Front End Management
Big Idea
n many organizations the pressure on the Product Development Process (PDP) has increased through the demand of greater product varieties and shorter lifecycles. Organizations aim for a structured way of speeding up the Product Development Process while not loosing effective scoping in the identification of market needs. Often they have succeeded in structuring the procedure using the Stage Gate Process - or a customized version of it. [1] Yet the application of the Stage Gate Process has shown that it depends largely on the tools applied. Since all innovations, incremental and radical, bring market, technological and organizational uncertainties, which only vary in their intensity, it is key for the project manager to select suitable tools to manage them.[2] Especially during the initial stages of the Product Development Process - the Fuzzy Front End - the uncertainties are highest accompanied with the severeness of the decisions taken during this period. To release some pressure from the project management in the Fuzzy Front End the application of the Delphi Method, Quality Function Deployment and Risk Assessment is proposed. If applied in a flexible way and in combination with other tool these methods can answer to each type of uncertainty and guide the project management to success in effective and efficient product development.
"missing graph"
The Management of Innovation can be divided roughly into 4 stages:
- Search - Finding opportunities for innovations
- Select - Selecting the ideas to pursuit
- Implement - Development of the product and launching it on the market
- Capture Value - Capturing value from the innovation
On one hand most of the parameters for the later success or failure are set in the first two stages. On the other hand project managers are reluctant to make fast decisions because these stages are characterized with the highest risk and uncertainty levels of the whole process of innovation. The Search phase involves detecting signals in the environment like e.g. technological opportunities or changing requirements in the market. Here opportunities can be easily overseen. In the Select phase the inputs from the Search phase are distilled and very few converted into innovation concepts. Based on these concepts the whole organizational mechanism can now implement the innovation and capture value. [4] Hence in Innovation Management the Fuzzy Front End is considered the period between when an opportunity for a new product is first considered, i.e. the Search Phase, until the concept if the innovation enters the formal product development process, i.e. the Select Phase. [5]
Innovation management distinguishes two types of innovations: incremental and radical. Incremental innovations are characterized by minor changes in existing products which cumulatively improve their performance. [6] The Fuzzy Front End is characterized by a comparably low level of uncertainties since; an earlier version of the product is already on the market, the market is known to the company and risks like the technical feasibility or market adaption can be estimated therefore quite well. [7]
Radical Innovations on the other hand, also breakthrough innovations or discontinuous innovation, completely change the nature of the product and bring a very high degree of novelty. These innovations often change the rules of their industry through opening up new opportunities but also challenging the existing players to reframe their operations. Therefore the Fuzzy Front End of this type of innovation is characterized through a high degree of market and technological uncertainties. Furthermore they often have to "fight" for the internal acceptance within the company and bring therefore organizational uncertainty.[6][8]
