New Products Management 11e / Crawford & Di Benedetto Part IV Development
Part IV — Development
Suggestions for Using Part IV of the Text
Including Answers to the Applications and Case Teaching Notes
CHAPTER CONTENT
Here is the outline of Part IV, Development.
Chapter 13
Design
Cases: The Mini; Palm Pilot; Gillette Mach3 and Fusion
Chapter 14
Development Team Management
Cases: Ford Fusion, Provo Craft
Chapter 15
Product Use Testing
Case: Product Use Testing for New Consumer Nondurables
INFORMATION FOR THE NEW ADOPTER
At this point in the course there are several options, depending on the background and interests
of the instructor. First, one can select several areas (such as organization form, issues
surrounding industrial design, and the marketing/R&D interface) and then get on into the
Chapters 13-15 contain material for all of those approaches. They actually are designed to
meet the needs of the new products manager–the team leader who must lead through the
Chapter 13 collects all manner of topics related to product design: the importance of design
in reaching new product goals, product architecture, the role of the industrial designer, prototype
development, and design and productivity. The case on the Gillette razors, allows the student to
Chapter 14 spells out the guiding principles for development team management. They are
all very basic to the management task, and are the “hot” issues at this time. For example, most
people don’t realize that new products managers have been using for years those techniques now
Students should probably be made thoroughly familiar (if not already) with such concepts
as empowerment, ownership, and networking. But they should also understand the five basic
options that any team creator has–from the functional to the venture. This is in some ways easier
Organization is well-known for being difficult to teach. It does not lecture well, and even
case applications are frustrating because there are so many individual/personal aspects of any
The fact is, most firms in the world do nothing special in the way of organization because
they are small enough that the regular management team handles new products right along with
their on-going matters. There may be one person with special responsibility for new things, but
The instructor knows full well we do not have standardized terminology in this field, and
The differences between them are what bothers students. Unless they have worked in
business, and particularly on new products, they do not grasp the significance of projectization.
The conflicting pulls of function/department and new product project are sometimes devastating.
You can take some well-known recent products the students know something about, and discuss
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New Products Management 11e / Crawford & Di Benedetto Part IV Development
Chapter 15 changes the pace, leaving the management jungle to go to the marketplace.
The issues are clearer, we know how to handle them, and the decision points are given. But,
students will often think most of the questions are obvious–e.g., pilot production or final run,
INFORMATION FOR THE PREVIOUS ADOPTER – MAJOR CHANGES TO PART IV
Chapter 13 brings the role of the designer closer to the new products process and discusses
Design-Driven Innovation, in which it is design, not marketing or technology, which takes the
lead. The Gillette Mach3 case has been updated to compare and contrast that development with
PROJECT SUGGESTIONS FOR PART IV
As indicated several times in the previous material, you can have students working on their
individual or team new product projects. They have to come up with an original idea the first
The organization topic doesn’t lend itself to projects very well (though sometimes one sees
some interesting things done in the area of interface management by students majoring in
Some instructors have students do some field interviewing on technical development,
especially if they didn’t use students for field concept testing. They can ask about, and sometimes
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New Products Management 11e / Crawford & Di Benedetto Part IV Development
Applications Teaching Notes for Part IV
Chapter 13
1. “One of our divisions makes an electric scooter. Classic case of where a
designer, looking for new modes of ultralight transportation, came across the
scooter and electrified it. Boy, people said he was crazy. Kids begged their
parents not to ride one (shame), and a cop said, “It’s not a moped. It’s not a
motorcycle. It’s not anything, and I don’t ride anything when I’m not sure what
it is.” Best example I know of why designers have to be free to do their thing,
without having market researchers be responsible for picking up on market
trends.”
