Ejemplos de buena enseñanza

The respondents were asked to describe the characteristics of the front end and development phases as well the nature of work during them. The answers given by the respondents supported the existing discussion in the literature about these two phases of innovation process. Also, the answers given were pretty similar between the interviewees. As is widely discussed in the literature (see e.g. Koen et al. 2001, Kim & Wilemon 2002b), it was also agreed among the respondents that the front end and development phases are very different by nature.

“The front end and development phases are like day and night.” (upper manager 1, company B)

Nature of Front End

All the interviewees agreed the front end phase to be less structured and bureaucratic than the development phase. Furthermore, the nature of work in the front end was mentioned to be about nice inventing and brainstorming. These notions support the discussion in the literature about the characteristics of front end in which front end has been described as informal, iterative, unstructured and experimental (see e.g. Buckler 1997, Zien & Buckler 1997, Koen et al. 2001, Buijs 2007). The upper manager of small Company C described front end as:

“The front end is in a way also about dreaming5you could compare it to a situation where no laws or order exist.”

Furthermore, the upper manager of small Company C mentioned front end to be the nicest phase of the whole process:

“Well yes, the Gyro Gearloose (Pelle Peloton) phase is the nicest phase5that is when you brainstorm and only afterwards start to fix them. It is the nicest to draw different

things in the air.”

The upper manager 1 of Company B, noted front end to require ability to conceptualize, to live in uncertainty, and to constantly be alert to new things and search for the best approach. Moreover, he mentioned it to be important to bare disappointments since

many of the ideas and may not be feasible. High tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity during the front end phase has also been emphasized in the literature. Buckler (1997), among others, argues that FEI requires high tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity, and the willingness to consider the unreasonable. However, Katz (2004) notes that usually people do not deal well with uncertainty, rather they like to know what will happen next and how they will be affected. Taken this into account, people working with innovative projects need to have characteristics different from most of the people, which needs to be taken into account when managers are recruiting employees in innovative projects.

The upper manager of large Company A argued that inventiveness and creativity is needed less and less as the process goes further:

“At the beginning there are big challenges about how to do something and those are interesting, and at the end you think that how to get the product to the customer.”

However, the upper manager 2 of large Company B noted that the same creativity elements exist in the development phase as exist in the front end phase but the target is more focused. He argued that the creativity and inventiveness is present from the very start of the project until completing the project. He further argued that:

“Even though the concept phase (front end phase) tries to minimize the risks and define the concept there still remains lot of aspects of inventiveness to the

development phase.”

Interestingly, front end was not described to be chaotic as it has been by several authors (see e.g. Koen et al. 2001, Hohn 2004, Buijs 2007). Rather, the chaotic nature was mentioned to occur as the project goes further and more and more people and stakeholders are involved.

“At some point the project is a controlled chaos and no one knows are we on schedule or not.”

(upper manager, company A)

Front end and development phases were mentioned to differ also in the sense that in the front end phase there are usually only few people working with the given task whereas in development phase the team is larger and different stakeholders are involved in the project requiring more systematic management of the project.

Nature of Development Phase

The development phase was mentioned to be much more detailed than the front end phase, consisting of several milestones. The work in the development phase was seen as more systematic and structured than the front end phase including a strict timetable. Development phase was also described as “pedantic”, “bureaucratic”, “goal-oriented” and “regimented”. It was noted that in the development phase there are a lot of tasks that “just need to get done”. The descriptions of the characteristics of development phase mentioned above go also hand-in-hand with the discussion in the literature where development phase has been described as, structured, linear and goal-oriented, among others (see e.g. Koen et al. 2001, Kim & Wilemon 2002b). Furthermore, small details were seen as of importance during the development phase:

“In the development phase it is very important to be persistent and push through even very little changes. Say, you have a cross in a wrong place in the order-form. The guy

working in the front end phase couldn’t care less but if it is not fixed it means that wrong products are being ordered and delivered so the guy working in the

development phase has to pay attention to it.” (upper manager 1, company B)

Both upper managers of large Company B, mentioned front end and development phases to require different kind of personalities and skills. Another upper manager of the company mentioned:

“According to my own experience, we have people who are inspired by the inventiveness and out-of-box thinking but who don’t like it when something should be

completed. Then we have other kinds of people who like to commit to different goals and enjoy achieving them.”

It is important to notice that in Company B, the front end activities and development activities were separated in the organization which might have affected to the point of views of the upper managers. However, also the respondents of Company A and C agreed these two phases to be very different by nature even though there were approximately same people working in both of the phases.

Motivation of Professionals

As various authors have noted (see e.g. Amabile 1996, James 2002) also the results of this research suggests work itself to be the most important motivator of a creative work.

In general, people working with product development were described to be curious to different things and to enjoy challenges and figuring out things.

“The people who want to work with product development are those who broke up the railroad the next day they received it because they were interested to see what’s in

there.”

(upper manager, company A)

The biggest motivator of developers during the front end and development phase was agreed to be inventing and doing something new and starting fresh, as can be noted from the following comments:

“They (product developers) love to design new weird things that don’t exist in the world yet.” (upper manager, company A)

“I think creating something new is the most important motivator5at least it’s not the money.”

