This book is about the design, management, and improvement of product and service development organizations and processes. It exposes students to some of the best management practices, tools, and frameworks known today, and introduces new approaches that hold promise in the future. The material in the book is based on the elective MBA-level course "Managing Product Development (MPD)," which I developed and taught at Harvard Business School (HBS) from 1997 to 2003.1 Some of the material has also been used in the one-week HBS executive education program "Leading Product Development," which I have taught since 1997. Since joining HBS in 1995, my course development and research activities have focused on the managerial aspects of product development. Having been trained as an electrical engineer, however, I have always emphasized the technological and scientific aspects of complex development projects and hoped that the students would gain a profound appreciation for the work of managers, engineers, and scientists. It is through their efforts, commitment, and passion that great new products are created and customers' lives are changed. To learn by doing in parallel to lectures and case discussions, all my students joined development teams and created new products and services that were proudly presented to the HBS community at the end of the semester. While I taught Managing Product Development, I tried to achieve a healthy balance between theory, real-world problems, and hands-on experiences for students. In 2002, I began to follow the emerging field of service development and innovation and thus expanded the course focus through the inclusion of teaching materials about pure service settings. I do hope that students will continue to share my enthusiasm for the exciting and very important profession of product development. The companies and organizations in this book develop computers, drugs, cars, food flavors, software, videogames, banking services, and many more products that affect us on a daily basis. These products and services can lead to spectacular successes or disappointing failures, both financially and in the lives of customers. As we will see, the difference in outcomes can often be attributed to the quality of general and functional management practice. Product development is not just about engineering or R&D departments-it is a company-wide activity, ranging from marketing to manufacturing, and can turn the fortunes of small and large organizations alike.
1 The course’s predecessor was Developing and Managing Technology and was renamed when my colleague Marco Iansiti became coursehead. In 1997, I taught the course with Professor Iansiti, who had developed the teaching material before I took over as coursehead in 1998. Over the next five years, I replaced most of the course materials and developed three new modules that became the foundation of this book.
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2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education