Modernizing Product Development in the Consumer Goods Space

...when traditional R&D isn’t fast enough in the new world of disruptors...

Following the path of software developers, I’ve started considering how Agile philosophy could apply to consumer product R&D.

How would the dynamic planning and tracking practices of Scrum enable faster, more interactive product development cycles for consumer goods?

Beyond traditional stage gate and Gantt or “waterfall” project management to drive new product development (NPD), early innovation is often fed by design thinking practices. I’ve been very interested to learn there are clear overlaps between design thinking and Agile:

? Both are human-centric. In Scrum, the Product Owner creates user stories to guide the development team. In design thinking, we create problem statements rooted in end-user empathy.

? They are both about failing fast. They rely on rapid, cost effective learning cycles, to get to best as quickly as possible. Agile in the form of demos, and design thinking in the form of rough physical prototypes.

? Both foster diversity of thinking, and T-shaped people to drive rich ideas (Agile is particularly strong on building team, an area that I think is ripe for idea stealing in NPD).

However, Agile is a framework that flows all the way through to product launch. Design thinking ends with a prototype concept submitted to the first NPD stage gate, turning into a traditional waterfall management effort.

With the impressive success that Agile creates in terms of speed to market and high quality output, I can’t help but wonder how we can innovate the NPD process to use some of the tools and principles.

The key would be defining two critical roles: 1) the Product Owner, accountable for the deliverable and for ensuring the entire team understands it and can sign up for it, and 2) the role of Scrum Master, the team protector who makes sure the process is followed and the team is healthy and on-track.

• What if we could apply the Agile sprint approach to shortened cycles of development and testing?
• What if we could dedicate and co-locate those Sprint teams with daily involvement from the product owner, all members focused on the same singular goal?  
• What if the entire team was fully committed to and deeply understood the “user story,” the product deliverables?
• What if the team was accountable for itself, and regularly conducted retrospectives to improve efficiency and team health? 
• What if only the most critical elements were addressed each and every day?

Even if just a couple of these were implemented, how much faster could we move? How much more rewarding would that be? There are fascinating and powerful tools in Agile that are begging to be leveraged in consumer NPD. With disruptors around every corner, investigating modern approaches to R&D seems a wise and even essential priority.