GBUS 8447: Innovation and Product Development

SYLLABUS

 

Course Description

The focus of this course is on managing innovation and product development.  The course will expose students to the key steps in product development and the managerial challenges posed in each stage, ranging from identifying needs, through concept development via iterative design, to market launch of new products and services.  Using product development as a platform to launch a discussion on innovation, the course will investigate the key ingredients to innovation in any setting, including issues such as managing for creativity and problem solving, technology management, knowledge management and communication. 

The class will be a mix of case discussions, hands on exercises, and guest speakers with experience in corporate innovation, entrepreneurship and innovation consulting.  One week of the course will be devoted to an exercise in which student teams compete to design and market test a new product. Class time is geared towards helping students discover and manage the challenges and opportunities in managing innovation.

The objective of this course is to equip future managers with a mindset, ways of thinking and hands on methods that enable better management of innovation in any setting, including but not limited to product development.

You are expected to attend all classes and class related activities, and participation grading is based on your performance. The grade for this class will be based on class participation (50%), hands on exercises (25%) and a term paper (25%).

A day-by-day schedule follows.  The schedule is subject to change.

GBUS 8447: Innovation and Product Development
 CLASS SCHEDULE

 

Class 1:  Wednesday, October 17
Understanding User Needs and Identifying Market Opportunities

 Case
 Sweetwater, Inc. (HBS 9-695-026)
 

Readings
 "Naked Truth Meets Market Research: Perfecting a New Shower Head? Try Watching People Shower." Washington Post Article, Sunday, February 24, 2002.

 

Assignment

 1.    What are the most important user needs in the water purifier market?  Interview one or two wilderness enthusiasts that you know. Try to also go to an outdoor equipment store and check out their water purifiers.

2.    How can you structure this user needs data to help Sandy Platter in creating his product concept?

3.    Consider the design of your bathroom shower head.  What needs does it meet?  What needs does it not meet?  How could you improve this design?

4.    Bring to class a poorly designed product.  Be prepared to critique its design. 


Class 2:  Thursday, October 18
Lead Users as a Source of Innovation

 

Case
Innovation at 3M Corporation (A) (HBS 9-699-012)

 

Assignment

 

1.   How has 3M’s innovation process evolved since the company was founded? Why, if at all, does 3M, known as the “hothouse of innovation”, need to regain its historic closeness to the customer?

2.   How does the lead user research process differ from and complement other traditional market research methods?

3.   Has the Medical-Surgical team applied the lead user process successfully? Why or why not?

4.   What should the Medical-Surgical lead user team recommend to Dunlop: the three new product concepts or a new business strategy? What are the risks to the new lead user process at 3M? What are the risks to the Medical-Surgical business unit?

 

Optional Reading

“Customers as Innovators: A New Way to Create Value”, by Stefan Thomke and Eric von Hippel, Harvard Business Review, April 2002.


                                               

Class 3:  Friday, October 19
Setting the Context for Innovation

 

Case
 IDEO: Service Design (A) INSEAD Case 02/2006-5276

 

Reading
 “Who do I listen to? The Role of the Customer in Product Evolution”, by Kamalini Ramdas, Michael Meyer and Taylor Randall, Forthcoming in The Handbook of New Product Development, Edited by C. Loch and S. Kavadias, Elsevier Press.

Assignment:

1.    What are the overarching steps that can be used to approach any innovation project? Critique IDEO’s five step process.

2.    If you were in Peter Coughlan’s shoes, how would you tackle the project given to you? Are there any specific methods (used by IDEO or invented by you) that you would use at different stages?

3.    Think of some examples of innovations that originated from the fringes of a market, particularly disruptive or resonant innovations. 

                                                           

 Optional Reading

Chapter 5 of “The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth”, by C. M. Christensen and M. E. Raynor, 2003.


 

Class 4:  Wednesday, October 24

Concept Generation, Testing and Selection

 

Reading

Chapter 2, "Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small", Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres, Harvard Business School Press, 2003.

