Design of Things to Come, The: How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Products

by Vogel, Craig M.; Cagan, Jonathan; Boatwright, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780131860827
• ISBN10: 0131860828
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-01-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

"The Design of Things to Come profiles a new generation of innovators, revealing exactly how they are inspiring people and shepherding their visions to profitable reality. These design revolutionaries have a healthy respect for the huge cultural and economic forces swirling beneath them, but they are daring to surf the biggest waves...and deliver today's most powerful breakthroughs."--BOOK JACKET.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xiii
Preface What to Expect from This Book	xxi
Acknowledgments	xxix
The New Breed of Innovator	1	(20)
The New Breed of Innovator: Pragmatic Business	2	(4)
The New Breed of Innovator: Global Brand and Industrial Design	6	(7)
The New Breed of Innovator: Engineering and Advanced Thinking	13	(4)
So Who Are the New Breed of Innovators?	17	(1)
Innovation Revealed	18	(3)
Pragmatic Innovation---The New Mandate	21	(26)
A Mandate for Change	22	(1)
Pragmatic Innovation (and How It Differs from Invention)	23	(6)
Moving from Invention to Innovation at Ford: The Redesign of the F-150	29	(3)
Innovation in Start-Ups	32	(5)
Manufacturing Quality---The New Commodity	37	(2)
Innovation---The New Mandate	39	(3)
The Global Dimension of Innovation	42	(3)
Surfing the Waves of Innovation	45	(2)
The Art and Science of Business	47	(20)
Launching the Adidas 1	49	(3)
The Role of Marketing in the Early Stages of Product Development	52	(2)
The Ambiguity of Figuring Out Winning Products	54	(1)
A Sound Basis for Vision (Yes, You Can Go with Your Instinct)	55	(2)
A Process for Pragmatic Innovation	57	(4)
Identify an Area of Strategic Importance	58	(1)
Research People	59	(1)
Define the Opportunity	60	(1)
Define Design Criteria	60	(1)
Achieve the Criteria	61	(1)
Go/No-Go Decision	61	(1)
The Ground Rules: Understanding the Innovator's View of Procedures	61	(6)
Point 1: Thinking Required	62	(2)
Point 2: Innovation Yields Differentiation	64	(1)
Point 3: Don't Stop at Success	64	(1)
Point 4: Motivation Needed	65	(2)
Identifying Today's Trends for Tomorrow's Innovations	67	(20)
Lead Users and New Technology	69	(1)
Apple: Trend Reader	70	(2)
So How Does One Read Trends?	72	(2)
Products Impacting Trends	74	(4)
In Reading Trends, It Is All About People	78	(4)
Designing the Mirra Chair	82	(5)
Design for Desire---The New Product Prescription	87	(18)
The Harry Potter Phenomenon	88	(2)
Form and Function	90	(1)
The Experience Economy	91	(1)
The Fantasy Economy	92	(6)
Fantasy in Everyday Products	94	(3)
Form and Function Fulfilling Fantasy	97	(1)
The Harry Potter Fantasy	98	(3)
Fantasy-Driven Products in Everyday Experiences	101	(4)
The Powers of Stakeholders---People Fueling Innovation	105	(20)
Lubrizol---from Technology to Product	107	(5)
The Lens of Powers of 10	112	(2)
Powers of 10 in Action	114	(7)
Powers of 10 One: Molecular	114	(2)
Powers of 10 Two: Blending	116	(1)
Powers of 10 Three: Blending Machines	116	(1)
Powers of 10 Four: System Operation	117	(2)
Powers of 10 Five: Community	119	(1)
Powers of 10 Six: Region	120	(1)
Powers of 10 Seven: Continent	121	(1)
Powers of 10 Eight: Global Environment	121	(1)
Scenarios Ensure That People Remain Real	121	(4)
B-to-B Innovation---The New Frontier of Fantasy	125	(20)
The Industrial Frontier	128	(1)
Fantasy in Industrial Products	129	(2)
RedZone Robotics: Going from Projects to Products	131	(3)
The Strategic Plan	134	(5)
Strategy One: Identify and Understand Stakeholders	134	(1)
Strategy Two: Planning the Product	135	(2)
Strategy Three: Planning the Corporate Approach to Product Development	137	(2)
The Result: Sewer Repair and Beyond	139	(3)
The World Above the Sewer	142	(3)
Making Decisions for Profit---Success Emerging from Chaos	145	(18)
Complexity in the Decision-Making Process	147	(2)
Organizing the Decision-Making Process	149	(4)
The Butterfly Effect	153	(2)
Chaos Within Structure	155	(1)
Interdisciplinary Decision Making	156	(7)
A Process for Product Innovation	163	(20)
New Balance	165	(1)
Innovation by Cooperation	166	(2)
A Case Study in Innovation for New Balance: Four Phases of New Product Development	168	(15)
Phase I: Identifying Product Opportunities	169	(3)
Phase II: Understanding the Product Opportunity	172	(5)
