Shooting the Rapids: Managing Product Development in Turbulent Environments

See Iansiti Marco , “Managing Chaos: System Focused Product Development in the Computer and Multimedia Environment,” in Colliding Worlds (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1995) for more detail on both the empirical analysis and the case studies.

The field of product development has received a lot of recent academic attention. See, for example, Allen T.J. , Managing the Flow of Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977); Cooper R.G. , “A Process Model for Industrial New Product Development,” IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 30/1 (1983); Cooper Robert G. , “Stage-Gate Systems: A New Tool for Managing New Products,” Business Horizons (May/June 1990); Clark Kim B. Fujimoto T. , Product Development Performance (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press 1991); Wheelwright Steven C. Clark Kim B. , Revolutionizing Product Development (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1992); Cusumano Michael A. Nobeoka Kentaro , “Strategy, Structure and Performance in Product Development: Observations from the Auto Industry,” Research Policy (1992), pp. 265–293; Bowen H. Kent Clark Kim B. Holloway Charles Wheelwright Steven C. , eds., The Perpetual Enterprise Machine (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1994); Clausing Don , Total Quality Development: A Step-By-Step Guide to World Class Concurrent Engineering (New York, NY: ASME Press, 1994); Ulrich K. T. Eppinger S. D. , Product Design and Development (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1994); Eisenhardt Kathleen M. Tabrizi B. , “Accelerating Adaptive Processes: Product Innovation in the Global Computer Industry,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 40/1 (March 1995): 84–110.

See, for example, Wheelwright Clark , op. cit.

The concept is described in Iansiti Marco , “Real-World R&D: Jumping the Product Generation Gap,” Harvard Business Review (May/June 1993). For more details, also see Iansiti Marco , “Science-Based Product Development: An Empirical Study of the Mainframe Computer Industry,” Production and Operations Management (1995; Iansiti Marco , “Technology Integration: Managing Technological Evolution in a Complex Environment,” Research Policy (1995).

See the works cited in note 1.

See, for example, Cooper (1983 and 1990), op. cit. His “stage gate” model breaks the process down in seven sequential stages, the first three aimed at idea generation, preliminary assessment, and concept development and the last four aimed at implementation (via development, testing, trial and launch).

Clark Fujimoto (1991), op. cit., argued that the faster the speed, the higher the productivity of resources.

Tyre Marcie J. Orlikowski Wanda J. , “Windows of Opportunity: Creating Occasions for Technological Adaptation in Organizations,” Sloan Management Review (1994); Iansiti , op. cit.

The structure of design decisions has been studied by several authors. Clark Kim B. , “The Interaction of Design Hierarchies and Market Concepts in Product Development,” Research Policy, 14 (1985): 235–251; Von Hippel Eric “Task Partitioning: An Innovation Process Variable,” Research Policy, 19 (1990): 407–418. Several authors have also emphasized the value of iteration and responsiveness in product and process development. See, for example, Tyre Marcie J. Von Hippel Eric , “Situated Trial and Error Learning in Organizations,” MIT, Sloan School of Management Working Paper, 1993; Eisenhardt Tabrizi , op. cit.

Clausing , op. cit., p. 21.

See Smith Preston G. Reinertsen D. G. , Developing Products in Half the Time (New York, NY: Van Nostrand, 1991), Chapter 9; Meyer Christopher , Fast Cycle Time (New York, NY: Free Press, 1993); Cooper op. cit.

Wheelwright Clark , op. cit., describe a variety of detailed case studies, for example.

Iansiti , op. cit.; Iansiti Marco Clark Kim B. , “Integration and Dynamic Capability: Evidence from Product Development in Automobiles and Mainframe Computers,” Industrial and Corporate Change (1995).

See Iansiti Marco (1995), “Managing Chaos,” op. cit.

World Sun (January 1994).

A complete prototype could cost as much as a million dollars in components. In addition, it would require deciding on a final ASIC design, which implied commitment to several million dollars worth of capital expenditure. A single engineering change in an ASIC design could require an expenditure of as much as $100,000 and delays of several weeks.

Iansiti (1993 and 1995), op. cit.

Henderson Rebecca M. Clark Kim B. , “Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of Established Firms,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 35 (1990): 9–30.

For example, the process shown by Cusumano and Smith to improve Microsoft's development performance is similar to the flexible models presented in this article. See Cusumano Michael A. Smith Stanley A. , “Beyond the Waterfall: A Comparison of ‘Classic’ vs. PC Software Development,” in Colliding Worlds (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1995). As another example, processes used effectively in the multimedia environment also show similar characteristics, as seen in Stein Ellen Iansiti Marco , “Microsoft: Multimedia Publications (A),” Harvard Business School Case number 9-695-005.