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As originally asked by Megan Raisbeck.

‘Ugly babies’ are products which do not meet the needs of the market and are either pushed through by senior management or designers who are designing for themselves (rather than the customer).

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Eric Steen
Principal at Eric K. Steen & Associates/Rx2GENE
Whether Prom Queen or Ugly Baby the work is the same, evaluating the attractiveness of the market and the competitive strengths of your enterprise that will enable you to succeed there. The winners are the ones that do a better job recognizing which factors in the market and of the enterprise are most important to consider.

John Strupat
President, JST Limited
Since it is Friday and the direction has suddenly changed to spot the prom queen, I can only suggest (with tongue firmly in cheek) viewing this witty clip “[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG3ExHB133k|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3www%2Eyoutube%2Ecom*3watch%3Fv%3DUG3ExHB133k/kV1g?_t=tracking_disc]”

The product champion may be given the role of rallying the troops (rest of the product development team) or even managing the project.
For such folks, they face an uphill climb as soon as they make any claims resembling “break through product” or “disruptive technologies”.
Almost forgot “paradigm shifting” too.

Why would there possibly be any resistance to accepting such claims from the medical device new product development team? Laziness, incompetence, burnt out…. maybe.

I can offer up a few ideas:

1. Regulatory affairs realizes that the FDA and “disruptive technologies” are an evil combination for speedy entry into the market, or entry at all.

2. What S&M call “breakthrough products” are often revealed to be a lack of knowledge of the market segment, the underlying core technology required, the history of the company itself and the experience of the product development team.

A newbie is always keen on the idea of a skunkworks project to bypass all of those naysayers and negatrons involved the formal process. Just push it through and get it on the market!
Nothing ages a newbie faster than 15 minutes with a medical product liability lawyer.

Some things to ponder on the weekend!

Eric R. Larson
Consulting Engineer
Great question but one with no great answer, IMHO.

Lots of recommendations here about using the right processes and procedures – and there are many out there. Personally, I think great product development is about the people involved – people at the top, people at the middle, and people at the bottom. And it is not about spotting an ugly baby, it is about spotting the future prom queen.

I think the answer can’t be defined in a formal process – especially for break through products, and/or those involving disruptive technologies. These types of situations require a unique combination of skills in technology, design, finance, market awareness, leadership – and these skills can NOT be delegated to teams and committees, let alone described in job descriptions, product specifications, and standard operating procedures.

What is needed are product champions with unique sets of skills. While it is helpful to have a company CEO as product champion (think Akio Morita at Sony, Noland Archibald at Black & Decker, Leon Hirsch at US Surgical, Steve Jobs at Apple, et al) – this is not required. (I would even suggest that when the CEO is the product champion there are more examples of failures than successes. There are countless companies with a CEO that is clueless about product development). It is far more important that a company look for the skills that are needed at every level of the product development process.

I would encourage you to rephrase your question about NPD to the following: How do you identify a beautiful swan in a pond full of ugly ducklings? (and if your product development process only has one duckling/baby, this thread is probably not for you)

P.S. As far as product development processes, I would love to have been a fly on the wall when the ATM machine was first proposed. “We are going to make a big hole in the side of your bank, and we are going to put a machine in it. This machine will stick outside, and it will allow anyone with an account at your bank to walk up and withdraw money anytime they want it. Oh yeah, and we’ll also enable it so that anyone with an account at any bank can take out money, too. What do you think?”

Rosalie Gill
Strategic Marketing Research Executive
An ugly baby can make it to market and falls into 2 categories in my opinion, 1) a product failure that did not hit the mark on addressing the needs of the customers probably due to not getting feedback or not getting feedback from the right mix of potential customers, and 2) a good product concept that is either too early or is not receiving the right marketing support during launch. Why do companies spend so much money on product development and drop the ball on appropriate marketing and sales support? Do they really think the product will sell itself?

Marketing research is more than focus groups, as some people alluded to. Ethnographic (observational) research, qualitative research like focus groups or in-depth interviews, and quantitative research like surveys all play a role at different stages. You can optimize your product design and messaging, but without quantitative you can’t size the market and measure market potential. It’s good to develop benchmark metrics for what a winning product score is among customers, and some good research companies have developed this normative data. Without good sampling, you may be getting feedback from the wrong audience. The customer is more than the end-user, and includes the purchase influencers and gate-keepers along the way. They should not be ignored when getting feedback.

