Part 2 Key Concepts

Question 1

A re-look at the idea of an evolving product

Answer 1

1

Question 2

Ready made Products sources

Answer 2

Employees
End users, including lead users
Resellers, suppliers, vendors
Competitors, other manufacturers
The Invention industry (investors, industrial designers)
Idea exploration firms and consultants
Advertising agencies, marketing research firms
Universities, research labs and governments

Question 3

Crowdsourcing

Answer 3

Open idea solicitation from customers

Question 4

Lead users

Answer 4

Customers associated with a significant current trend. They are at front edge of the trend, have the best understanding of the problems faced and expect to gain significantly from the solutions to those problems.

Question 5

Open innovation

Answer 5

Process by which a firm searches for research, innovation, technologies and products

Seek external resources to complement their own internal resources

Question 6

Open innovation sources

Answer 6

Inventors, startup companies, university labs

Question 7

How do we best identify creative people?

Answer 7

Find individuals that that have a past trail of creative accomplishments.

Creativity can be measured by the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) Creativity Index. Based on: intuitive-sensory, perceiving-judging, extraverted-introverted and thinking-feeling.

Creative people are intuitive, perceiving, extraverted and thinking.

Question 8

Roadblocks to creativity

Answer 8

1. Groupthink: only coming up with ideas that the group will find acceptable.
2. Targeting errors: keep going back to the same simple demographic
3. Poor customer knowledge
4. Complexity: often believe that the more complex the idea, the better it is.
5. Lack of empathy: may not understand the “typical” customer they are trying to sell to because of the different lifestyle they live
6. Too many cooks: a small new product team works fine, but large companies especially are prone to internal competition for power and influence. This is not a healthy climate for a new product in the earliest phases of development.

Question 9

Barriers to firm creativity

Answer 9

1. Cross-functional diversity: diverse team means a variety of perspectives but can lead to difficulties in problem solving and information overload
2. Allegiance to functional areas: team members need to have a sense of belonging. If not, they will be loyal to functional area and not the team.
3. Social cohesion: if interpersonal ties between team members are too strong, candid debate might be replaced by friendly agreement
4. The role of top management: if senior management stresses continuous improvement, the team might stick with familiar product development strategies and make only incremental changes. Management should encourage the team to be adventurous and try newer ideas.

Question 10

Required inputs to the creation process

Answer 10

1. Form: the physical thing created, or for a service the set of steps by which the service will be created.
2. Technology: the source by which the form is to be attained
3. Benefit/need: what’s it doing for the customer

Innovation can start with any of the three inputs. Concepts require at least two.

Question 11

Product concept

Answer 11

A verbal or prototype statement of : what is going to be changed and how the customer stands to gain or lose.

Require two of the three inputs and need all three to have a new product

Question 12

Four sources of needs and problems of stakeholders

Answer 12

1. Internal records
2. Direct inputs from technical and marketing departments
3. Problem analysis
4. Scenario Analysis

Question 13

Internal records

Answer 13

Organization’s routine contacts with customers and others in the marketplace. Sales call reports, findings from customers and technical service departments and tips from resellers.

Question 14

Direct inputs from technical and marketing departments

Answer 14

Minds of marketing and technical people since they have spent time with customers and end users.

Problems:
Based on someone’s perception
There is a solution given with each suggestion

Question 15

Problem Analysis

Answer 15

Problem inventory.

Use experts, published sources, stakeholder contacts

Question 16

Reverse brainstorming

Answer 16

Participants generate a list of key problems with the product, then group and prioritize so product development can focus on addressing.

Step one: determine product or activity category
Step two: identify a group of heavy users
Step three: Gather a set of problems
Step four: sort and rank problems

Question 17

Scenario analysis

Answer 17

Ideal problem for us to find is one that customers or end users don’t know what they have at this time. Anticipate problems.

1. Extending the present to see what it will look like in the future
2. Leaping into the future to pick a period that is then described.

Question 18

Leap studies

Answer 18

Dynamic: the focus is on what changes must be made between now and then if the leap scenario is to come about.

Static: no concern about how we get there

Question 19

Wild cards

Answer 19

High-impact, low probability events. Assess the likelihoods of occurrence of the identified events and investigates the threats or new product opportunities they suggest.

Question 20

How to conduct a good scenario analysis

Answer 20

1. Know the now
2. Keep it simple
3. Be careful with selecting group members
4. Do an 8 to 10 year projection
5. Periodically summarize progress
6. Combine the factors causing changes
7. Check fit
8. Plan to use scenario analysis several times
9. Reuse group

Question 21

How to make brainstorming work

Answer 21

1. Mind the rules
2. Number the ideas
3. Jump and build: if you hit a plateau. the facilitator suggests a new direction
4. Get physical

Aim for group deliberations that are exploratory, evaluative in a constructive way.

