By Chad
I saw this list of “9 Excellent Books Product Managers must read to Create Great Products” and wanted to share it. To this list I would add two recently updated classics and a third offering from a marketing guru:
- Cooper, R. G. (2011). Winning at new products: Creating value through innovation. Basic Books.
- Crawford, M. and DiBenedetto, A. (2010). New Products Management. Irwin McGraw Hill.
- Kotler, P. (2011). Trais de Bes, F. (2011). Winning at Innovation: The A-F Model. UK: Palgrave Macmillan
These three books are my go-to sources for innovation and new product development.
By admin
I wish I had more time for inspiration. I tend to be creative, but it takes downtime for the best ideas to percolate. Tom DeMarco addresses this in his book Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency. I saw this short article on one way of finding more time for inspiration – putting showers to better use. The title caught my attention and I appreciate the ideas that were shared. One was to use a shower mirror as a white board for jotting ideas – love it! My shower has a solid surface surround – I bet it would make a good white board.
By Chad
I had the pleasure of attending a Rocky Mountain PDMA meeting with the Compassion International product manager for “Water of Life.” Now, as a product development professional, I found the product story fascinating, but more importantly, did you know
every day over 4,000 children are dying of water-related diseases,
such as cholera and typhoid
and Water of Life is making a huge difference in the lives of children, their families, and their communities by providing clean water. Clean water is easy for me. I only need to grab a glass out of my cabinet and turn the faucet on – done. For the majority of the world’s people who live on less than $2 a day, water does not come so easily. Many collect water in jugs from the scarce sources available, which may be an hour or more walk for them. These sources are often contaminated with animal and human waste. Children suffer from diarrhea and other illnesses and many die.
Now, Water of Life is changing this by taking that filthy water and turning it into clean, healthy water. Using technology found in kidney dialysis machines, a family can have a simple and reliable system that provides clean water. Learn more about how this live-giving system works.
Now from a product perspective, the impact does not stop there. Compassion found a partner in Sawyer, the creator of the water purification technology. Thanks to the interest in Water of Life, Sawyer is now selling similar systems commercially – a huge win for them. Their partnership (between a for-profit and non-profit) has been a great win-win. Further, for a $55 donation to Compassion you give a family the Water of Life system that provides more than enough clean water for their life (yes—amazing technology at an amazingly low cost), you’ll get a discount code to buy a similar system for yourself. As a family that camps frequently, we jumped at the opportunity to get a system at a discount.
![photo[2]](http://www.productinnovationeducators.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/photo2_thumb.jpg "photo[2]") Does the system really work? Compassion is already saving thousands of lives. Also, I had the opportunity of drinking water that was muddy and gunky only minutes before being purified by the simple Water of Life system. Here is a picture of the product manager, Geoff Peters, after pouring a cup of purified water, just like the one I poured myself minutes before – tasted great.
I love this product story. Compassion applied their newly created NPD process, conducted ideation, grouped and refined ideas, and brought a handful forward through a stage-gate-like methodology. Water of Life is the first one to go to market. It is a great product with a great product story.
Even more importantly, now we can easily help families across the world help their kids avoid life-threatening illnesses. I encourage you to learn more about Water of Life.
By Chad
The Rocky Mountain ProductCamp “unconference” is coming back to Denver on October 29, 2011. The event will be held at Auraria Campus Tivoli Turnhalle from 8am-4pm. Rocky Mountain ProductCamp is free for attendees but space is limited.
Unlike some unconferences where the agenda is decided on the day of the event with sticky notes, ProductCamp has a list of proposed sessions that attendees can vote on, plus attendees can suggest a session. The content is selected by attendees. Some of the previous proposed topic suggestions include: The Product Management X-Factor, Defining Problems, The Art of Being Relevant, Innovation Project Management, Achieving a Great User Experience for Enterprise Software, Beyond Stage-Gate: A New Approach for Innovation, and more.
More than 300 product managers, brand managers, product marketers, product developers and engineers are expected to attend this year’s Rocky Mountain ProductCamp.
Thanks to our generous sponsors, such as Pragmatic Marketing, Rocky Mountain ProductCamp is completely FREE for attendees.
