New Product Development, Global & Cross-Functional Project Teams, Innovation, Observational Research
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Expert has worked with a variety of teams in different industries to understand their targeted consumers. In addition to traditional methods of research (e.g. focus groups, quantitative surveys) he has enabled companies to implement various team-based research techniques including one-on-one interviews and in-home observational research. Both product concepts and consumer "processes" have been analyzed. Companies using the latter methods have been able to develop very successful new products targeted specifically at unexpressed, unmet consumer needs.
Expert has worked with a variety of cross-functional, multi-cultural, integrated product teams across several different industries. Having led successful new product development teams himself, he brings 15 years of industry experience to his consulting practice. He understands that people must work together effectively in order to implement even the best of processes. Expert helps teams to understand individual roles and responsibilities, functional strengths, and perspectives, and enables them to focus on the common goals that will lead them to success.
Expert has worked in the new product development (NPD) field, both in industry and as a consultant, for nearly 20 years. The holder of six U.S. patents, Expert has been involved with all phases of NPD from the fuzzy front end through product launches. He has served in a variety of functions on NPD teams including engineering, marketing, and planning, and has led numerous teams (both large and small)to successful results. Expert has applied this experience to help diagnose problems within organizations such as excessive development times, lack of discipline, insufficient innovation, and poor teamwork. He has gone on to work with specific clients in overcoming these issues enabling them to optimize their processes and see dramatic improvements in their performance. He works with specific project teams and management groups in creating new processes and high-performance teams.
Expert has led numerous teams through projects ranging from small departmental, part-time groups to 40-person, fully dedicated international teams. He has worked with companies to help their project managers develop into project leaders. He has worked with both co-located teams as well as geographically dispersed teams. A strong believer in high-performance teaming, Expert places primary emphasis on getting the team "culture" right first in terms of understanding common goals, barriers, and success factors. He then focuses on providing the necessary "tools" to enable the team to succeed in achieving them.
Expert has developed a variety of customized stage gate processes for different clients. While there is always a degree of similarity between these, there are always subtle company-specific issues that must be addressed in order to have a successful process. Different companies have different priorities in regards to developing new products, be it innovation, speed, or cost. He typically works with people at a variety of levels and functions within a company to fully understand the needs that exist, and then creates a process which addresses each of these needs.
Expert worked with a cross-functional business team at Whirlpool to document consumer processes and discover unmet needs through observational research. Through the use of their unique innovation tools, he generated a variety of new product concepts targeted directly toward those newly exposed, unmet needs.He created, implemented, and trained personnel on a new, New Product Development process for Sunbeam Corporation. Expert led newly formed, global, cross-functional teams through a start-up phase where cultural and functional barriers were identified, addressed, and eliminated. This allowed the teams to start their projects in a much faster and more efficient manner.He assessed the current environment at a company where there was a stated concern regarding a lack of innovation and timely new product introduction. Expert recommended organizational changes and provided a new process to directly impact these issues. Upon implementation, the company noted a dramatic improvement. Expert worked with a company to identify a common, global product platform from which variances could be delivered to satisfy unique consumer requirements across different regions.