Phase III: Conceptualizing the Product Opportunity	177	(2)
Phase IV: Realizing the Product Opportunity	179	(4)
Creating a Blanket of IP to Protect Your Brand from the Elements	183	(16)
Swiffer: A P&G Innovation Success	185	(3)
Why Is Swiffer Out Front?	187	(1)
IP: Utility Patents	188	(1)
IP: Design Patents	189	(2)
IP: Copyright and Trademark	191	(1)
IP: Trade Dress	192	(1)
IP: Trade Secret	193	(1)
IP: Provisional Patents	193	(1)
Using IP for Brand and Product Life Cycle	194	(1)
Patenting a Product System	195	(2)
Patenting Product Manufacture and Delivery	197	(1)
IP in Summary	198	(1)
To Hire Consultants or Build Internally---That Is the Question	199	(22)
The Power of Design	201	(1)
Using Product Development Consultants	202	(3)
IDEO: The Starbucks of Product Design	205	(4)
The Consultant Menu	209	(2)
Product Insight: Customer Research and Design	211	(3)
Hiring to Balance Soft and Hard Quality	214	(2)
Managing Design	216	(5)
Epilogue: The Powers of Innovation---The New Economy of Opportunity	221	(12)
The Power of the Individual	222	(2)
The Power to Redirect the Company	224	(1)
The Power to Expand the Market	225	(1)
The Power to Redefine Our Local Environment	226	(2)
The Power of Shifts in the Global Economy	228	(2)
The Power of the New Renaissance	230	(3)
Index	233

Excerpts

The Design of Things to Come: Preface PREFACE What to Expect from This Book Two guys walk into a Starbucks and wave to a woman at a table. After getting their lattes, they head over and join her. Paul: Hey, Caroline, looks like you got here early. Caroline: Traffic wasn't bad today. Did you two come together? Rick: No. We just happened to arrive at the same time. How are you doing? How's work? Caroline: It's pretty interesting these days. Today we had a planning meeting to set objectives for the next few quarters. We had a poor performance last year, and budgets are getting cut. I was asked to reduce cost by 20 percent and increase profits by 150 percent. She smiles. Paul: Are these just goals to see how high you can jump? Or are they somewhat realistic? Caroline: It's part of an ongoing internal discussion. We've gotten really efficient at delivering high quality with decent costs. But, you know, everybody else is pretty good at it now. So the discussion is about what to do next. For years, we've had the dual strategy of beefing up quality and reducing costs, and that strategy has worked well for us. But now, we're pretty close to the efficient frontier, and everyone else is catching up pretty quickly. Rick: I know what you mean. We're lost as to how to respond to the latest competitor who is trying to drag everyone into a death rattle on price. It isn't like there is much more we can do with our manufacturing costs or quality. I am a black belt Six Sigma, and we've integrated the latest on lean manufacturing into our StageGate process. Now that we're accustomed to putting out high quality at low cost, we've settled back into our old bunkers. The sales force is on our back to put out some new product that can compete on cost. But we're putting out great stuff, so we wonder why sales can't move product by just showing buyers our quality difference. Paul, now that I think about it, you guys don't seem to be in this cost battle at the moment. You guys are thinking innovation instead of costs, aren't you? Paul: Yeah, I told you guys about the new CEO a while back. He has a different focus. Still too early to tell what will happen, but I have to say that there's excitement in the air that wasn't there before. He believes that we can no longer compete on price but instead need to be leaders in innovation. A couple of weeks ago, he sent out a memo with suggested reading. I read an article in Business Week about the power of design. Usually, articles about design just talk about industrial design and how they make products better. But this article was different. It said that product design means that everyone has to be innovative, not just the industrial designers you hire. Another article talked about the challenge of the growth of China, stressing how companies in Asia are getting smarter, not just cheaper, and that means innovation is the only way to compete. He also sent some literature about programs that a number of B schools are teaching on "entrepreneurship and innovation." He is actually willing to support us getting into those programs. Even he admits the innovation seminars we are constantly attending can only get us to the beginning of what