|
Now that I live in the Detroit area, I am much more cognizant of car companies in the news. And, I’ve actually admired the changes at Ford for much longer than I’ve been here. In the last Business Week, the Management and Leadership piece was on Ford and their new heavy-duty engine, called Scorpion, which was developed in record time.
The development of the Scorpion engine employed a classic skunkworks process - the team went offsite with little contact with the "mother ship." Like most companies, this was not the normal product development recently used at Ford. And, like many companies, the highly structured, highly developed NPD model is now bogged down in bureaucracy. (Of course the article didn’t say this, but I did read between the lines.) Not being an expert on stage-gate processes, it does seem that they weren’t designed for speed, nor particularly for innovation.
The things I like most about this project:
- They named the engine after a heavy metal band
- The team was was recruited from all over the company
- There was a sense of cross-pollination type collaboration that spurred time and money saving problem solving. They collaborated with suppliers rather than forcing compliance to their ideas
- They created a FUN work environment
- Best of all, Ford management kept their promise of hands-off
Gee, it seems that a competent, passionate team allowed creative freedom does really work!
So, what about your company? Is your innovation process bogged down? If so, what can you do about it? |
11/21/2009 by: Steven Bigatti
Flexible product development concepts are often in contradiction with staged-gate NPD processes, for example rushing design decisions to meet timelines rather than keeping options open as long as possible, or using single point design rather than cross-functional set based design criteria. To the extent skunk works help mitigate these pitfalls, they can be very valuable. The best approach is to incorporate the concepts into the broad NPD process by changing the culture around it. Easier said than done.
|
11/6/2009 by: Jonathan
Yep, this approach still works. It worked for Dodge when they developed the first Viper (in an old Kelvinator plant), and reinforces the findings from "In Search of Excellence." Just another strategy for getting away from the giant bureaucratic hairball and working in a productive orbit. Doesn't matter whether you call it a skunkworks or an "Innovation Center," or a retreat, "tiger team," "innovation team," or a "special op." What does matter is that you and the team break out of the attitude of "this is how we do things here." I'm told that hanging pirate flags also works.
|
