“Learn From New Product Failures” by Jimmy Williams Jr.

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Introduction

Three authors were involved in writing this article, Jimmy Williams Jr., Jim Hlavacek and Craig Maxwell. The article is titled ‘Learn from New Product Failures’. The article can be found at the Research Technology Management publication in the website.

Summary

The authors talk about the importance of companies learning from their past failures to make better products in the future. On the contrary not many companies learn from the mistakes they make in their new failed products. The mistakes therefore, are repeated over and over which results in wasting a lot of resources. Millions of dollars are wasted in research and development as well as marketing and promotion. The product development success is lower and more risks are involved because companies do not take time to analyze, share information with other developers and get valuable lessons from unsuccessful new products.

Doing a post launch review on a product is very impressive as it entails a lot of positive things. Studies done on companies that did post launch reviews showed that their new product success jumped from 30% to 50%. The main purpose of this article was to encourage companies to start doing post launch product reviews. This will help them to improve efficiency and save them unnecessary costs. The authors have used a methodology used in teaching hospitals to explain the importance of learning from failed products’ mistakes.

A Brief Review of the Authors

The authors of this article are experts in their own fields. This makes them authoritative in advancing the ideas they have in the paper. Jimmy Williams is the director of defense research and development at Alcoa, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has the responsibility of developing military and defense programs. He is also an engineer by profession and in the year 2000 he received the black engineer of the year award. His experience and knowledge allows him to advance the ideas he has on product innovation. The other author Jim Hlavacek serves as the chairman and CEO of The Corporate Development Institute. Inc. he is also the managing director of Market Driven Management. Both companies specialize in innovation and growth strategies. In addition, he has written over forty articles and five books on focused growth and the front end of innovation. Furthermore, he has done many post launch reviews as the principal investigator for many corporations at Fortune 500. He also holds a Ph. D. in new product and market development. Thus when he makes observations about companies he is talking from a knowledge point. The last author is Craig Maxwell, the vice president of technology and innovation at Parker Hannifin Corporation. He has the responsibility of overseeing all the innovation initiatives of the nine groups Parker holds and over its 130 divisions. He is an engineer by profession and is named as the inventor of over forty patents.

Authors’ purpose

The authors gathered information for this article by talking to over fifty CEOs, general managers, marketing managers, engineering managers and CTOs. From the discussions the authors we able to learn the reasons why most companies do not undertake post launch reviews. Time and oppressive workload were one of the reasons given. For most of the companies they deal with a project and after it is done they move on to the next. Therefore, they do not have the time to analyze the complete projects and gain more insight in their next project. This is seen as a reserve of learning organizations which find the time to review their work and learn from their mistakes. Other companies do not see the need of looking behind. Whatever is in the past is left there. They believe little good comes from 20/20 hindsight. Their analysis is done during Informal discussions and thus has led to a lot of finger pointing when the projects fail. Some of the people talked to claimed that it was lack of funds that led to the absence of post launch reviews in their companies. Many companies fear incurring extra costs in improving product innovation and prefer to work with few people. When they make a mistake the company does not allocate funds to analyze their product failure. Other companies feel that the root cause of the problem is too complex to be dealt with. They have a defeatist attitude and blame the customer for having requirements that are complex. On the contrary these problems are caused by a number of errors. The errors could be from an individual, team or a system deficiency. The companies may not be willing to investigate all these areas to get to the root cause of the problems they have. Hence, every new product they invent will have a problem and the likely hood of failing is very high as the same mistakes will still be made. Lack of knowledge about how to conduct a post launch review was a reason some of the company leaders gave. There is a saying that says ignorance is no defense therefore such companies need to develop a culture of reviewing their products by learning from companies that already carry out post launch reviews..

The evidence used by the authors is accurate. The evidence shows the reasons why many companies continue to have product failures year in year out or until they get out of business. Most companies do not share their product failures openly. They find it very hard to talk about the mistakes they made. They would rather talk about success, which is more likely to boost their sales; instead of mistakes, which is often easier and less painful than learning their errors. Dyson James the chairman and founder of Dyson Vacuum Cleaner Company strongly believes that design engineers learn a lot more from failures than success. He said that an engineer fails 99% in his life. That an engineer does not learn from success because it comes rarely. Therefore, he or she goes to work knowing there are many problems that have not been solved yet. Failure becomes like a drug to him or her that push them to keep trying to find the right solution.

