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2019 | Book

Mastering Disruption and Innovation in Product Management

Connecting the Dots

Authors: Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Book Series : Management for Professionals

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About this book

This book is an essential guide or foundational toolkit for anyone who is involved in the process of developing, offering or selling any type of product or service. Based on How to surf on the waves of innovation and the principle of “form follows function” (System Architecture), it introduces and connects concepts like Market Understanding,Design Thinking, Design to Value, Modularization and Agility. It introduces readers to the essence of these main frameworks and provides a toolkit that explains both theoretically and practically when and how to utilize which one. The methods and processes described in this book have all been successfully tested in many industries. They apply in today’s market context of high uncertainty, complexity and turbulence, where innovation and disruption are essential. Readers will find answers to two fundamental questions: How can we implement an innovation process and environment that are conducive to successful product design? And, if our products fail to appeal to customers, how can we achieve a major turn-around with regard to product development?

A wealth of examples and case studies help readers to benefit from the authors’ broad professional experience. Further, lessons learned and conceptual summaries provide valuable shortcuts to the methods and tools discussed.

For today’s CEOs, enabling innovation is one of THE most complex leadership tasks.

But innovation is not about theory and nice buzzwords. It’s about succeeding in the real world. This ‘hands-on’ book connects the dots and introduces the reader to some of the most relevant ideas and pragmatic concepts fitting today’s business reality.

Dr. Robert Neuhauser, Executive VP and Global Head People and

Leadership Development, Siemens

At the most fundamental level this book brings order to chaos. It sets different and highly relevant design approaches into a complementary picture, rather than presenting them as competing ways of solving the same problem. Product designers, managers, consultants, scholars and students will surely have this valuable book within reach on a daily basis.

Olivier L. de Weck, Ph.D – MIT Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and

Engineering Systems, Editor-in-Chief Systems Engineering.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
1. Introduction
Abstract
The first idea for writing this book was born around 4 years ago, as it repeatedly turned out that storytelling helped many people to better understand the big picture of the “why, what and how” in projects. Working in the field of innovation for more than 20 years in a high tech company has been a long road and a great journey. Rather than writing a book from an expert to experts, we envisioned sharing the accumulated experience with all those people who want to understand how to “connect the dots”. With a kind of travel guide through the journey of innovation and disruption, we aimed to combine fostering deep understanding about the “dots” with the ability for practical application. So we jointly started off this undertaking in order to lay out a vivid and illustrative travel story that speaks to a wide audience: Learnings can be applied to all kinds of businesses, ranging from startups to big corporations. Whilst reading, we hope that you will see our travel motto of:
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen

Part I

Frontmatter
2. Disruptive Innovation
Abstract
Imagine the following: your customers love the products, services and performance you deliver, and your competitors are years behind you in terms of performance. You seem invincible, which sales numbers only seem to confirm because your company is breaking one growth record after the other. It truly seems that you are riding on a wave of continuous luck and success, with your teams over-performing and customers valuing your offering. There just truly are no signs anywhere that something could go wrong! Or at least you think so.
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen
3. Form Follows Function: Systems Engineering
Abstract
When we look into all systems that work incredibly efficient, we can discover a fascinating pattern: their form (shape, configuration, size, used materials) always derives from a specific function (to protect, move, store, inspire). In these instances, form naturally derives from trying to best fulfil a core purpose, and not vice versa! This law of “form follows function” seems to be a natural strategy for success. Functions do not only have to be practical; a water boiler might have the technical function to heat water, yet a very artistic water boiler which is intentioned to inspire an audience would still follow the form follows function mantra, if onlookers find it valuable and inspirational due to its design. In this case, the water boiler’s form fulfils its set function and thus abides this law.
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen

