Identifying Winning Products

There are three critical problems that confront anyone trying to undertake a product development. This presentation investigates how to identify a winning product, what are the ingredients of success and why working together matters.

Due to several requests we have loaded the transcript from the presentation delivered by our managing director Timothy Allan at last weeks Successful Product Development Seminar. This can be used with the Slideshare presentation to provide a bit more detail against the presentation slides.

The Presentation can be found at the Locus Research Slideshare Channel or below this transcript for your reference.

# Identifying Winning Products

Timothy Allan - Locus Research Ltd

# TIMING - 20 Minutes Running Time Max. Allow for questions & Further discussion.

# Slide 2: The Three Stooges

This addresses 3 critical questions in product development:

1. How do you identify a winning product before you have done it?
2. What are the ingredients or elements that lead to success?
3. and Why working together matters when it is so easier to be fragmented in your approach.

*Setting the Scene* - My Assumptions

• This presentation is about how you think and look at things not about examples;
• It is also focussed on 'New Product Development' not iterative extensions to existing products, I figure you can do that already;
• Only has to be new for you to be new;
• Products that impact on how you run your business.

# Slide 2: My Bias

Just to be up front, these biases affect or influence they way I think, I believe:

• *New is not always better*, being the best is what it is about, because the best gets results;
• *Be Pragmatic*, getting some wins on smaller projects may be exactly what you need to do, it builds your teams confidence and there is nothing wrong with low hanging fruit;
• *Research is not negotiable*, doing product development without doing research is loading 6 bullets in the chamber and pulling the trigger, dont try and take short cuts;
• *Product integrity is paramount*, you built it, it reflects your company, your staff, your attitude, and your brand;

# Slide 3: What gives me hope ft. the space pen mix 1?

Developing products is hard, very hard. You are up against skilled people who are likely to be looking at the same problem you are; you will be under resourced, under funded and it is not a level playing field.

*So what gives me hope?.*

*In the Apollo programme NASA* found it could not use conventional gravity fed pen, so they spent millions developing a Zero Gravity Pen. The Soviet Union faced with the exact same problem used a pencil.

This great example of doing more with less unfortunately it also serves to illustrate why research is important, and what a successful product looks like.

The Fisher Space Pen was actually developed the Zero Gravity Pen, the AG-7 (according to the Scientific American) at no cost to NASA, and was subsequently sold to old to both Nasa & Russian Space Programmes. The real reason why the Americans used the pen was to remove the flammability risk associated with the graphite shavings after the early Apollo Capsule fire tragedy where several astronauts perished.

Still the principal of doing more with less is important.

# Slide 4: Why More does not mean Better

*Having more, does not mean what you do is better*

Why do most large corporations still depend on the acquisitions of other companies and technology to grow?

• Greater sense of beuracracy and more constraints in larger organisations which could inhibit thinking;
• The feeling you 'should' be able to do it, a sense of entitlement;
• Many innovators, entrepenuers, creatives are not a great fit for established environments and need more freedom to establish their way of doing things.

A great New Zealand example was the Formway Life Chair ($4-6Million) against the Steelcase Leap Chair ($42million)Which is better? Life Chair (obviously, as it was designed in New Zealand by some great New Zealand Designers: Mark P, Jonthan P, Kent P, Kat S and many others)

# Slide 5: Ingredients of Success

If you can think of a great recipe it combines;

* *Raw materials* (Quality Counts)
- Omelette/Srambled Eggs - Fresh Egg vs.20 day old - very different; the simple recipes: pesto, bread depend on quality of materials to get the right result;
* *Process* (Structure Matters)
- How you use materials and the sequence you do things has an impact on the end result;
- Pumpkin Soup: Roast everything before hand, compare this to say a straight boil up. The process made the result significantly different (How you handle your resources/materials)
* *Timing* (Timing is Everything)
- When you make decisions, the timing of things is vital to being successful;
- Steak at 3 minutes vs. 15 minutes. - I don't like eating Rubber, so timing is everything.

So your:
Raw Materials(Your Resources) + Process(Your Structure & Process)+ Timing(Decisions & execution)=*Success*

# Slide 6: Observation Is Free

**In relative terms success is characterised by a few things falling into line at the right time. **
These things are usually external to us and are not defined by us, however,
**observation is free and to the observant** these trends, changes and opportunities can be isolated and translated into something meaningful that could underpin a product development.

# Slide 7: Get into Place

A good friend of mine is a documentary photographer;
He travelled to war zones all over the world; His weapon of choice is a fully manual *Nikon F2/3 which is an all-metal, mechanically (springs, gears, levers) controlled, manual focus SLR** with manual exposure control. It was completely operable without batteries.

He even use to roll the US dollars into the film cannisters and leave the film toungue hanging out.

With a 50mm Fixed Lense *He got into the right place*.  5 feet away from the action, only way was to be there.

**Being able to identify successful ideas ahead of the curve is about getting out of your chair**
- and getting into the position to see these ideas, trends and things as they happen.

(Great advice  for someone who makes a living sitting in from of a laptop screen!).

# Slide 8: Be original to the point of eccentricity

I have always gravitated to this statement which is from the Mustard Seed Garden - the manual for chinese painting.

In chinese painting *Originality was prized above technique* (to a point).

In commerce:

• If looking at the world in the same way as all of your competitors;
• If you filter and interpret information the same was as your challengers;
• *How can you define something different?*

It starts with how you look at and filter information. *Being original* it sets you up to capture value for your business.