From the evidence they gathered we learn that success is not given much reflection like failure gets. The famous Toyota Company does post launch reviews on its new cars and they always talk about what could have been made differently that would have made the car better. To the company there will never be a perfect car hence they have to keep analyzing the things that did or did not do to make a certain car model better.

In doing a post launch review like the one done by Toyota a company is able to eliminate finger pointing through open discussions. The discussions entail the success as well as the failures of a product. The people involved in developing that product get a chance to ask what went wrong and what went well.

The interpretation of the evidence collected by the author shows how companies work. The teaching in hospitals methodology was started about two decades ago. All the teaching hospitals in the world gather twice in a month to meet with the goal of getting a way of succeeding from failure in the future. The meetings are known to as Morbidity and Mortality Conferences (M&Ms). During these meetings physicians analysis the unexpected outcomes experienced with different patients and the deaths that occurred. The meetings are very important as the medical fraternity is able to learn about its mistakes. In these meetings the physicians have the freedom to talk about their errors openly and without judgments as they are protected legally. When they discuss what would have gone wrong they are able to know what not to do next time and what to do. Through these candid discussions they are able to know the causes of the undesirable patients’ outcomes. Hence they are able to learn and make necessary corrections where applicable.

Credentials of Authors

The culture of the M&Ms meetings portrays professionalism. The medical practitioners are provided with a safe environment to discuss about their mistakes openly. This is a culture that needs to be borrowed by manufactures so that they can learn from the mistakes made in new products that turned out as failures. Unfortunately, most companies lack such a culture. They do not have a safe environment where the workers can gather and discuss their mistakes without the fear of being sacked. Therefore, objective analyses of products are not done and the companies miss out on chances to learn from their mistakes and turn the lessons learned into producing improved products in the future.

Methods Used to Gather Information

In the medical world autopsies are done to ascertain the cause of death. These autopsies are what post launch reviews are to companies. The post launch reviews give companies an opportunity to evaluate decisions made which help to expose the poor judgments as well as poor choices. The autopsies are very vital for physicians because sometimes they may miss an important detail when analyzing the cause of death; this means that they may go on making a mistake unintentionally because they do not recognize it. This applies to companies as well because when they fail to engage professionals in their post launch reviews they may fail to know or recognize some mistakes. Therefore it is important to involve people who do not have an interest in the product so that they can be objective in the analysis.

The post launch review team should include a principal investigator and other suitable technical experts. Most importantly the principal investigator should be independent due to the need of objectivity in the product analysis. The principal should meet the following criteria and the other members of the team may also have the requirements though not necessarily as long as the principal has them.

Relevant experience is needed. It is gained through participating in studies about product successes as well as failures. This enables one to ask relevant questions and identify symptoms and the root causes of failure; which leads to formulation of practical recommendations. Secondly, objectivity is required to make an honest analysis. This calls for a principal who is an outsider as he or she stands to lose or gain nothing from what went wrong. Thirdly, interviewing skills enable one to be diplomatic when carrying out interviews so as to get the desired feedback. This also helps one to ask the right questions and make body language observation. These skills are only acquired from experience. Persistence is vital if the correct information is be extracted from participants. The same questions need to be asked over and over so as to get to the bottom of what really happened. After information from the various sources is gathered, it is important to do a root cause analysis. This enables the team to look at each case concisely. Lastly, both organizational and communication skills are required. They help the principal investigator in coordinating the whole process of collecting information relevant to the product, analyzing the information properly and finally making recommendations.

The author relates M & Ms done by three companies to M & Ms performed at medical institutions. The three companies were either following the M & Ms process either formally or informally. At the intuit software company the engineers who develop software are encouraged to voice their concerns about the product. Everybody else in the company is also allowed to talk about the product. The engineers are allowed to talk about the views of customers that are unstated without and they do this without fear of victimization by their superiors and fellow colleagues as long as they don’t use this chance to make personal attacks. They get a safe environment just the one available for the physicians in their M & Ms conferences. Through this culture the company has been able to come up with better products because they get a chance to learn from their past mistakes. Formal meetings are scheduled regularly and daily informal discussions of the products are done. This almost parallels the M & Ms done twice a month.

Evidence and accuracy

In 3m technologies problems are discussed across group, divisional and departmental lines. People from all the lines are invited into the discussions to present their challenges. The forum gives the workers an opportunity to share and learn from each other’s problems. The failed projects are discussed during their annual technical forum. The company went ahead and requested the Mayo Clinic for their M & Ms models so that they could adapt it. The company is successful due to this culture that enables everyone to share and work for the better of the whole company.

