Irene J. Petrick

Technology roadmapping in review: A tool for making sustainable new product development decisions

Abstract Typically, firms decide whether or not to develop a new product based on their resources, capabilities and the return on investment that the product is estimated to generate. We propose that firms adopt a broader heuristic for making new product development choices. Our heuristic approach requires moving beyond traditional finance-based thinking, and suggests that firms concentrate on technological trajectories by combining technology roadmapping, information technology (IT) and supply chain management to make more sustainable new product development decisions. Using the proposed holistic heuristic methods, versus relying on traditional finance-based decision-making tools (e.g., emphasizing net present value or internal rate of return projections), enables firms to plan beyond the short-term and immediate set of technologies at hand. Our proposed heuristic approach enables firms to forecast technologies and markets, and hence, new product priorities in the longer term. Investments in new products should, as a result, generate returns over a longer period than traditionally expected, giving firms more sustainable investments. New products are costly and need to have a durable presence in the market. Transaction costs and resources will be saved, as firms make new product development decisions less frequently.

Innovation in Emerging Markets

(2011). Innovation in Emerging Markets. Research-Technology Management: Vol. 54, Innovation in Emerging Markets, pp. 8-9.

Driving Disruptive Innovation: Problem Finding and Strategy Setting in an Uncertain World

OVERVIEW: Driving innovation—particularly disruptive innovation—demands that companies possess a deep understanding of the nonobvious problems that will need to be solved in the future. Gaining this understanding requires that companies scan their external environment, identify trends, and then envision future problem states from the perspective of end users or customers. Such an outside-in view is difficult for successful incumbent firms that already possess a dominant logic about their markets and competitive drivers. Strategic roadmapping provides the means to help companies develop this outside-in view and challenge their current competitive perspectives. Here we present a 10-step methodology for strategic roadmapping and show how one group at Intel was able to use this process to envision the future of its business in new ways.

Tipping the balance of power: the case of Large Scale Systems Integrators and their supply chains

The Large Scale Systems Integrator (LSSI) model of supply chain organisation and management is gaining in popularity as Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) seek gains from distributed innovation and leveraged supplier R&D, all the while maintaining economies of scale at the assembly stage. The LSSI model requires a change in the roles and responsibilities of both OEM and its suppliers. Ultimately, staffing patterns at all levels of the supply chain will need to adapt to changing roles for engineering, design, purchasing, and manufacturing. The success of the LSSI model is based on comprehensive and shared knowledge management responsibilities, coupled with deep technical, customer, and market knowledge that are distributed across the extended enterprise. This disrupts the balance of power in the traditional OEM-led supply chain model, offering opportunities for Tiers 2 and 3 suppliers to gain influence.

A Delphi Study of RFID Applicable Business Processes and Value Chain Activities in Retail

For this research we use Delphi technique to identify the key business processes and value chain activities that are improved by RFID. Our Delphi study involves 74 experts from different domains such as consulting, retail, academia, and third party service providers. We also explored whether there is any difference in expert perceptions about RFID applicable business processes and value chain activities across different business associations.

Weather Systems: A New Metaphor for Intelligence Analysis

With the recent catastrophic outcomes in U.S. intelligence capabilities we suggest that current design metaphors are inadequate to address the changing reality of U.S. intelligence needs. In-depth interviews and concept mapping efforts with intelligence analysts suggest that the intelligence domain be characterized as a distributed cognitive work system. Current mechanical or information processing metaphors that encourage techno-centric system design solutions neglect the emergent, pluralistic and distributed nature of information that supports situational awareness and decision making in the intelligence domain. Instead, we suggest that weather systems are a more appropriate metaphor for understanding the cognitive activity of intelligence analysts and to guide the design of cognitive aides, information sharing and knowledge management systems, and data processing tools used to support intelligence work.

The Tinker Toy Challenge—Peeking Under the Cloak of Invisibility in Information System Design

This chapter describes an analogous learning approach to information technology systems design. The core notion is the power of experimentation–experimentation as a teaching tool to introduce students to the design of information systems and experimentation as a teacher to develop and refine a hands-on activity that engages students. Information technology systems design presents a challenge to students since the bits and bytes that must be moved though the system are hard to imagine. A decade ago I sought to develop a way to make some of the concepts of systems design more recognizable by translating bits and bytes into the physical world. Thus was born the Tinker Toy Challenge wherein students are tasked to “move a one pound load three linear feet.” This open-ended challenge forces students to ask questions to better understand the problem space and to think about the requirements of the structure. In doing so, they also explore what a “load” might be and what “three linear feet” might entail. After a decade of using this activity, the Challenge has evolved, too.

Improvisation in the Cloud: Devised Theatre in Support of Problem-Finding

This chapter provides a conceptual framework for emergent design that is crucial in the cloud environment where the device, the customer relationships and the interactivity of that device with other devices creates the full user experience. The framework draws on improvisational thinking in devised theatre as a basis for incorporating storytelling and problem-finding into the designer’s work. The chapter concludes with an example and an assessment of the benefits and the challenges to using this framework.

Networked Innovation: Using Roadmapping to Facilitate Coordination, Collaboration and Cooperation

The nature of relationships between firms has changed from a supply chain to a supply network and increasingly toward an ecosystem. The demands of each of these are different, as are the resulting uncertainties. Roadmapping is a method that at its core is used to buy down uncertainty. To achieve value the firm must understand its role in the network, and the way that its goals are related to the network’s overall effectiveness. There are three aspects of the interaction between firms that are relevant to networked innovation: coordination (linking activity to time in a transaction-based relationship), collaboration (linking activity to intent in a co-creation relationship) and cooperation (linking activity to value creation across an ecosystem or platform). Ultimately, the way that roadmapping is approached should balance the goals of the firm and the network, the sources of uncertainty and the most likely types of interactions.