JOURNAL 2
twinkle22
352DP-Ch-14.pptChapter 14
Development Team Management
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Options in New Products Organization
1. Functional: work done by departments with little project focus:
- new products committee or product planning committee.
- Low innovation.
2. Functional Matrix: A specific multi- department team with more project focus and short term project objectives:
- Team members think/act as functional specialists.
- Departments call the shots.
3. Balanced Matrix: Between functional and project focus:
- Many firms are successful.
- May lead to indecision and delay.
4. Project Matrix: Teams are project focused first and functional second:
- People may put project needs over department’s needs.
5. Venture: Team members pulled out of department to work full time on project.
Figure 14.1
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Projectizagion
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
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Examples of 100% Dedicated Venture Teams
- Lockheed’s “Skunkworks” was located outside of the company for researchers to concentrate on key innovation targets.
- BMW sent designers from California and Munich to their “Bank” design center in London to learn Rolls-Royce culture and develop the Phantom.
- The BMW Z4 sport coupe was similarly designed by a dedicated venture team.
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Difficulties with Venture or Matrix Structures
- Venture teams can be difficult to establish and/or manage – causing firms to revert to more lightweight approaches.
- Matrix structures are notoriously difficult to manage, can get complex, and can incur high overhead.
- In the extreme, matrix structures can even be detrimental to innovation.
- Encouraging and maintaining cooperation among team members is important, and can be difficult.
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Considerations when Selecting an Organizational Option
- High projectization encourages more cross-functional integration.
- If state-of-the-art functional expertise is critical to project success (e.g., in a scientific specialty such as fluid dynamics), a less projectization, functional teams may be better:
- encouraging the development of high-level technical expertise.
- If individuals will be part of the project for only a short time, it functional teams may be better.
- If speed to market is critical, higher projectization is preferable:
- as project teams are usually able to coordinate their activities and resolve conflicts more quickly and with less bureaucracy. PC makers often use project teams, as they are under severe time pressure.
Figure 14.2
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Who Are the Team Members?
- Core Team: manage functional clusters (e.g., marketing, R&D, manufacturing)
- Are active throughout the new products process.
- Ad Hoc Group: support the core team (e.g., packaging, legal, logistics)
- Are important at intervals during the new products process.
- Extended Team Members: less critical members (e.g., from other divisions)
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Building a Team
- Establishing a Culture of Collaboration
- Team Assignment and Ownership
- Empowered product champion
- Selecting the Leader
- A good general manager
- Selecting the Team Members
- Core and extended team members skills and functional expertise
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Roles and Participants
- Project Manager
- Leader, integrator, mediator, judge
- Translator, coordinator
- Project Champion
- Supporter and spokesperson
- May be the project manager
- Enthusiastic but play within the rules
- Sponsor
- Senior executive who lends encouragement and endorsement to the champion
- Rationalist
- The “show-me” person
- Strategist
- Longer-range
- Managerial -- often the CEO
- Spelled out the Product Innovation Charter
- Inventor
- Creative scientist
- “Basement inventor” -- may be a customer, ad agency person, etc.
- Idea source
- Coach
- Fosters individual/team development
- Resolution of conflicts (Storming)
- Facilitates Norming standards
Figure 14.3
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Issues in Team Management
- Cross-functional interface management
- Overcoming barriers to market orientation (information flow across functional areas)
- Ongoing management of the team
- Team compensation and motivation
- Monetary vs. non-monetary rewards?
- Process-based vs. outcome-based rewards?
- Closing the team down
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Five Conflict Management Styles
Figure 14.6
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Conflict Management Style
Definition
Example
Confrontation
Collaboratively solve the problem to reach a solution the parties are committed to.
Debate the issue, conduct customer interviews, generate possible solutions, find the one most supported by customers.
Give and Take
Reach a compromise solution that the parties find acceptable.
Negotiate a set of features to build into the product, to keep the project moving ahead.
Withdrawal
Avoid the issue, or the disagreeable party.
Team members with unpopular positions don't think it's worth the trouble, and back out of the decision.
Smoothing
Minimize the differences and find a superficial solution.
Accommodate to the team members that are strongly committed to certain product features, for the sake of group harmony.
Forcing
Impose a solution.
Project manager steps in and makes the decisions.
Source: Adapted from David H. Gobeli, Harold F. Koenig, and Iris Bechinger, "Managing Conflict in Software Development Teams: A Multi-Level Analysis," Journal of Product Innovation Management, Vol. 15, No. 5, September 1998, pp. 423-435.
Managing GDT (Globally Dispersed Teams)
- Reasons for growth:
- Increasing product complexity
- Accelerated product life cycles
- Multicultural group should lead to greater creativity and problem solving, as long as communication barriers can be overcome
- Issues:
- Levels of language skills among team members
- Physical distance among team members
- Cultural differences among team members
- Difficulties in competing design reviews
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Successful Virtual Global Teams
- Boeing: used Web-based systems to integrate rocket engine designers and partner firms across several locations worldwide.
- Xerox uses the Web to integrate designers in Rochester, NY, engineers in Shanghai, and manufacturing plants in Hong Kong.
- Ford uses global platforms to support multiple brands where each group does the engineering on one system for all vehicles
- (e.g., one group does the exhaust system for all cars sold globally on the same platform). Ford claims to have achieved 60% savings in engineering costs as well as successful launches.
- Digital’s global team has members in U.S. (several locations), Switzerland, France, and Japan; uses audio conferencing for early, casual discussion followed by computer conferencing at stages.
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Some Insights on Global Innovation From Senior Executives
- Idea Generation:
- Leverage global knowledge.
- Source ideas from customers, employees, distributors, etc.
- Product Development:
- Focus on incremental vs. home run breakthroughs.
- Share development costs.
- Use standardization to better manage global operations.
- Commercialization:
- Early vs. late entrant decision.
- Consider local support/local partner.
Figure 14.7
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Conflict Management Style
Definition
Example
Confrontation
Collaboratively solve the problem
to reach a solution the parties are
committed to.
Debate the issue, conduct
customer interviews, generate
possible solutions, find the one
most supported by customers.
Give and Take
Reach a compromise solution that
the parties find acceptable.
Negotiate a set of features to
build into the product, to keep the
project moving ahead.
Withdrawal
Avoid the issue, or the
disagreeable party.
Team members with unpopular
positions don't think it's worth the
trouble, and back out of the
decision.
Smoothing
Minimize the differences and find
a superficial solution.
Accommodate to the team
members that are strongly
committed to certain product
features, for the sake of group
harmony.
Forcing
Impose a solution.
Project manager steps in and
makes the decisions.
Source: Adapted from David H.
Gobeli, Harold F.
Koenig, and Iris Bechinger, "Managing Conflict in
Software Development Teams: A Multi-Level Analysis,"
Journal of Product Innovation Management
, Vol.
15, No. 5, September 1998, pp. 423-435.