Interpretation of Evidence

Just like in the medical world people are able to learn from their mistakes in safe environments. The environment requires a strong leader to avail it. People should feel safe to discuss whatever is on their mind without the fear of victimization. This is important because for a company to formulate is strategy it is important that the firm’s environment is appraised, the company’s strengths and weaknesses are identified, its competitive advantages as well as its core competencies. The company strategic intent needs to be articulated clearly and key resources and capabilities that the company needs to achieve its long term goals determined (Schilling, 2006). These things can only be determined if a company holds its M & Ms meetings regularly.

Logicality of the Argument

The authors have built a logical argument. They start their paper with the overview of the reason why companies fail to learn from their past mistakes. Then they introduce the M & Ms conference meetings done in the medical world. They go into detail about the procedure of the meetings and how the findings of the meetings are used to develop recommendations for future steps to be taken to avoid a repeat of avoidable mistakes. The reasons why companies do not conduct post launch reviews are given and explained in details. Therefore, a reader is able to follow the argument step-by-step. The importance of a post launch review is stated again and the authors give the requirements of a post launch review team. They have used three companies: Toyota, 3M and Intuit to show how analyzing failure of products results into better products. Companies are able to gain from the pain experienced as a result of learning from new product failure.

Relevance of the Evidence

The evidence used in the article is relevant and applicable to many companies today. Many companies are not willing to spend extra money to conduct post launch reviews. This is considered a waste of company’s valuable time. The companies feel that the cost is too high and sometimes they wonder who should cover the cost. This is similar to a scenario where a company wants to provide learning to its employees yet it fails to do so due to the cost. It therefore has to outsource for services that its employees cannot offer. Such a company keeps on incurring extra expenses. When companies fail to conduct post launch reviews they keep repeating mistakes that cost them a fortune in the long run. They do not save money as they had thought they would when they go on to the next project. Thus we can say that post launch review of failed new products is paramount for all companies as the benefits outnumber the inconveniences experience during the reviews. For example Lisa and Apple III are good examples of new failed products. When they were launched in 193 they did not do well in the market. The products were redesigned and Macintosh was produced and it become a success (Bahrami & Stuart p.52).On the other hand, Companies that fail to do the reviews end up losing big time.

Success in Making the Authors’ Point

The authors have succeeded in making their point about learning from new products failures. Their simplistic explanation using vivid description leaves no doubt in the mind of the reader about how companies should learn from new product failures. This culture will enable companies to improve their performance in the market.

I agree with the author that companies can learn from new product failures. This is because by looking at past mistakes a company can learn which way to go or not in the future. Even in life people are urged to learn from their mistakes and make better decisions. If a person can learn from a mistake a company can also learn from the failure of its new products. Just like in the ordinary life it is very hard for one to know where they are going unless they know where they are coming from. This means that for a company to understand its products’ strengths and weaknesses they must analyze them to be able to know when to make changes that will ensure they succeed in the future. This will also make the customers have confidence in products of such a company because it takes time to find out what was wrong with their previous products. When the mistakes are corrected and the quality of the products improved to meet the needs of the consumers; they can continue to believe in the company. This will then translate into more sales and a loyal clientele.

Conclusion

The information provided in the article is well researched. The presentation is logical and simple and any reader who has never heard about post launch reviews can understand the message. The authors have not just stated their ideas they have gone to the trouble of painting the real situations in companies. Through the direct interviews with the people at the helm of companies they were able to understand how companies operate. They were also able to find out why the companies are yet to buy into the idea of doing post launch reviews. They show the impact of post launch reviews on some companies and the reader gets an idea on the importance of the post launch reviews. At the end of the topic the reader is convinced that the only way companies can improve their success rate is by doing post launch reviews. This can only be done if the companies adapt the much needed culture of conducting post launch reviews on their failed new products. On the other hand, it is clear that failures cannot be eliminated in product development completely just like mistakes cannot be eliminated in a medical situation altogether. However, the rate of repeating mistakes is reduced considerably and when a new error occurs it can be recognized and eliminated in the next product launch. Therefore post launch reviews will ensure that products have survivability.

Reference list

Bahrami, H & Stuart, E 2005, Super-flexibility for knowledge enterprises, New York, Springer.

Schilling, M n.d 2006, Strategic management of technological innovation. New York, McGraw-Hill.

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