Neale Anthony Gentile
BSN. Medical device sales, development and education – Expert in competitive differentiation. BEMER therapy and sales
@ John and John. We are given power here. Our CEO and COO make us all feel like we have equal say in what is decided upon. My job as an experienced nurse and clinical person is to craft a solid, logical argument. Not to be cliche but at Cook and here at US Endoscopy our first concern is the patient. If we keep our eye on that prize we are in good shape!

John Marland
Senior Developer at Automated Telemetry,LLC
@Neale
I think you have the key to making good products, but John and Adolfo both seem to have experienced teams with ah…uneven abilities. I’m afraid I have had the same experience.
@John Strupat – you clearly have been doing this for a while.

John Strupat
President, JST Limited
@ Neale. Can you expand on this with some consideration to Adolfo’s experience?
I’m not sure that clinical specialists are immune either.

Neale Anthony Gentile
BSN. Medical device sales, development and education – Expert in competitive differentiation. BEMER therapy and sales
Having a Cross functional team that relies on clinical specialists, sales and marketing won’t let that “ugly baby” get out of the basement!

Adolfo Menendez
Manager of Engineering, Operations, IT, & Clinical Affairs at Arobella Medical / Bacoustics
Others may have experienced where Marketing was held accountable for the success of the product in the market and not the design team; I mean it was Marketing’s job to know what the buyers (and future buyers) want and make sure it was ‘documented’. However, it has been my (dis)pleasure to experience the contrary; especially aggravating is where it was documented based on one or two users that somehow remain unnamed other than the general term of ‘key customers’. Worse still is when ‘focus’ groups use leading questions designed to generate responses that favor the ‘ugly baby’ rather than objective evidence.
How about the design that focuses on meeting the MRD? Despite facing the untenable reality that, as defined, the project is not technically feasible (e.g. John’s Dialysis Device on a belt, cold fusion, perpetual motion, etc), the MRD, though, says if the product is developed that it will be a great success. These ‘ugly babies’ eventually become career-numbing zombie projects because the technical hurdle(s) are never overcome; somehow, though, they linger way beyond their freshness date.
Marketing can bring great value to the product, as can all the other function departments contributing to the process as well. This process functions best when communication is open, and there is mutual trust; however, as John and others have indicated, many factors can debilitate, derail, or twist/warp the process by limiting open communication (e.g. questioning viewed as dissension) or loss of trust (e.g. truth can be career-limiting if not career-ending); the key perpetrators will vary (e.g. CEO, consultant, favored lackey, someone’s pet idea, overly eager functional head, etc), but the outcome remains the same. Can an ugly baby make it to market? Yes. What are the likely outcome(s)? If you are lucky, the product fails, the product is eventually removed from the market, but company is able to move on and deliver pretty babies (e.g. Ford Edsel, Apple Lisa, New Coke, etc). If you are unlucky, the product fails, the company most likely fails, and you most likely are looking for your next job.

Stopher Christensen
Principal at Tensen Design
Great comments John Strupat!!!

Jumping into this thread late in the game, but an Ugly Baby can be saved 🙂
Hiring the right team of diversified individuals can aid in the refinements and course correction of the ugly baby. Visionaries that push ideas forward might have distorted the seed or core idea that had a true foundation on which a beneficial device could be built upon.

A leader that is blind to the feedback of its team members will eventually walk off a cliff with its ugly baby in hand.

John Strupat
President, JST Limited
All this downstream formal documentation is worthless if the Marketing Inputs are not accurate.

In small medical device companies, the Marketing Director is most often a senior Sales person, and may still wear both hats. A reflex response from every Sales person I have ever met to the question “can you sell this?” is, “yes, I can sell anything”.

The resulting problem for many new product development efforts is obvious.
Any time the senior management has concerns about the cost or the pace of development, or problems with making new features work, the question is posed “can you sell it as-is?”

Megan’s original question about stopping the Ugly Baby is almost impossible at this point if senior management supports another common industry situation; never let product development meet the customer!
After all, Marketing knows the customers and the market and they have put their best ideas into that specification. Just put your head down and make it functional and safe.

