This course will be delivered remotely over several days.

MODULES

Four, 3.25 hour modules. Each highly interactive module consists of a lecture session with Q&A built in; a team exercise designed to help participants understand and ‘digest’ the material; and then an in-depth discussion and consultative session with Dr. Cooper, focused on implementation.

OVERVIEW

Do you face these challenges?

• Our new-product idea-to-launch or gating system seems broken – too much bureaucracy, too cumbersome, too slow, not flexible enough.
• We’ve herd about Agile development in the IT World, but are not sure how to apply its methods to our physical new products.
• It takes forever for our new-product projects to get to market. How can we speed them up without magnifying the risks?
• Our development pipeline is too full – we don’t know how to say no. How can we be more selective about development projects and also consistently pick the winners?
• Digital transformation is forcing us into bold, ambiguous projects with both a hardware and software component. We struggle with managing these complex “software/hardware” projects. . . is it Agile or Stage-Gate?

If so, then this workshop is right for you!

THE ISSUES

Coming out of the Pandemic, new products will be more important than ever. We learned that from the last Great Recession:

A Harvard Business Review study revealed that 17% of businesses did not survive the Recession, and the survivors were painfully slow to recover (80% had not regained their pre-recession growth rates 3 years after). Some firm elected a strictly defensive strategy, cutting costs in order to survive, but did not do well. However, the firms that elected the right balance between defensive and offensive fared the best. Such firms cut costs and improved operational efficiencies, but they also developed new markets and invested to enlarge their asset bases. And they increased spending on R&D and marketing, which yielded only modest benefits during the recession, but helped to increase sales and profits afterward.

Most businesses have ambitious new-product objectives. But often the business falls short. And too many new-product projects fail to achieve their sales and profit targets or have little impact on the business. However, there are consistent and proven ways to dramatically improve performance – do you know what they are?

• Find out what the seven most important success drivers are – the ones that separate winning businesses from the rest? And see how they can be implemented in your business.
• See how a world class idea-to-launch Stage-Gate system can and should work… the fifth-generation process. Most businesses have a gating system in place, but it’s obsolete, too heavy with bureaucracy, and not very agile. How can your Stage-Gate process be accelerated, and made agile and adaptive? And what have the best companies done here to modernize their new-product systems?
• Agile methods work well in the software world. Now leading physical-product firms are implementing Agile as part of their existing Stage-Gate systems. See how and with what results, and see how this Agile-Stage-Gate model works for hardware/software digital products? And how does one solve the challenges in moving to an Agile-Stage-Gate system?
• Effective portfolio management is one of the keys to success in product innovation – making the right R&D investment decisions. Often having too many projects underway, or the wrong projects, is the root cause of underperformance. But there are proven ways to achieve the right focus, pick the right projects for development, and optimize your development portfolio. Do you employ these methods?

RECOMMENDED FOR:

This seminar is designed for executives and senior managers, as well as, innovation managers and B2B manufacturing businesses who are responsible for maximizing the returns on their innovation efforts in the fields of:

• Business Development
• R&D
• Product Management
• Marketing and Operations Management

Several people a each company are encouraged to attend as a team to better enable implementation of concepts learned.

FORMAT:

This live virtual workshop will be held in four 3.25 -hour sessions. Small group break outs will allow peer interaction and instructor feedback.

CONTENT:

The topics and four modules are:

Module 1:  Innovation Challenges and the Critical Success Drivers in New Product Development, How a Best-in Class NPD Stage-Gate Process Works

• Key challenges in new-product development and how to deal with them
• Winners versus losers – what do the best firms do differently
• The seven most important practices to build into your new-product methods . . . with examples and illustrations on how to do this
• What the best new-product idea-to-launch systems look like, and how they work . . . with illustrations from leading firms

Module 2:  5th Generation Stage-Gate – Iterative Development, Lean Development, Adaptive Models, Parallel Processing

• Adapting the system for different project types
• Iterative development, getting the product right the first time
• Cutting time-to-market in half by “leaning down” the system – using value stream analysis
• Accelerating innovation:  parallel processing, simultaneous execution

Module 3:  Agile Development and the Agile-Stage-Gate Hybrid Model

• Merging Agile Development with Stage-Gate – the best of both worlds
• Borrowing Agile methods from software for physical product development
• Applying Agile methods – sprints, scrums, backlogs and burndown charts — within your Stage-Gate system for both hardware and hardware/software projects
• Making Agile-Stage-Gate work in your businesses — dealing with the challenges, modifying to suit your business

Module 4:  Portfolio Management – Picking the Right Development Projects, Marking Solid R&D Investment Decisions

• Why financial methods often don’t work, and what to do then
• Effective project selection – best practice methods, including profiling, scorecards, and the Productivity Index
• Dealing with risk, uncertainty, project ambiguity
• Using Strategic Buckets to get the right mix and balance of projects
• Putting a limit on the number of projects – focus – focus – focus

INSTRUCTOR:

Dr. Robert G. Cooper is one of the most influential innovation thought leaders in the business world today. He pioneered the original research that led to many ground-breaking discoveries including the Stage-Gate Idea-to-Launch process. He has published more than 140 academic articles and 11 books, including the best-selling Winning at New Products. Cooper is a Fellow of the PDMA, ISBM Distinguished Research Fellow at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, and Professor Emeritus, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Many companies in North America, Europe, and Asia have introduced his methods, such as: 3M, Alcoa, BASF, Bayer, BSH, Carlsberg, Caterpillar, Dow Chemical, DuPont, ExxonMobil Chemicals, Henkel, Hewlett Packard, Honeywell, Kraft Foods, Microsoft, LEGO, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Tetra Park, VISA, Voith Paper, Volvo Construction, and many others.

PRICING

• Member:  $1950.00
• Non-Member:  $2450.00