We take it to the extreme, we want to do everything, make all of our own stuff, because it helps to create a platform for being original.

# Slide 10: My Ideas better than Yours

*Ideas are like posessions*

• People get possessive about them.
• I am sure everyone has experienced the 'my ideas better than yours' scenario.
• Ideas are often a battleground for Ego's where objective information has no place.

Yet Objectivity is a central ingredient for making good decisions. Remove this from the front end of the process.*At the start we deliberately dont do idea generation* (hard for a company that is based on ideas!) we say we need to research.

# Slide 11: Out of Focus

*Anyone an amatuer photographer?*

Getting fixated on idea is like taking a photo at F1.8, you have a short depth of field and can only see what is directly in front of you.

Taking the same lense at F22 everything is in focus, background, foreground you can see the whole picture.

**So you need to increase your depth of field.**

- Often what people bring to us is not what I would call an idea its more of a category;
- We Like categories, they provide room to explore possibilities and alternate ideas and solutions.

# Slide 12: Broad not Deep

*Looking at categories  you need to have a deep, depth of field*

Forgo a narrow macro (Close up In photographic terms) detail, in favour of a wide angle view; Look at the whole picture, what is occurring and the relationships between various elements.

When we research a product opportunity the goal is to cover as much ground as possible and look at as many 'different' things as possible; it is the relationships between things that often provides the greatest insight;

We consider a very wide range of things - Project, People, Structure, Consumer, Gatekeeper, Life Cycle, Packaging, Distribution, Risk, Standards, Compliance, Cost.

We look at these together in the same continuum.

# Slide 13: Can you make a business out of it?

To really understand the potential of a category, there is one simple question to ask, even if your an existing business:

*Could you make a business out of it?*

• Is it a growth category or is it in decline?
• Are there regulatory changes which could affect the product positively or negatively?
• What are the purchasing values? can it tolerate higher cost for additional features?
• Is there more than one market you could enter? (countries or territories) without change to the basic product structure?
• Could you extend your offer without alot of effort? into new product developments
• Is the IP landscap a gridlock at rushhour or is it a country road?
• Can your team resource it, and support it into the market?

# Slide 14: Down the Garden Path

Asking a question that you want an answer to, is circular it has a habit of leading back to more questions. Alot of companies feel like they need validation. People like the idea of User Led Research because it is a crutch, it provides what they think is validation of an idea. 

For example a Teacher at Design School, Student does exactly what the teacher wanted, surprisingly gets a C? you can't deliver someone what they think they want because you'll never get there, youll be led down the garden path. Asking for validation tends to be circular and does not produce the intended result.

Get off the fence and take a position.

# Slide 15: Lead or be led

*Does anyone here climb?*

Following someone who has laid out all the protection is safe and (in relative terms) easy.
**Developing successful products takes leadership and this means exposure.**

Exposure is that feeling in the pit of your stomach that if you slip, there will be consequences, each step, simple enough is loaded with an extra dimension(Risk).

When you have to lead a climb it changes they way that you behave and how you look at things;
Climbing with a guide 250 metres, grade 14 - Sweaty for me leading. Meanwhile he is climbing unroped like out for a sunday walk beside me;

Leading get's easier once you know how to do it, your idea of 'exposure' changes.

# Slide 16: Customer Experience

*Farmers Market* - Hamilton has one of the best, love the whitebait fritters at the caravan.

You arrive peruse goods, people, find someone with the things you like you connect with the goods, the person, everything in one go. You can ask about the produce, where they grown, how they grow, everything.

You have just had what academics and design connoisseurs call a 'customer experience'

Some spend millions trying to create it, just head down to the farmers market to experience an authentic one;

Someone who experiences your products and services does so in one stream. There are no dividing lines, segmentation, team splits, just a product.

# Slide 17: Starts with your Team

Then why is it most companies chop it all up when they are creating products?

*It predicated by the fact most companies dont think Product Development is core to their business*.

It should be core your future depends on it.

If it is central to your business, bringing all the key people to work together on a project makes alot of sense. Product Development should be something the whole business is involved with. Not just the R&D team. It also creates the structure that enables you to ultimately deliver a unified product that is cohesive in the way it is developed, manufactured and communicated with the end consumer.

# Slide 18: Resistance

There is always likely to be resistance to this type of approach as it forces people to communicate, be open, transparent and change they way that they work;

Ask someone to justify why you don't need to be involved? there aren't alot of logical reasons to support the position.
Again you will find resistance because *Ideas are possesions which have no Time for Objectivity*

# Slide 19: Need for Speed

If your teams integrated;

They understand the programme, they understand the research and the reasons why, and are thinking about it;
no lengthy handoffs, 3rd party briefing sessions, and miscommunication
*This increases your speed to market* by collapsing what is a linear process into a concurrent & more dynamic process.

# Slide 20: Feeling it on the inside

Alot of Companies want external validation, Why is this? You cannot expect someone to believe in your product and your team if they dont think you believe it.

• You have to create internal momentum;
• Your team needs to have the self confidence to feel successful;
• Your confidence, rubs off on those that you present to;
• You change their minds;
• People enjoy being involved with companies that look successful and have strong cultures;

We start at the start, brand the project instead of non-invasive compression techology - Became 'Encircle . Reports are designed and in full colour, not times new roman black and white. We want people to love the project, as a step toward loving the product.

In short you have to do something that comes more naturally to an Australian - *You have to believe your own hype*.