Question 22

Online communities

Answer 22

Any group that interacts using a communications medium such as online social networking.

Can be used to gather information, gain consumer insight and target opportunities. Encourages consumer innovation.

Question 23

Disciplines Panel

Answer 23

Assemble experts from all relevant disciplines and have them discuss the problem.

Question 24

Problem-based ideation vs analytical attribute approaches

Answer 24

Problem-based approach is the best because product concepts found by the problem/solution route are most likely to have value for the user.

Analytical attribute analysis can create views of a product different from the usual ones.

Question 25

Product attribute

Answer 25

Features: what the product consists of Functions: what the product does and how it works Benefits: how the product provides satisfaction to the user. Can be broken down in an endless variety: uses, user. used with. user where etc. Occur in a sequence: a feature permits a certain function, which in turn leads to a benefit.

Question 26

Analytical attribute analysis

Answer 26

Allows us to create new product concepts by changing one or more of its current attributes, or by adding attributes and to assess the desirability of these concepts if they were to be developed into products.

Question 27

Gap analysis

Answer 27

Statistical technique with immense power under certain circumstances. Its maps of the market are use to determine how various products are perceived y how they are positioned on the market map.

Question 28

Gap map

Answer 28

Open spaces are gaps and a map that shows gaps. Made in three ways: 1. managerial expertise and judgement used to plot products on a map and make a determinant gap map 2. a manager uses customer attribute ratings to get data from users for an AR perceptual gap map 3. a manager uses overall similarities to get data from users for an OS perceptual gap map

Question 29

Determinant Gap Maps

Answer 29

May seem arbitrary and subject to managerial error, good place to start. Attributes need to be differentiating and important. Need to find a spot on the map where a gap offers potential as a new item. Speedy and cost-efficient, but they are driven by managerial judgement. Based on reality as viewed by the new products manager.

Question 30

Determinant attributes

Answer 30

Attributes that both differentiate and are important

Question 31

Attribute rating perceptual gap mapping

Answer 31

Asks market participants (buyers and users of product) to tell what attributes they believe products have. Based on marketplace perceptions of reality, which may or may not be accurate. 1. Set of attributes that describe the product category 2. Gather customer's perceptions of the available choices on each of the attributes (1 to 5 or 1 to 7 scales) 3. Ask customers which attributes are important in their purchases of products. Results in data cube. Phantom attributes can distort analysis.

Question 32

Factor analysis

Answer 32

Statistical technique used to reduce the large number of attributes to a small number of underlying dimensions, which can then serve as the axes of the perceptual map. Contains a set of attributes that "hang together"

Question 33

Cluster analysis

Answer 33

Used to group individual respondents together into benefit segments based on their preferences. Reduces the original number of respondents to a smaller number of clusters bases on their benefits.

Question 34

Perceptual gaps maps based on overall similarities

Answer 34

Perceptions of overall similarities between pairs of brands. Could rank the pairs from most similar to most dissimilar or rate pairs on a Likert type scale. Convert the customer data into a perceptual map. Use Multidimensional scaling to develop a perceptual map. Shows product position relative to each other. Used where it may be difficult for respondent to articulate or visualize.

Question 35

Failures of Gap Analysis

Answer 35

Input comes from questions on how brands differ Brands considered as sets of attributes; totalities, interrelationships overlooked, creations requiring a conceptual map Analysis and mapping may be history by the time data are gathered and analyzed.

Question 36

Trade-off Analysis

Answer 36

Analysis of the process by which customers compare and evaluate brands based on their attributes or features. Put the determinant attributes together in combinations or sets Respondents rank these sets in order of preference Conjoint analysis find the optimal levels of each attribute.

Question 37

Two-dimensional Matrix

Answer 37

Two attribute set (dimensions) are used

Question 38

Morphological Matrix, using 3 or 4 dimensions.

Answer 38

Simultaneously combines more than two dimensions.

Question 39

Dimensional Analysis

Answer 39

Uses any and all features, not just measurements of dimensions. Listing all of the physical features of a product type.

Question 40

Checklists

Answer 40

Can it be adapted? Can it be modified? etc Much time and effort can be spent culling the list.

Question 41

Conjoint Analysis

Answer 41

Analytical tool used to assess tradeoffs. Measures how buyers value components of a product/service bundle. Vary the product features to build many product concepts. Ask respondents to rate/rank those product concepts. Determine how much unique value each of the features added through regression analysis. Present realistic tradeoff scenarios.