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Greetings,
The
Innovator’s Toolkit
is an action-oriented bi-monthly newsletter that will help
product professionals and executives improve
pre-development activities and launch new products
faster—and more
successfully than ever before. Each issue offers
concise, practical pre-development tools to assist you
in accelerating new
product discovery,
assessment, decision-making and planning.
Have an idea or
topic of interest for a future article?
Please tell
us about it.
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THIS ISSUE |
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Who
Owns Your New Product Forecasts?
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"Prediction
is very difficult, especially if it's about the
future."
-Nils
Bohr, Nobel laureate in Physics
One
challenge many companies have is their ability to
develop sales forecasts for products that are new to
the company. In most cases the Product Manager
is responsible for these forecasts, but without the
support of sales, operations, and marketing, the
forecast is almost useless.
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| 30-Second
Briefing |
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 Q:
I'm a design engineer working in a
cross-functional team to develop our 2006 product
roadmap (B2B test equipment) and we're getting
pressure to finish our plan in two weeks. Our
team leader is the Product Manager, who knows a
lot about the market, but it feels like we're
just making up products and features. It seems
like we should be talking to customers. We
can't extend the deadline due to our budgeting
process but I don't think we're being strategic.
Any ideas?
A:
It
sounds like you're in a situation we call
the "Planning Scramble". This is a
common situation where you don't have enough time
to conduct many of the activities you probably
should, so you rely on current thinking abstracted
from a few brainstorming sessions to develop a
plan. This happens for a variety of reasons, but
usually it has just become part of the culture to
accept this type of planning...
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| Oregon
PDMA
Sept 22 – Use
and Abuse of Customer Input |
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You are invited
to attend the next event of Oregon PDMA. The PDMA provides networking and skill-advancing
opportunities for professionals in product management,
marketing, and other product development functions across
multiple industries.
The
evening will focus on the role of the customer in new product
definition. Our two featured speakers have lead the
definition of many successful products. They bring a unique
perspective to the question of how and when to use customer
input and will share their insights developed through years of
experience. To learn more or register...
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New
Workshop - Planning for
New Product Success!
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We
are pleased to announce a new course we are offering
through the Oregon Graduate Institute. Planning for New
Product Success provides foundation and advanced skills
in Product Strategy and Planning.
The
emphasis of the course is to provide tools and
techniques to develop a strategic roadmap that directly
translates the company's strategy to the set of
products, services, and technologies that drive your
company's vision and business results. Topics covered
include:
- The
elements of high-growth product plans
- Factors
that determine new product success
- How
to create winning product roadmaps
- Establishing
goals to drive planning success
- The
drivers that create new product opportunities
- Specific
tools to identify high-potential products
- Effective
techniques for validating product concepts
- Building
the business case for new products
- Elements
of effective product requirements
- How
to sell product plans to senior management
To
learn more or sign up...
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Welcome
New Subscribers!
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Welcome
again to The
Innovator's Toolkit and a special welcome to our
new subscribers!
In this issue, we provide a tool to help companies
develop forecasts for new products. This is a
challenge we see fairly often and an area where
collaboration can help, but is seldom used. You can
read the article,
or cut to the chase and download the tool
here.
We
are also pleased to announce the 2nd meeting of the
Oregon PDMA, planned for Sept. 22nd, and a new
workshop we are offering in association with the
Oregon Graduate Institute, Planning
for New Product Success.
As
always, please feel free to contact
us
anytime to let us know what topics you’d like to
see addressed or questions you’d like us to
answer. Your input is valuable, and we always look
forward to hearing from you.
Best
regards—and good luck,
Ed
de la Fuente
Managing
Director
Planning
Innovations Group
Find
out more about Planning Innovations...
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