U.S. Army: New product development: A case study

Engineering Management Journal, Sep 1998 by Corea, Patricia, Gedge, George, Lemmons, Sandi, Pinsky, Judy, Et al

Abstract

Proficient, continuous innovation is critical for the Department of Defense (DoD) to maintain long-term technical superiority. The question is, what new product development (NPD) innovation strategy can enable the DoD to obtain and maintain this competitive advantage?

To answer this question, we analyzed six new product development teams at the Department of Defense (three were

successful and three were not). Managers from each project completed a written survey designed to ascertain the NPD strategies utilized during the project and their relative importance to the project's outcome. The managers were then interviewed to obtain further information on their projects and to verify the responses to the survey.

Our analysis of successes and failures indicated that in each instance a hybrid mix of innovation strategies was used rather

than a reliance upon a single, dominant strategy. Based on our analyses, an ideal hybrid NPD innovation strategy following a process roadmap including the phases of idea generation, screening and evaluation, development, test, and launch is conducive to success. In addition the strategy must include: (1) strong emphasis on the market or soldier to correctly satisfy customer needs, (2) effective multi-functional integrated project teams (IPT) consisting of functional experts, customers, and/or their representatives to provide a foundation for learning and speed, and (3) a common team goal with a clear, shared vision to promote parallel processing and project efficiency.

Introduction

New innovation is critical not only to the success and growth but, frequently, to the continued survival of an organization. No,where is this more true than within the DoD. Success on the battlefield depends upon maintaining technical superiority. The only way to achieve this is to constantly innovate. Unlike the business world where technical innovation is protected to a degree by law, copyright, and patent, a country has no such assurances. Weapons systems will be copied and countered at the earliest opportunity by competing nations. New innovation will guarantee only temporary superiority. Long-term superiority depends upon continuous innovation. The success of the Department of Defense's (DoD) Global Positioning System (GPS) that introduced navigation and tracking systems based on satellites is a perfect example of the potential competitive advantage provided by continuous innovation. During Desert Storm, GPS provided the coalition forces with the distinct advantage of knowing their precise location, at all times, in the vast, trackless expanse of the desert.

Since the end of the cold war, the U.S. Government has placed increased emphasis on acquisition reform to speed new technologies to the battlefield that are necessary to fight the 21 st century information war. To minimize life cycle time and cost, DoD has revamped its Acquisition Directive, DoD 5000.1 and DoD 5000.2R, to bring the previous 15 year new product development cycle closer in line with the rapid pace of technology advancements.

Approach

What innovation strategy can enable a government to retain a competitive advantage and allow it to continually innovate and to do so successfully? To answer this question we analyzed six projects chosen from within the communications-electronics arena. All products were launched; three were successful, and three were not. A successful project was one that met not only time and cost schedules, but also remained in the Army inventory, and was utilized by the soldier to complete the mission. Unsuccessful projects did not meet cost goals or encountered a lack of user acceptance once fielded. A brief description of the individual cases can be found in the Appendix.

We followed a classic approach to the study of the management of innovation by making a pair-wise comparison between the three successful and three unsuccessful projects. An analysis of each project was based on responses from program managers to the: Innovation Evaluation Guide Survey (Lynn, 1997).

The survey results assisted in determining not only the innovation strategies used for development, but also the extent to which each strategy was utilized. The survey further assisted in measuring how proficiently a project team performed the different functions within each strategy. PMs rated the questions from 0-10 to indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with each statement. A rating of zero indicated strong disagreement while 10 indicated strong agreement. The numbers between 0 and 10 indicated varying levels of agreement or disagreement. We augmented the surveys with follow-up interviews that concentrated on extreme responses.

Where possible, multiple surveys and/or interviews were obtained on the same project. A total of 11 interviews were completed with four project managers, two deputy project managers, a project engineer, a systems integrator, a marketing manager, a project leader, a team member, and a user. The average interview lasted 25 minutes with the longest lasting 60 minutes. Three PMs were interviewed more than once. Six surveys were completed, one for each project, by the project's PM. We critically analyzed the data from the results of the surveys and interviews for trends that indicated which innovation strategy, or hybrid, had the most influence on the project. We also evaluated the interview responses and the data to determine the most critical factors that led to a successful or unsuccessful project.