Assignment 10

The document discusses best practices for innovative product development championing. It provides benefits and risks of assigning senior executives as project champions. While champions can facilitate resource allocation and communication, they may lose objectivity and push non-viable projects due to escalating commitment. Firms can minimize these risks by tying incentives to commercial returns rather than project completion. They can also create an "anti-champion" role to play devil's advocate and encourage dissenting opinions.

Uploaded by

prem

Available Formats

Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

0% found this document useful (0 votes)

226 views

Assignment 10

Uploaded by

prem

Available Formats

Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

You are on page 1/ 2

Assignment 10

MGMT 8143 Students

In many industries, the ability to develop new innovative products quickly, effectively
and efficiently is now the single most important factor driving firm success. Yet despite
the attention paid to new innovative product development, the failures rates are still very
high. Many innovation projects are never completed and of those that are, many fail to
deliver the economic returns expected. Chapter 11 discusses strategic imperatives for
innovative product development and best practices for new innovation.
Read chapter 11, answer Discussion Question 4, pg. 260

4. What kinds of people make good project champions? How can a firm ensure that it gets the benefits of
championing while minimizing the risks?

People who make a good champion may have leadership, negotiation, persuasion and communication
skills (up or down the chain), access to resources (human or capital), knowledge in the product
development cycle and most importantly project goal driven rather than a personal goal.

Firm can ensure its gets the benefits of championing while minimizing risk by having an anti-champion,
comparing project current status with the promised deliverable timely, incentivize champion with
company shares based on the return of the project as well as for reducing the damage to the firm for
proactively scraping project, frequent milestone check ins with go and no go decision, open forum Q&A
with senior leaders, champion and project team and anonymous feedback.

An example I could think of is where a project champion was personally attached to the project where he
was attached due to the external perks he was receiving from the vendor of the project. He wanted to
make sure the project gets deployed as he is more concerned about the external perks rather project
commercial success. If the company has a strict conduct policy of not accepting external perks and tying
the incentives to commercial success, it would help the firm to minimize the risks.

 Benefits of Championing

 Senior execs have power to fight for project

 They can gain access to resources

 They can communicate with multiple areas of firm

 Risks of Championing

 Role as champion may cloud judgment about project

 May suffer from escalating commitment

 Others may fear challenging senior executive

 May benefit firm to develop “antichampions” and encourage expression of dissenting opinion.

 Assigning a senior executive to champion a new product development project can shorten cycle
time and ensure that the product attributes match customer requirements by facilitating the
allocation of resources to the project and by ensuring proper communication and cooperation
among the different functional groups needed on the project.

 Risks of Championing include the loss of objectivity by the project champion that can result in an
inability to admit when a project has no future and if the champion occupies a senior level position
in the organization others may be reluctant to express their true thoughts regarding the value of
the project. To counteract these risks, firms may create the role of “anti-champion” to play devil’s
advocate.

The characteristics of a good project champion are leadership, persuasiveness (i.e. someone who can be
an effective advocate while retaining objectivity) and access to resources. Such a champion should be
encouraged, however, to continuously evaluate the potential of a project. For example, rather than tying
the champions incentives to the project being completed or having a short cycle time, the champions
incentives could be
tied to the project’s commercial return minus its development costs, and to the overall success of the
corporation, thereby discouraging the executive from pushing a project that has low potential. Another
way to minimize the risks of a project champion (the possibility the champion will push to continue a
project that is no longer viable, or that the champion is so influential others within the organization are
reluctant to speak against the project) is to create a role for an anti-champion, someone whose role it is
to constantly question the value of the project.