 

Assignment
Think of examples of techniques that have made you, personally, more creative.

 

We will do a creativity and idea generation exercise in class.

 

Class 5:  Thursday, October 25

Service Innovation


Case
TBA

 

Assignment

TBA

 

Class 6:  Wednesday, October 31

TruVu – An Exercise in Innovation

 

Guest Speaker

Scott Creighton, Vice President of New Ventures and Alternative Distribution, Johnson & Johnson.

 

Scott Creighton will speak about the innovation process, in the context of TruVu.

 

Reading:

“Connect and Develop: Inside Procter & Gamble's New Model for Innovation”, by Larry Hustin and Nabil Sakkab, Harvard Business Review, March 2006.

 

 

Class 7:  Thursday, November 1
Identifying Innovation Opportunities through Analyzing Visual Data

 

Camera Journal Exercise

In this class we will debrief on a camera journal exercise and examine how in-depth observation and asking respondents to provide non-verbal responses can result in elicitation of latent needs.

 

 

Class 8:  Wednesday, November 7 

Managing Design: From Ideas to Market

 

Videoconference Guest Speaker
John Nottingham, Co-Owner, Nottingham-Spirk Design Associates
 (http://www.ns-design.com/), Co-Developer of Proctor & Gamble's Spin Brush Electric Toothbrush

Readings
 “Playing Around with Brainstorming”, by Michael Schrage, Harvard Business Review, March 2001.

 

Class 9:  Thursday, November 8
Intellectual Property

 

Guest Speaker

David E. Martin, CEO, M-CAM.

David Martin will speak about issues related to intellectual property.

 

Class 10: Wednesday, November 14

In-Class Exercise: Design of an Everyday Product

In this class we will kick off a two-session in-class team exercise on designing a new type of bag using Tyvek.  We will cover identification of user needs and concept generation.

 

Readings:

TBA

 

Class 11: Thursday, November 15

In-Class Exercise: Design of an Everyday Product

 

In this class we will wrap up the two-session in-class team exercise on designing a new type of bag using Tyvek.  We will cover concept selection, prototyping, and design launch.

 

Readings:

TBA

 


Class 12:  Wednesday, November 28
Managing Global Innovation Projects

Case:
Siemens AG: Global Development Strategy (A)

Assignment:
Please read the case and prepare the following questions.

1.    How would you characterize Siemens’ global development strategy?  Why does it have RDCs all around the world?

2.    What are the differences in management issues at RDCs in India, Germany and the US?

3.    What is wrong with the NetManager Project from the Bangalore and Munich perspectives?

4.    How should corporate management respond to the NetManager crisis? 

 

Class 13:  Thursday, November 29

Analyzing Competitive Products with a View to Innovation

 

In-Class Exercise
In this class we will perform an in-class exercise focused on designing a product to meet goals such as design for manufacturing, cost reduction, higher variety, etc.

 

Reading
TBA

 

 

Class 14:  Thursday, December 6

Managing Uncertainty in the Innovation Process

Case:
Product Development at Dell Computer Corp. (HBS 9-699-010)

Assignment:
 Please read the Dell Product Development Case and prepare the following questions.

1.    Which battery option should Holliday’s team select?  Stay with the proven Ni-Hi battery technology?  Or go with the new LiOn battery technology under development at Sony?  Or should they defer the decision until the qualification phase review?

2.    What is the basis of your recommendation?

 

Class 15:  Friday, December 7
Class Wrap Up

 

Assignment:

Come prepared to share your key learnings from the class.

 

Final Paper
Due Date: Friday, December 7, 5:00 pm

Submit a short paper (max 5 pages double spaced in 12 font) describing what you learned in this class. You may choose to focus on a specific area that we covered, critique one of the readings, or describe how a technique or way of thinking learned in this class could be applied in a particular industry setting.