This strong statement is not rare. Many managements have come to feel that market research
restricts the use of creativity. If the kids, cops, and others interviewed were listened to, this new
market would not have been developed. So for really new things, especially things that are hard
to understand, appear risky or incompatible with current practices, and are difficult to “try out,”
But, having said this, we must remember that market research reports have sometimes
been taken as the word from above, the final thing, the given truth. Virtually every major
2. “Most of our divisions believe in customer integration — involving the user in
the new product process. I am a fanatic on it. But some people want us to carry
this right into the technical design phase. This would be dangerous. A lot of what
we do must be secret–we can’t patent most of our ideas, and timing is every–
thing. That’s why we put so much emphasis on speed of development. But I still
get pushed to do more. Help me. Tell me all the things we might do to get
integrated customers but at the same time minimize the risks of losing our
secrets.”
This is a tough one, and the president may be right. If there are new technical developments, if
there are no patent or other protections, and if speed is essential, the situation argues for skipping
customer involvement, but it is very high risk and there will probably be problems. Fortunately,
these three conditions, at the same time, are rare. Customer involvement has many safeguards,
some of which are: (1) In the business-to-business markets there often are a couple large
3. “About this matter of design, I am stumped. I agree design is critical today,
and I always support it. But, you’ve got to admit that it costs money, and often
conflicts with function (for example, a beautifully styled computer mouse that
won’t hold the innards that the tekkies want to use). As a general executive
matter, how do you suggest we evaluate these trade-offs? How can we find
where to stop styling and let the engineers rule?”
This question would suggest an engineering background, given the long-time battle between
design engineers and stylists or industrial engineers. Much of the material in the early part of
But there are a couple issues in this application that should be addressed specifically. First,
the idea that design is critical today. Of course it is, in many situations, and always has been.
Second, the statement talks of conflict between these attribute sets. Of course there are
always such conflicts, as there are between component and price, between serving one group’s
The last issue in the statement is the one about styling stopping and engineering taking
over. This was a slip, because this president favors team management. The statement,
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Chapter 14
1. “Actually, I’m not convinced that any particular organization formats are
better than others. I’ve run into too many exceptions. For example, that great
portable tape player, Walkman by Sony, was conceived and pushed through by
Akio Morita, Sony’s chairman of the board. He got the idea from seeing a past
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New Products Management 11e / Crawford & Di Benedetto Part IV Development
chairman wearing a headset in the office, and he personally directed the project
through its technical phases, even over the opposition of his people in manufac-
turing and sales. Even gave himself the title of project manager. I’ll bet that
approach doesn’t fit any of your academic formats. And, I’ll bet you wouldn’t
discourage it.”
Wrong on both counts. First, the approach does indeed fit–it matches the concepts we have been
But the job should never be given to the board chairman. This individual was more than a
champion–he was decider, financier, etc. Too much power. The fact that Walkman sold
profitably should not confuse the issue–for every Walkman there are probably 10 failures caused
2. “You mentioned culture! Now there’s a human relations cult if I ever heard
one. Human resource and organization design people are great, and out of their
work have come some of the most valuable new business methods of the past 15
years. But, culture isn’t one of them. It’s vague, never defined, full of soft terms
like happy, egalitarian, and forthright. Life just doesn’t work this way. Don’t
misunderstand me, managers must respect their people, and we can’t let strong
opinions get in the way of increasing productivity. But good people want honest
motivations, not games or manipulations. Yeah, I said manipulation, because
that’s what the culture thing is. Tell me, what kind of a culture do you like best
in the classroom where you are using this book? Is that culture inconsistent with
the general ideas of management we have had for years?”
This application gives the professor a chance to see just how well students understand culture.
They should be able to use culture variables in establishing the culture they would like in a
Given application to a classroom, discussion should move to culture’s effect on class
productivity and output, and how difficult these relationships become. Don’t let argument get too
Don’t leave this application without giving some time to manipulation–is it truly
3. “Several of our divisions say they get tremendous help from their vendors
when it comes to increasing the speed of our new product work. But, to tell you
the truth, I think they’re just lazy. They’ve got good talent in those divisions, or
darn well should have, and all they’re doing is letting vendors get a bigger piece
of our innovation profits. Most vendors don’t pull their share in these funny
partnerships. Besides, the initiative should be theirs, not ours; they stand to gain
more from so-called integrated operations than we do.”
