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The Importance of a Teaming Vision for Successful New Product Development
By harveyrobbins | February 27, 2008
I’ve got some good news and some bad. The bad news is that we’re lost. The good news is that we’re making great time.
The point of this old saw is that team talent, efficiency, intelligence, and clout are pretty useless unless the new product development team has some clue where it is going and how it is to contribute to the organization’s overall New Product Development strategy and process for success.
We’re talking about vision here, one of the most misunderstood and misapplied ideas making the rounds now. Vision is not a “vision statement”. It is not something created in hindsight, with an eye toward external consumption. It is not something you pay consultants $450 an hour to create for you at a weekend retreat by a warm fireplace and cash bar. It is not printed in bronze ink on a report to shareholders or in a guarantee to customers. It is not really words at all. It is a burning thought, and it exists solely in the heads (and hearts) of the team whose sole purpose is to innovate. Innovate in terms of collaborative new product development processes.
Fulfilling the vision is the thing the new product development team exists to do; defined in ambitious form. It is the thing that team leadership makes happen. Without team vision, there is no point to a new product development team. You don’t just create in a vacuum. The new product development team innovates in the direction of the organization’s vision.
Vision begins at the highest level, setting the course for the enterprise as a whole. With the help of leadership it trickles down to the new product development teams, uniting the subunits of the enterprise, creating collaboration throughout the enterprise, helping the new product development teams them figure out their role in the bigger picture.
The most common vision problem new product development teams have is one that is fundamentally beyond their control: the team has a vision, but the enterprise doesn’t. It is a sad thing, but no amount of ambition, intelligence, and hard work at the trench level can succeed if the vision of the organization as a whole is a drag. “Returning the greatest possible return on investment to our shareholders” is the best-known offender.
Vision is the offspring of hunger. Companies that have succeeded in the past and had a vision in the past may think the old vision is still in effect. But in many cases it is gone, rubbed clean by the passage of time, complacency in high places, and the high-gloss buffing of corporate communication types. The vision must be re-energized periodically or it dies; becomes wallpaper written on a dusty plaque.
It is not until a company hits hard times (like now), some rude awakening in the marketplace, that it learns it must have a clue why it is in business. This is a perilous moment. Companies in peril, sensing that they need to stand for something, have a tendency to try to stand for a lot of different things in rapid succession. The resulting wheel-spinning, drum-beating, and horn-blowing can be devastating to that organization’s new product development teams. They are like fish in a blender, doing their best against woeful odds. Where do we innovate? What do we need to focus on for new product development? Help me. Help me.
Having a clearly communicated vision, on the other hand, allows both employees and new product development team members to measure their values and behaviors against a company standard. If there is a value clash, people are free to modify their values or leave. If your personal values are contrary to the direction of new product development directions (for example, I may be against war and, therefore, do not want to work on a team designing new weapon products), the team may be better off without you. Not that you are deadwood, but because your resistance to the vision and direction of the new product development team may have a dragging effect on productivity and morale.
In conclusion, then, it is a must for new product development teams to know why they are in existence. Knowing where they fit into and align with the vision of the company keeps them from going off and working on non-productive projects. It reduces personal frustrations and prevents new product development efforts from wasting time and money. And, like I said at the beginning, it doesn’t matter if you’re making great time, if you’re lost. That’s why vision is so important to new product development success.
Topics: New Product Development Process |