Why Have a PIC?
Think back to Peter Koen's"sandbox" comment mentioned earlier. We have al ready seen how many different places we can find opportunities for new prod uct development. Without a strategy, it is easy to lose focus and to spend time and resources chasing the wrong opportunities. The PIC provides the direction, or directions, the team should concentrate on in new product development in other words, it defines what sandbox the team is in, or wants to be in, and also where it does not want to be. Without putting down the boards that define the size nd shape of the sandbox(metaphorically speaking), then any opportunity would seem to be a good one Consider a team developing a small, portable computer printer. One member thinking of using a new battery-based technology, while another team member is concentrating on potential customers who happen to work in environments where all plugs are available. people plan to pretest the product tensively, while manufacturing engineers assume time is critical and are design- ing finished production capability from the beginning. A vendor picked to supply the tractor mechanism has to check with the team leader almost every day because the team has not decided exactly what functions the printer will serve or the target user. And the team is being guided by requests from the sales department, which currently calling on smaller firms although, in fact, the biggest potential is thought to be in large firms and governments. This team has not developed strategy. Team guidance, just like corporate or strategic business units(SBUs guidance comes partly in the form of strategy. Its purpose is to focus and integrate team effort and to permit delegation. Bausch& Lomb almost lost its market position when its managers concentrated for too long on improving old products and thus almost missed new products like extended-wear contact lenses. Being forced to review their strategy, they found many more opportunities and went on to capitalize on them(e.g., disposable contact lenses)
Lacking a focused and integrated effort, new products teams are likely to face the related problems of scope creep and unstable product specifications 2 Both of these problems occur if the"sandbox" is not defined, or only poorly or vaguely defined. Scope creep refers to the constant changing of a project's definition: Is the project meant to be a product designed for a specific customer, a large number of users, or a platform for a whole new line of products? unstable product specifications refer to the product requirements or desired performance level changing as the product goes through the development phase. In either case, the product team is chasing an elusive target(Robert Cooper would call this the"moving goalpost"), with inevi table wastes of both time and resources. A clear-cut PIC, designed to over-arch the entire new products process, helps to minimize these costly and time-consuming problems. There is even value to be gained in the very process of working together and formulating a PIC. A good process fosters high levels of commitment from the participants, consensus on goals and objectives, and agreement on the ways the goals will be achieved. Indeed, in a recent empirical study, the most innova tive firms in the sample were those that had a clear PIC and also had a satisfac tory process for PIC development. This finding complements an earlier study, in