| 5 Ways to NPD Team Harmony | |
How to Apply Conflict Management Styles
Today, we are looking in on a New Product Development (NPD) team meeting in Columbus, Ohio. We see a standard corporate meeting room: a whiteboard, blue fabric rolling chairs, a large table littered with papers and half-empty coffee cups, several buzzing and glowing laptop computers, and a small window with the blinds pulled shut so meeting participants can better view the endless PowerPoint slides projected on the screen opposite the window. " If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times," growls Bob, the technical expert on the Project Team. " Getting the battery design RIGHT is most important. I could care less about your schedule and your trade shows," he barks as he leans back in his chair and shoots a menacing glance at Chantella, seated across the table.
Gary, scratches his head and wonders where the team is headed. Manuel offers a compromise and Tara, seated away from the table, looks down and avoids the confrontation altogether.
How do Bob, Gary, Chantella, Manuel, and Tara move forward on the new product?
|
|
|
|
| Dear :
This month we offer 3 easy steps to effective  brainstorming. Too often, teams sit in meetings listening to endless presentations without the right tools & props, attitudes & teams, and objectives to effectively generate new product ideas.
Happy Brainstorming! |
|
Innovation Fun Fact | |
About the Globe
The spherical shape of the Earth was established by astronomy in the 3rd century BC, and the earliest terrestrial globe appeared from that period.
Early terrestrial globes depicting the entire Old World were constructed in the Islamic Golden Age. The oldest surviving terrestrial globe is credited to Martin Behaim in Nürnberg, Germany, in 1492. A globe showing America was made by Martin Waldseemueller in 1507. Another early  globe, the Hunt-Lenox Globe, ca. 1507, is thought to be the source of the phrase "Here be dragons." Another "remarkably modern-looking" terrestrial globe of the Earth was constructed by Taqi al-Din at the Istanbul observatory during the 1570s.
An unusually high proportion of vintage 20th century world globes feature the Australian town of Birdum, which no longer exists but once held an important position at the end of the Northern Australian Railway.*
Click on the photo of the antique globe to view a short video (approximately 2 minutes) on how globes are made.
*Wikipedia |
|
Reccommended Reading |
| |
Tools for Innovation
 Arthur Markman and Kristin Wood from the University of Texas, have compiled several papers on the psychology of creativity, breaking common misconceptions like "Thinking Outside the Box" instead of generating new ideas by joining old ideas together in new ways.
This is a recommended book for those who want to dig deeper into team thought processes and creativity.
Look for more upcoming book reviews in the Journal of Product Innovation Management ( www.PDMA.org). |
| Effective Brainstorming | |
Successful New Product Development (NPD) demands that firms meet market and customer needs. Brainstorming is a methodology that helps provide market guidance to the NPD project because it involves diverse people, gives  several points of view, and allows the NPD Team to get input from a large customer base. Customer interaction during the Fuzzy Front End of the innovation process is even more critical, and more useful, than in later stages of the New Product Development Process. Considering the high risk and uncertainty of breakthrough product development efforts, can streamline their innovation efforts by focusing on the compelling value to the customer. One way to do so is to bring customer interaction into the idea generation process by describing their wants and needs through Market Research.
Read more about Brainstorming here. (Approximately 8 minutes reading time) |
|
|
