Post-Conference Workshops
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
Registration from 7:00 am - 2:00 pm
Breakfast & Networking from 8:00 am - 9:00 am
Luncheon from 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
 Full Day Workshop 1: NPD Basics
Led by: Robin A. Karol, PhD, NPDP, Executive Director - PDMA & Beebe Nelson, EdD, NPDP, Director - IAPD, PDMA Corporate Member Program
Description:
Designed for those who have less than three years experience in New Product Development and Management, and for those who are just starting out in NPD, the NPD Basics Workshop engages participants in the vital question of how to use what they've learned during the main conference. "New Product Development for Dummies", co-authored by the workshop leaders, provides the frame for a dynamic and interactive discussion of how to implement key Conference take-aways.
- Figure out what you will do when you get back to your desk
- Fit what you've learned with what your company already does
- Separate the wheat from the chaff
Special Note: All attendees who participate in the full day NPD Basics workshop will receive a complimentary copy of PDMA's latest desk reference book, "NPD for Dummies", authored by Robin Karol, PhD, NPDP and Beebe Nelson, EdD, NPDP.
LinkedIn Public Profile for Robin A. Karol: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/633/1a4
Full Day Workshop 2: New Product Development Professional Certification Review
Led by: Ken Westray, NPDP, Master PDMA Trainer & President - NP Learning and Leonard Kistner, NPDP, Lecturer - Cal State
Description:
The NPDP Review is designed for practicing New Product Professionals with more than two years of experience who want to assess, identify and prepare individuals for achieving certification as a New Product Development Professional. Led by a PDMA certified instructor, this learning experience allows you to determine your NPD strength, and gaps of your knowledge of New Product Development, before you take the NPDP Certification Exam. The NPDP certification validates expertise, experience and understanding of principles, practices and best practices in the six core knowledge areas of New Product Development.
- Review of the 6 core competency areas of new product development
- Knowledge of front-end to program launch gains you a professional edge in this highly competitive field
- 60+% of NPDP professionals have stated this has had a positive effect on their careers!
  Full Day Workshop 3: Key Strategies & Tools for Getting Products to Market Faster
Led by: David James, Director of Manufacturing Innovation - Invetech & Robert Willcox, Engineering Manager - Fluke Networks
Description:
The benefits of getting to market early are well documented. This workshop provides practical tools and approaches for making good decisions for shortening development times, and covers the main decision points for faster development of tangible products. You can expect to learn:
- When outsourcing make sense and some of the opportunities and pitfalls associated with LCR's
- Different approaches to Development and methods for tracking progress
- How to clearly define objectives and how to make sensible trade-offs
- How to predict and manage the finished Cost of Goods during design
 Full Day Workshop 4: Recombinant TechnologiesTM: Finding & Applying Technology to Solve Customer Needs
Led by: Michael Rainone, Vice President of Engineering- Product Concept Development & James Wardlaw, Director of Global Operational Excellence - Ingersoll Rand, Climate Control Technologies Sector
Technological advancements are a major driver of new product development today, increasingly so over the last few years. Finding the right technology and integrating it into a product design is crucial. Unfortunately, many teams and companies struggle during this step, which can result in less competitive products. The tools learned in this session will provide you a structured approach with proven tools and simple skills to finding and applying technologies in new product designs. How To:
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Identify the correct "problem to be solved"
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Find the best technology path to a solution and assess technology readiness
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Use creative processes to "recombine" technologies to address the problem and create intellectual property
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Create partnerships that enable breakthrough solutions in a shorter time frame
 Full Day Workshop 5: Project Portfolio Management - Increasing New Product ROI through Strategic Project Selection & Execution
Led by: Anisha Mason, PMP, Managing Partner - Project Solutions Group and Dr. June Gidman, Senior Technology Advisor - Chevron Corporation
Description:
According to the American Productivity and Quality Center 44% of new product projects fail to meet their profit objectives and 49% are launched late to market. While many companies do some level of Strategic Portfolio Management, few perceive it as a best practice to help reduce cycle times, product development costs and to ensure a certain level of return on new product investment.
This workshop will discuss the benefits of implementing a strategic portfolio management (SPM) program and will include content on:
- Utilizing portfolio management to strategically select new product investments and reduce development costs
- The framework for developing a strategic portfolio management roadmap
- Dynamic Planning - The analytical process for selecting NPD investments (optimization)
- Sharpening Corporate Focus - setting priorities and proactively allocating project resources
- Executing the portfolio - ensuring on-time delivery without compromising product quality
- How strategic portfolio management supports the Stage-Gate® framework
- Analyst Perspective - statistics and market trends from Gartner, Forrester, AMR, etc.
The workshop will include a Study of Strategic Portfolio Management in Action at Chevron Corporation. Dr. Gidman will discuss the business case that led to consideration and selection of new tools to support the technology planning process at Chevron; the expected benefits and impact. Best practices will be shared from the vantage point of being mid-way through the design phase, with full implementation planned for the end of 2008.
