Working with the IfM

New product introduction tool

A business tool to support all aspects of the development and delivery of new products.

Overview

Smaller companies commonly lack an effective process for new product introduction and projects frequently run late and over budget. The new product introduction tool provides a straightforward process to address these issues. It comprises four subsidiary tools covering process, product, project and portfolio management, enabling a small business to design, control and monitor the development and introduction of its products. The tools provide clear, graphical results on a single page, encouraging understanding across the business.

Key benefits

The tools are practical and efficient, providing an excellent communication tool for intra- and inter-company meetings. Their key benefits are:

• providing a rapid overview of new product developments
• enabing the team to focus on the essentials – a one-page summary is produced to capture the key outputs from each tool
• ensuring that the whole development team is clear about the internal and external drivers behind each new product development activity
• offering a flexible approach – the tools can be used as separate modules or as a complete set

Methodology

An initial audit is conducted to establish the maturity of the company’s existing new product development processes. The tools are then delivered through four, half-day facilitated workshops.

Workshop 1: Process-on-a-page examines existing new product introduction procedures and identifies their strengths and weaknesses. The output is a simple and efficient process, appropriate for the company. Typically it will display major project phases. The following are identified for each phase:

• key review or decision points
• key activities
• outputs of documentation to be completed during each phase
• members of the core project team
• documentation, meeting and control mechanisms

Workshop 2: Product-on-a-page enables goals, deliverables, users, markets, benefits and performance of the proposed product to be articulated effectively. It provides a concise, visual reminder, bringing together technical, user and market perspectives.

• a graphical way of capturing project mission, purpose and deliverables for the whole team
• distinguishes between internal and external perspectives of a new product
• encourages consideration of issues beyond the physical product

Workshop 3: Project-on-a-page produces a visual representation of key project management indicators to ensure projects meet cost, spend, performance and time targets. The summary is supported by a detailed spreadsheet that tracks the project’s status.

• clarity on project objectives and reasons for undertaking a project
• a visual representation of the key project measures
• greater awareness of risks
• key financials both estimated and current
• key milestones to show progress
• a reliable reporting tool

Workshop 4: Portfolio-on-a-page provides an overview of the company’s range of projects at any one time. This enables structured discussion on individual project merit and overall portfolio balance, and decisions based on both strategic and operational requirements. It helps to develop rigorous project selection criteria that can replace decision-making based on emotion, politics or instinct. It provides:

• an overview of the company’s current projects to enable the number, scale and type of projects to be matched to resources
• an overview of the company’s future projects to capture ideas and to enable effective selection of the next project

Email: ifm-enquiries@eng.cam.ac.uk or phone + 44 (0)1223 766141 for more information