we need to do. I've not yet read the book The Design of Things to Come that he suggested, but I've heard it has some pragmatic ideas on creating profit and growth by focusing on customer needs and desires, and that it has techniques that any of us can understand and incorporate into our process.... Deconstructing Innovation Everyone is talking and writing about innovation. It is the fuel of business strategy. Design and innovation are words that are often used together or interchangeably. Design for us is both a broad concept of change through human problem solving and a word used to describe specific fields such as engineering design, interface design, or industrial design. The power of the new design for innovation is fueling an engine of change that is driving the production of things to come. It is the result of interdisciplinary teams, and it dynamically leads to comprehensive solutions that consumers respond to emotionally, cognitively, and then economically. Few books, however, provide an understanding of how to deconstruct the process in a way that anyone can use to turn a cost-centric approach into an innovation-driven strategy. The challenge in design for innovation is to help everyday people stretch and grow to accomplish extraordinary things. As authors from three different disciplines, we are strongly committed to understanding the innovative process. We represent three core areas that companies rely on for innovation of physical products: business, engineering, and industrial design. As a result of our diversity and commitment to the topic, we believe it is possible to provide a distinct useful, usable, and desirable angle on the current trend of how companies are growing organically through innovation. We have developed an ability to see current and emerging issues through three sets of eyes translated into one common transdisciplinary voice. The result is something that can educate the novice and help experienced practitioners in business alike. The potential in companies is not just the ability to create a pool of talent and capability, but how to give diverse teams of people the power, methods, and courage to be creative and to explore new opportunities. As our own example of the power of teams, writing this book required significant give and take for each of us as individuals. The result is a product that is better than any one of us could have written in isolation. In our roles as university professors, our work has evolved into a balance of research, consulting, and teaching that has allowed us to become an example of what we talk about in the book. We are not just reporting what we have observed; we have lived it. We know what it is like to manage interdisciplinary teams of bright, headstrong people and help them produce innovative and patentable solutions through our methods. We have impressed company executives with the ability to take a vague discussion of possible new markets and, using an integrated product development process in a university context, produce insightful, thoroughly developed and patented products. We have consulted with a wide variety of consumer and business-to-_business companies and helped them produce successful products. The first book of two of the authors, Creating Breakthrough Products, has been incorporated into the product development process of many small and large companies alike. As research professors, we have had the opportunity to step back and reflect on what we have observed. We have identified consistent patterns that led to successful innovation. Our goal as writers was to produce a book that organizes and expresses these findings in a way that the Carolines, Ricks, and Pauls of the preceding vignette can incorporate into their way of thinking and practice. In short, it is a book written by people who have lived with, successfully managed, and thoroughly researched the topic. Said another way, we are armchair quarterbacks who have also played the game. This book deconstructs innovation into understandable chunks that form a compelling argument of what innovation is, why it is important, and how you can begin to transform yourself and your company to meet the needs of the current marketplace. You cannot just hire innovative consultants; you have to learn to create an innovative culture organically within your company. That is the only way the core of your brand can be strategically connected to every product you make and service you provide. This