new product success is significantly bigger in the latter evaluations.
Survey. Importance given to financial dimension is positively associated with new product success at the go-to-development decision (δGate2 = 0.18, p < 0.10), go-to-market decision (δGate3 = 0.30, p < 0.05) and post-launch review (δGate4 = 0.42, p < 0.01).
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Equivocality — the presence of multiple and conflicting interpretations about a phenomenon, with higher levels of equivocality representing confusion and a poor understanding of the referenced context. In situations of high equivocality seek to integrate information about both supplier products and about customer requirements. In situations of low equivocality, seek to integrate information about supplier processes.
Survey.
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Fuzzy Gate approach — Permit the project team to decide when to stop Stage level work and proceed to the next Decision Gate, particularly when NPD cycle time is considered critical to market success.
Survey. Author conclusions drawn from analysis of Project Manager self-reports (n = 392).
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Keep the new product development process flexible, using fuzzy gates, to ensure success
Survey. Conclusion of the study
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Look at projected metrics, such as Net Present Value, year 1 sales, or launch date, to help make the go/kill decision. These projections will be used as success criteria as the project moves forward.
Authors' research experience. These success metrics are necessary to hold teams accountable and are used to understand and improve the new product development process for the organization.
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Managers should clearly evaluate their firm's strategic orientation towards product innovation, and consider different information use strategies to benefit project outcomes: Managers in prospector firms — aggressive approach to innovation — should focus on conceptual information use. Managers in defender firms — incremental changes in narrow markets — should focus on instrumental use of information. Managers in analyzer firms — those on a middle path — should apply conceptual use of information to enhance new product performance, and apply instrumental use of information to enhance their new product creativity.
Survey of 150 software development firms.
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Prior to initiating development activities, the following criteria should be examined: lucrative potential market; compelling market size potential; senior management endorsement; product-led strategy; market attack strategy; market-led strategy; perceived opportunities; support resource fit; superior consumer fit; clearly identified brand strategy and promotional plans; clear product definition; likely trade adoption; and global product compatibility.
Survey of 314 new product projects.
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Results show that placing importance on customer acceptance criteria correlates positively with project success at every stage of the process.
Survey. Customer acceptance dimension is positively associated with new product success at each and every of the review points (γGate1 = 0.26, p < 0.05; γGate2 = 0.30, p < 0.05; γGate3 = 0.24,p < 0.05; γGate4 = 0.26,p < 0.05).
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Technical criteria are significantly correlated with product success at the go-to-development decision gate.
Survey. Technical dimension is positively correlated with new product success at the go-to-development decision (αGate2 = 0.40,p < 0.01)
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Use projected sales and financial information (unit sales, sales objectives & margin) as well as market potential information for decisions at the Implement Development Plan gate.
Survey of 166 managers from Dutch and UK companies. Percentage of companies using these criteria range from 73% to 50%.
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Organizations can deal with the tensions inherent in decision-making by focusing on meaning — the GOAL. The purpose or meaning of what the organization intends to accomplish can crate a vision that sets into motion the process through which multiple organizational interests become aligned.
Source: McGee, JV & Prusak, L (1993). In: Ho, K., Bloch, R.; Gondocz, T., Laprise, R., Perrier, L., Ryan, D., & et al. (2004)

Decision-making process regarding the funding of R&D proposals involves different people performing four different roles within the decision process: 1) Approvers; 2) Takers; 3) Shapers; 5) Influencers.
Source: Woodhead (2000). In: Klerkx, Laurens & Leeuwis, Cees (2007)

The fuzzy front end of NPD entails all activities prior to the time that a business unit commits to the funding and launch of a NPD project or decides not to do so (i.e., go/no-go decision). This decision to fund or not fund an NPD project is typically made after the business case has been evaluated to assess the project's likely financial returns and after some degree of project and risk planning has been carried out.
Source: Khurana & Rosenthal (1998). In: Salomo, S.R., Weise, J., & Gemunden, H.G. (2007)

Customer acceptance criteria are important at all gates, particularly after launch.
Source: Hart, et al., 2003. In: Carbonell-Foulquie, P., Munuera-Aleman, J. L., & Rodriguez-Escudero, A. I. (2004)