Registration is now available at www.rmpcamp.org/registration/.
By Chad
Note: this is one post of a five part series created in real-time during Rocky Mountain PCamp.
The winners of the product smack down where selected by audience applause. Seeing how each team clapped for themselves, the results may be a bit biased. The winning team is shown below.
However everyone won by having a great product developer experience!
I’m looking forward to my next PCamp!
Michael May, Tahllee Baynard, Kat Moberg, Ken Rouse, Gerry Callejo, Bruce Hurfer Qualtek, Larry Marine
By Chad
After breaking into small teams of three to seven people, each team had 45 minutes to accomplish their task of developing an improved product concept. They then chose presenters to share their marketing plan and product prototype. Below are pics and video from each team presentation.
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By Chad
Note: this is one post of a five part series created in real-time during Rocky Mountain PCamp.
One teams experience….
After reviewing the product needs, the team identified three key areas needing improvement: disposal capability, procedural compliance, and directions for use.
They spread the components of the existing product across a table and began demonstrating concepts to each other. Other team members jumped in to refine and improve a concept or consider something new.
Soon the team decided that key needs could be addressed by improving the packaging to have added utility. This focused concept development and led to a prototype to create. With only 15 minutes to go, the team brainstormed marketing — an improved name, pricing, selling strategy, and most importantly, how to present their work back to everyone at the smack down (they want to win!). A key discussion topic involved who was buying, why, and how they would view ROI compared to other products.
The team of four divided into pairs. One pair chose a name and worked on the marketing presentation. The other pair broke out tape, scissors, and anything else they could use to cannibalize the current product and create a prototype.
45 minutes in all–product development at warp speed.
By Chad
Note: this is one post of a five part series created in real-time during Rocky Mountain PCamp.
Dick Lee wrapped up the intro at PCamp, setting the stage for the product development work to follow. Our task was to improve on the Catheter Site Dressing Change Kit product he introduced. Everyone divided into two teams. Each member had a printout of Lee’s presentation, which included areas needing innovation. A pic from the slides showing unmet needs is below.
Some of the teams working on areas to innovate…
By Chad
Note: this is one post of a five part series created in real-time during Rocky Mountain PCamp.
The first RM PCamp product smack down is tonight and we are there. Product Innovation Educators is glad to be a sponsor.
Dick Lee provided a quick introduction to Value Innovation product development using the example of a catheter dressing change kit….
Soon the smack down will start….forming teams to create viable products in the next hour!
A few pics from his presentation…
By Jama
During workshops the question usually comes up the near the end. What do you think is key for an organization to be successful in innovation and new product development? I often give a short answer depending on the group at hand, but I’d like to provide a more specific answer here as well as include several texts that innovation managers should scan.
Leadership, New Product Development Process, and Project Management are my big three. If you have all three then an organization, employing focused strategy, should be successful. But this is not just my opinion. Jean-Philippi Descamps in “Innovation Leaders: How Senior Executives Stimulate, Steer and Sustain Innovation” illustrates how leadership enables innovative organizations. Is our own organization structured and designed for efficiency or for innovation or for both? Leadership must ensure that we are designed for innovation if we are to gain and maintain competitive advantage.
C. Merle Crawford and C. Anthony Di Benedetto in their books emphasize the new product development process. According to Crawford and Di Benedetto, organizations that utilize a formal new product development process are more successful. This only makes sense. If we study the process used by Google, Apple, and others we see the value of creativity and innovation via a well executed new product development process.
Two books have done an excellent job providing information and examples associated with the benefits that project management bring to innovation including better products and quicker time to market. Dov Dvir and Aaron J. Shenhar (2007) in “Reinventing Project Management: The Diamond Approach to Successful Growth & Innovation” expound on the business side of project selection and project management from an innovation perspective. In their 2010 book, “ Managing Research, Development and Innovation: Managing the Unmanageable”, Ravi Jain, Harry C. Triandis, and Cynthia W. Weick note that managing research, R&D, and innovation requires the skills of intelligent project sponsors and project managers.
As a manager of innovation teams, it is imperative to keep these three “keys” in the forefront of our conversations with senior management, our teams, and our development partners.
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