Frameworks

Frontmatter
4. Market Understanding
Abstract
According to Clayton Christensen, 95% of new products fail. The reason is a lacking understanding of the market, as by using an ineffective market segmentation mechanism (in Nobel 2011). The root problem is not even a missing understanding about customers per se, but about the “job” that the customer is trying to get done by “hiring” a product (Christensen, Hall, Dillon, & Duncan, 2016). When unaware or oblivious to also more hidden customer needs, we run danger of designing products that do not help customers effortlessly get their “job done” at all, because we just don’t address what they care about. We consequentially run into non-harmonious states when missing the overall purpose of product design, being to build solutions that customers love. Of course it is in our human nature to falsely believe that we belong to the 5% that do most things right, intuitively sense and know what customers really need… but what a surprise, reality often teaches us otherwise! Reality is that often we actually do not know what jobs customers are hiring a product for. We misunderstand or miss entirely what their foundational needs are, measure them along the wrong dimensions, or mix them up with more delighting nice to haves. This chapter aims to show the multi-faceted ways in which a market segmentation can be used along all phases of product development, from strategic to architecturally relevant decisions, and how to do a market segmentation. Using a structured approach to unearth customers’ jobs to be done, the used methodology has been developed from rich experience gathered by our consulting teams whilst working in various industries. Of course the concepts explored here perfectly complement the focus of Design Thinking on empathically understanding customers, in order to create a comprehensive picture of what is going on in a dedicated market as a whole.
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen
5. Creating Customer Value Through Design Thinking
Abstract
It is a given that the modern world creates business challenges that can no longer be solved by traditional, linear problem solving. In these circumstances of high fluctuation and turbulence, standard solutions often fail to fulfill expectations because traditional approaches are just not made for this different type of problem. In sub-optimal circumstances we become eager to again make progress, yearning to find new ways and waves of success, to turn ever-more tough external challenges into ripe, fruitful business opportunities. In order to do so, Design Thinking becomes a powerful way for embarking on a journey of creating breakthrough new concepts. It helps us to get unstuck in times of great uncertainty and challenge, making the typically fuzzy front-end of innovation more structured and likely to be successful. The risk one has to take is that outcomes are uncertain. The reward could be coming up with radically new, disruptive, meaningful products, services or experiences that change the world for the better. Comprehensive, human-centred understanding is the starting point for any endeavour requiring creative innovation. Later, we can then better generate, prototype and test solutions for identified problems in an agile, iterative way. Linking especially to Christensen’s job to be done theory, Chap. 4 on Market Understanding and Chap. 8 on Agile, we now aim to explore how to come up with meaningful solutions to systemic, complex problems by understanding our customers and their true needs better via Design Thinking. Therefore we will now focus on one core strength and the first phase of the approach: to build meaningful relationships and communications with the relevant stakeholders (e.g. users, customers, external or internal decision makers) involved in a project context. This matters because just a holistic and deep understanding of people’s needs leads us to identify the right problems and questions to solve in the first place, and later helps us work on developing concepts in a way that will truly make a meaningful, impactful difference.
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen
6. Design to Value (DTV)
Abstract
In our highly competitive world it becomes ever more important that products address what customers value in various circumstances. Asking around in your office or home environment, you can immediately find out that for a given product or service, value is very subjective. It is difficult to establish the value of a product because for one and the same product, different people will apply different criteria to assess if they would receive a good or bad value in return for their invested money. Price is measured in numbers and is obvious to each consumer, yet what is value?
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen
7. Modular Design and Platforms
Abstract
Henry Ford once famously announced that “any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants as long as it is black.” A century later, the global manufacturing environment has changed drastically. Customers are not just looking to buy a car, but want to have a car that meets their unique personal preferences! The trends of mass production in the 1900s and the mass customization in the 1980s have been succeeded by mass personalization. The next shift will probably be to move towards co-creation and empowering customers to take part in the product design process. In any case, customers nowadays have the power to push companies for unique and personalized products at mass-production prices.
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen
8. Agile for Mechatronics and Hardware
Abstract
Agile has become a buzzword and is considered by many a synonym for being hip and up-to-date in regards to how processes, projects and products are successfully implemented. Its wave of success is undeniable (Rigby, Sutherland, & Takeuchi, 2016). Yet in practice and deep down, agile still remains a fuzzy concept and cloudy mystery to many. Although quick to be associated with youthful words such as being flexible and adaptable to change, a profound understanding for the topic is not always present. How to know what truly creates and drives bottom line impact? When interdependencies between systems and processes are high, this question becomes much tougher to answer. As reality looks like this most of the time, this question however deserves to be answered with clarity.
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen

Part III

Frontmatter
9. Framework Tutorials
Abstract
In the framework tutorial chapter we aim to apply the discussed frameworks and togehter work through concrete deep dives on how to do it in practice via described step by step processes. These frameworks are Market Understanding, Design Thinking, Design to Value and Modularization. We start of with looking at how the concept of “jobs” and “circumstances” can be used in practice to derive both the criteria on how to break down a market into distinct segments, and to develop a deep understanding of the customer needs in each particular segment. With a methodological framework that puts Christensen’s concept into the context of product development, we will explore and illustrate the specific way on how to derive customers’ jobs to be done, their circumstances, as well as answer technical and architecturally relevant questions. To do so and make learnings more tangible, we will use a case study to exemplify how methodology can be used in practice. The overall methodology (see Fig. 9.1) is thus worked through via an example from a Dutch company producing “Omafiets” bicycles.
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen

Tools

Frontmatter
10. Power Tools
Abstract
Power tools comprehend three methodologies that are very powerful and described in quite some detail for practical application. Firstly, Quality Function Deployment (QFD): We see it as the pre-decessor or mother to important frameworks such as Design to Value and Modularization, especially due to its focus on cross-functional collaboration and combining perspectives from the market and technical realm. Secondly, Design Space Exploration (DSE): Whenever you need to diverge the solution space, be it for idea and concept generation, problem solving or solution finding, this tool is very useful. Thirdly, Design Structure Matrix (DSM): Its not a simple one, but a key methodology for visualizing and optimizing dependencies between components of a complex system such as within products, teams, organization or processes.
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen
11. Essential Tool Box
Abstract
This chapter focuses on essential tools that have proven to be effective in the requirement, concept and cost phase of product development. They are written in a short, crisp and “how to” way, in order to allow for simple application in projects.
Christoph Fuchs, Franziska J. Golenhofen
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Mastering Disruption and Innovation in Product Management
Authors
Christoph Fuchs
Franziska J. Golenhofen
Copyright Year
2019
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-93512-6
Print ISBN
978-3-319-93511-9
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93512-6