(upper manager 1, company B)

Keller (1992) note providing new challenges to be an important function of a NPD project leader. Also Katz (2004a) has emphasized the importance of providing possibilities for development in managing creative performance. According to him the work enthusiasm will suffer if employees can not redefine or expand their jobs for continued change and growth. Giving the possibility to learn and develop new skills is a big motivator of professionals (Katz 2004 b). Thus, it can be noted to be important for the project leader to provide new challenges for their team members.

In addition to the work itself, the upper manager of company B mentioned motivators during the development phase to be learning something new, achieving the set goals, and seeing the results of own work. Also, in the case of the small Company C, most of the employees are shareholders of the company which was mentioned to be a motivator for them.

However, it was also mentioned to be challenging to motivate team members at certain situations. As is usually the case especially in the large companies, there are several development projects going on at the same concurrently. Completing challenging tasks at the end of the development phase when team members can already be part of a

new and inspiring, project was seen challenging. The project leader of Company B commented:

“Especially during the end of the development phase, when team members have moved to other projects but they still have some duties to my project. Motivating them

to do the tasks to the old project when their interests are already in the new one can sometimes be very difficult.”

The study of Gemmill and Wilemon (1994), also pointed out that one of the biggest sources of project leader frustration is the lack of commitment among team members. Their study showed, that in these kinds of situations, project leaders feel themselves helpless and powerless. Furthermore, the project leaders interviewed by the authors seemed to blame themselves about the lack of commitment of (some) team members. Thus, the motivation of professionals is important also in that sense that it affects the working and the feelings of the project leader.

It was emphasized to be important by several interviewees that the project leader gets people to work for the project even without the actual superior title. That was said to come through project leader’s example and knowledge. The project leader should have good social capabilities to get things done even without the organizational power.

However, as the development phase reaches a certain point where the amount of routine work increases, it was difficult for the interviewees to name the motivators in that phase.

“I think that there’s nothing that motivates in that phase5lot of it is just ‘obligatory evil’ that needs to get done.” (upper manager, company A)

Redmond et al. (1993) note that acknowledging employees potential and accomplishments contribute to their motivation and solution quality even during more routine work periods. Furthermore, the authors suggest that creativity can be facilitated simply by acknowledging the potential and accomplishments of an individual.

The importance of acknowledging good work done was noted also by several interviewees. This was seen important during both, the front end and development phases.

“I think that the best motivator is to thank for the good work done.” (project leader, company C)

Furthermore, promoting the team in general was mentioned to be important. This can be done by sharing the achievements of the team with the rest of the organization as a project manager from large Company B does:

“Whenever the team achieves something worthwhile, I send an email to the team and copy it to our managers.”

Using material rewards, such as taking the team for a dinner or organizing other common happenings, shared opinions between the interviewees. The small Company C did not see any usage of using material rewards. They mentioned having tested using them but the benefit, according to the interviewees, was only very short termed. The large Company A mentioned to time to time use material rewards such as taking the team for a dinner or organizing other common happenings. Also, although rarely, financial rewards were given as recognition for work done especially well. However, also these were mentioned often to be addressed to the whole team. Furthermore, financial rewards were seen challenging since both the quality and amount of the work should be taken into account. The study by Griffin (1997) showed project-completion dinner to be the most frequently used reward in NPD settings. Furthermore, the findings suggest that financial rewards were used only rarely in NPD. Barckzak and Wilemon (2001) discuss that the frustration of cross-functional team members which occurs from the lack of knowledge and understanding about the evaluation and reward systems for new product development work. This was not pointed out during the interviews. In deed, this might be due to a fact that only employees in managerial positions were interviewed and not the people actually conducting the tasks. Table 9 summarizes the central findings regarding the front end and development phases.

Table 9 Findings about Differences between FEI and Development Phases

Front End Development Phase

Characteristics of front end Free, unstructured, not so timetable driven

Structured, regimented, bureaucratic

Nature of Work Inventing, discovering,

experimenting

Systematic, detailed, goal-oriented

What motivates people? Work, doing something new,

getting recognition of work well done

Work, doing something new, learning something new, achieving set goals, seeing the results of ones work, getting recognition of work well done

How are the people like working in this phase?

Alert to new things, bare uncertainty,

like out-of-box thinking and developing something that does not exist in the world yet

Goal oriented,

enjoy systematic working

To sum up, the front end phase was characterized as unstructured, free and not so timetable driven as the development phase. Moreover the nature of work was characterized to include inventing, experimenting and discovering. The development phase, on the other hand, was described to be systematic, structured, regimented, and more bureaucratic than the front end phase. Biggest motivator in both of the phases was noted to be the work itself and to do something new. Furthermore, the other motivators during the development phase were learning something new, achieving the set goals, and seeing the results of ones work. According to the interviews people working in the front end need to be alert to new things, bare uncertainty well, and get excited about developing something that does not exist in the world yet, whereas people working in the development phase are goal oriented and prefer structured and more systematic working. However, as has been mentioned earlier, only in the case of large Company B, the front end and development functions were separated in the organization, and usually people working in the front end would not be working in the development phase. In the two other companies, small Company C and large Company A, usually the people working in the front end would also be working during the development phase. However, according to the interviews, team members need to emphasize different skills and state of minds during the first two phases of innovation process.