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New Products Management 11e / Crawford & Di Benedetto Part IV Development
Ten or fifteen years ago we commonly heard this plea, and it had merit. But it has little merit
today. Most firms have found that product development requires capabilities they do not have,
The key idea here probably is that each situation is unique, and needs to be studied
individually. There should be no policies to couple or not to couple, but the option should always
———————————-——
Chapter 15
1. “I think some research suppliers oversell a bit–they want us to do too much
market research. For example, one of the biggest recently published data on a
‘blind’ versus ‘identified’ product test. Here are the results:
Branded Unbranded
Prefer A 55.5% Prefer A 45.6%
Prefer B 44.5 Prefer B 54.4
Prefer A 68.0 Prefer A 60.7
Prefer C 32.0 Prefer C 39.3
Prefer B 64.4
Prefer C 35.6
I’m told the differences were highly significant statistically. The research firm
concluded that there was no choice between blind and identified but that both
should be used in just about every case where there was any reason to even
suspect an effect of branding. Do you agree?”
Brand is a very strong factor in many cases. In fact, many products have been marketed when
This means that the effect of the brand should be measured, and only a branded/blind test
In the case described by the president, Brand A is apparently well regarded by the
marketplace, and thus its quality is overstated when branded. In contrast, Brand B is
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2. “We recently acquired a small toy company, and I’m scheduled to meet with
their management next week. I know they don’t do much use testing–I think
someone told me they have a bunch of kids come to their plant and play with
proposed toys. Must work for them, we paid a huge multiple for their stock.
What should I tell them, or be looking for, relative to your list of 13 decisions?”
What we need to learn: General acceptance level of this toy, plus any information that would
negate its initial reaction and level of use. Specific issues might involve possible injury
User groups: Market users, more typical the better, with a range of various ages, sexes, etc.
Mode of contact: This should be personal, because kids’ reactions frequently have to be seen to
be understood. Individual is also important, since kids influence each other a great deal. It
Degree of explanation about usage: Shouldn’t need much. On complicated new toys perhaps,
Degree of control over use: Probably not necessary. If there is potential danger, the toy will get
Singularity: Monadic is probably OK. There may be something about a toy which requires a
important to parents than to manufacturers.
Source of product: Batch (prototypes) OK here, since technical performance is not a problem.
Mode of recording reaction: Like-dislike is the primary one. There may be a preference issue if
Source of norms: Previous studies, since toy firms do this type of testing regularly and
Research service: Most likely the testing will be handled by the firm’s own staff, for reasons of
secrecy. Some specialized toy research firms are set up to give very confidential service.
3. “Our pharmaceutical division, of course, develops new pharmaceutical
products for use by doctors and hospitals. The technical research department
does all the testing (they have different names for the various tests). The last
phase is clinical testing, where the drugs are given to humans in a manner that
will substantiate claims to the Food and Drug Administration. The clinical tests
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New Products Management 11e / Crawford & Di Benedetto Part IV Development
are conducted by M.D.s in the clinical research section, which is in our R&D
department along with all the other technical people. Now it seems to me those
clinical tests are designed to satisfy more people than just the FDA (physicians,
pharmacists, nurses, and so on). But M.D.s in clinical testing are not too high on
marketing research-type thinking, so it dawned on me that I should see that at
least one thoroughly trained marketing research person was assigned to clinical
research–to help me make sure the clinicals have maximum impact later in
marketing. Do you agree?”
This is not the first general manager to believe that technical testing and marketing research
Putting marketing research people in a clinical research group is also not new. But the
The fact is, the approach probably has never been given a fair trial anywhere, and perhaps
it never will. Technical people necessarily guard their responsibilities carefully–they are usually
under-budgeted too, and always short of time. They can be expected to put their interests first.
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