Course Agenda - Day 1

Course Timing

Registration for this course will commence at 08.00 on Day One, with the course beginning at 08.30 each day. Lunch will be served at 14.30 at the close of the day’s sessions. There will be two short breaks for refreshments at appropriate intervals.

Introduction

New products and services are vital to the success of any business. They open up new markets, attract new customers, and drive profit growth. They are critical for differentiating a company from its competitors.

Yet, many companies struggle to develop high-quality products and services. Their customer requirements are poorly defined and constantlychanging. Products are late to market, lag competition and fail to meet customer requirements. Resources are never available when they are needed. Priorities are constantly shifting. Product development doesn’t have to be managed like this!

Successful companies have learned to define the right products, develop them in a timely and efficient manner, and launch them into the sweet spot of the market – resulting in greater market penetration and increased profits. This five day beneficial course focuses on the management methods that will enable you and your company to develop the right products in the right way.

Course Overview And Objectives

To begin, we will identify the major challenges facing you and focus the course material on the issues that are most valuable to you and your organisation.

Day One: Sunday, 20 January 2008

Selecting The Right Products

Successful product development starts with identifying and selecting the right products to implement. It requires having rich, innovative sources of new ideas and a disciplined process for determining the best ideas to carry forward. It also requires achieving the proper mix of low risk and high reward projects, and matching the number of total number of projects to the resources available. During today’s sessions you will learn how successful companies manage this crucial step in the process.

Effectively Managing The Front End
The product funnel starts with raw ideas for new products and produces carefully crafted product plans and roadmaps. While all phases of the development process are important, the front end can have the greatest leverage on the ultimate success.

•	How to leverage a wide range of sources for new product ideas to ensure you do not overlook potential key contributors to your future profit stream
•	A proven process for quickly and effectively screening new ideas to identify those with the best fit, together with a methodology for tailoring it to your specific company strategy and culture
•	How to manage the “fuzzy” front end to get products started quickly

Opening The Door To Innovation
Unless a company is innovative, its product line will become dull and uninspired. Being innovative is not magic, yet certain factors need to be present for it to happen.

•	Ways of being innovative – it’s about the product and a lot more!
•	The key enablers that foster innovation – what needs to be in place and what to avoid

Increasing Your Level Of Innovation
Many companies have discovered that innovation is better done in small, systematic steps than in large, risky ones. The preferred approach is to create a base or “platform” product and then quickly extend its capabilities with fast incremental extensions. You will examine why this works and how you can implement it.

•	Managing projects as part of a product line strategy
•	Creating product and technology roadmaps
•	How to keep risky technology off the critical path
•	How to recognise when incremental approaches will not work

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