Who Should Attend: Executives and senior managers who are actively involved in new product selection, planning and budgeting process and/or those who are actively involved in setting corporate strategy and goals.
9:00 am - 12:00 pm
 Morning Workshop A: Changing the Organization's DNA for More Profitable Innovation
Led by: Greg Stevens, President - WinOvations, Inc.
Description:
We've found it's far more profitable to teach naturally creative people business discipline, than to teach naturally disciplined people creativity! Creativity is needed in the Front-End of New Business, because the odds of success are low. Did you know: only one in 300 ideas submitted to venture capitalists makes money? This is why creative people also need to learn business discipline. We'll help you identify and train creative people in how to interview customers to uncover hidden needs, and build comparative system cost-performance-models. This results in "morphed" concepts with the best cost/performance ratio globally, that are consistently profitable when commercialized. You'll learn how to discover breakthrough new-business concepts via:
- Identifying inherently creative "Starters" or "Rainmakers" for the Front-End of Innovation, and more practical "Finishers" to commercialize their ideas - and make money faster.
- Training and your coaching your "Starters" or "mavericks" to routinely "Morph" initial ideas into commercial winners, typically with over $50 million/year in profitable sales potential.
- Using four new forward-looking metrics to help predict and increase your company's future NBD profitability.
- Increasing Your Entire Group's Creativity: Measure and quickly increase the creativity and effectiveness of an entire group-culture by more fully understanding the genetic nature of creativity, using the only approach in the literature proven to work.
LinkedIn Public Profile for Greg Stevens: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/2/a68/878
Morning Workshop B: Sink or Swim? The Importance of an Innovation Strategy
Led by: Brian Christian, President - DASO Consulting and Warwick Stirling, Director of Innovation - Whirlpool Corporation
Description:
As with many business imperatives, our tendency with innovation is to dive into the pool before checking for water. One of the more critical requirements for successful innovation is establishing a strategic foundation for the innovation effort. After senior leadership support, it is the most critical ingredient for innovation success. While launching any type of innovation initiative, whether it be building a sustainable innovation capability or just completing a single innovation project, it is important to provide strategic guidance to those tasked with driving innovation success. It will help you avoid wasted effort and investment, lost time and frustration with your innovation results.
- Is your effort to build a sustainable innovation capability spinning its wheels?
- Does your organization hold divergent views about what is considered to be innovation?
- Are you identifying mostly incremental opportunities despite your desire to create game-changing breakthroughs?
- Are you seeing too many innovation opportunities impossibly far removed from your company's capabilities?
- Does management struggle with how to make funding decisions for innovation?
If these are questions that you have asked yourself or heard others ask, you might be in need of a more clearly defined innovation strategy.
LinkedIn Public Profile for Warwick Sterling: http://www.linkedin.com/in/stirling
LinkedIn Public Profile for Brian Christian: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/943/2b0
1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
 Afternoon Workshop C: Market Research for New Product Development: A Crash Course
Led by: Gerry Katz, Executive Vice President & John Mitchell, Principal - Applied Marketing Science, Inc.
Description:
Even experienced market research professionals often stumble when it comes to applying their craft to the world of New Product and Service Development. Why is this? Mostly because there are so many options and issues to consider that don't apply as strongly in more common types of market research such as ad copy testing, image and positioning research, product tracking studies, attitude and awareness testing, or competitive intelligence research. This workshop, intended for both novices and those with considerable experience in market research for NPD, will cover:
- Primary vs. Secondary Source Research
- Exploratory vs. Evaluative research
- Qualitative vs. Quantitative research
- Business-to-Business (B2B) vs. Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
- Products vs. Services
- Outsourcing vs. Do-It-Yourself Research
In each case, this lively, interactive, hands-on workshop will define the terms, outline the issues and considerations, and then address how to decide on the best approach.
Afternoon Workshop D: Getting Results with Lean Product Development
Led by: Katherine Radeka, President - Whittier Consulting Group, Inc.
Description:
How can you eliminate waste, improve the flow of knowledge and make better decisions to deliver more customer value? Lean product development promises to deliver all of these things, and a growing list of companies have used lean to deliver products faster, with lower cost that deliver more customer value. How did they do it?
This workshop will share specific strategies for eliminating the most common wastes in product development, taken directly from the companies who have demonstrated that lean product development works. These tools can help a company experiment with lean and get some quick wins that will solve immediate problems and gain momentum for a larger lean product development effort if needed.
Participants will leave the session with a completed diagnostic tool to help them decide where to focus, and an action plan for making one or two rapid changes when they get back to the office.
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Apply lean thinking in a product development context
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Identify the most common sources of waste in product development, with specific elimination strategies
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Develop an action plan to use Lean thinking to make you a more effective product developer
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