In theory, the new product development team should then never be held responsible for the Ugly Baby. Funny how little that theory helps when the customer finally sees the end result and layoffs notices arrive.

Perry Mykleby
Customer Activation, Engagement & Retention
I’ve seen some real turkeys make it to market. Common thread is a company edict to launch product that are embodiments of their native technology (e.g., if all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.)

Kris Gebow
Experienced Designer and Developer Helping Small Businesses Get Ideas into Production
(Regarding do ugly babies make it to market), in my experience I’ve seen them hit the market if they successfully meet the functional and safety requirements, but borderline (or miss) on lesser requirements (too expensive, appearance, too heavy, etc.) A decision was made to release the product in order to meet market deadlines, and allow the design team to start their next project.

Never in my 20 yrs of medical product design experience have I ever seen a product that was marginal on functionality or safety make it to market. The idea of doing such a thing was never discussed. (other medical product designers may have had different experiences)

Joyce Silvestri-Schaeffer
Supplier Quality Engineer at Crenlo
This should never happen if a DFMEA based on the requirements definition were developed at the onset of the project. During the entire development process, using a spider diagram (or similar), depicting the key requirements should weed out the “Ugly Babies” right away. These elements are essential to get the “right” product to the market. Otherwise, the Project Manager (and the organization) is not performing their job correctly. .

Bruce Grayson
Strategic Business Development – Enterprise and Mobile Software – Clinical Applications and Medical Devices
Again – so many good points. I like what Michael D Riley says about problem detection.

So if we can see it – what is the problem? Why does the UB live on?
Is it really the power to effect change?

The theme I see rising to the top is that there are many mediocre people (techs, marketing, VPs, owners, consultants and customers) who all maintain an agenda that often runs contrary to the real market acceptance ( note:not necessarily “perceived” need) for the baby.

Standing out in that crowd and “seeing” the ugly are the gifted few (10%,5%,2%?) who must also have the skills and leadership to formulate and communicate solutions to all those with diverse agendas. That not only takes skill, but also nerves of steel. The best out there lose employment and change jobs if not careful. Is it any surprise that example upon example of ugly babies can be given?
It is statistically likely!

This theme is why visionary leadership can be the best predictor of success and why that perfect storm of leadership, concept, design, and acceptance is celebrated in companies like Apple, RIM, IBM, and HP.
Yet it can slip away in a moment when the market or people shift – same list.

Elementary Dear Prashant

Bruce

Paul Freer
Director of Software Engineering at Nalu Medical, Inc
I agree with John and Don. I worked at IBM when they had an ugly product that management was pushing. It seemed obvious that it wasn’t going to be competitive and the engineering architecture was poor (in my opinion). I left the company because I could no longer stand working on the project and predicted that the San Jose plant would close in a 3 years. They held on for 6 years but IBM ended up selling to Hitachi ([http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/1183321/IBM+Sells+Hard+Disk+Drive+Biz+Cuts+Staff.htm|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3www%2Einternetnews%2Ecom*3bus-news*3article%2Ephp*31183321*3IBM%2BSells%2BHard%2BDisk%2BDrive%2BBiz%2BCuts%2BStaff%2Ehtm/-SVl?_t=tracking_disc]) and the plant site ceased to exist as predicted. The consequences of poor leadership was never more clear to me than that example. But as I stated earlier, good marketing requirements (those that actually reflect end-user interests) can prevent business losses such as this.

Michael D. Riley, M.S.J.
CEO at Operation New Outlook, a non-profit corporation
For too many of my major corporate clients, the new product administrative process neglected to focus on where and how to find the best new product concepts. Before the baby is even conceived, firms need to balance the risks of IP protection against the FACT that customers often freely volunteer the best new product ideas,.and that a good PROBLEM to solve can be even more valuable a jumping off point than a mediocre new product idea. Solutions? (1) Set aside the tendency to play the “not invented here” game. It’s just vanity that inhibits good judgment. IP licensing can be cheaper than you think. And (2) add problem detection market research protocols to the front end of the process.

Matthew Romey
Director – Medical Device Consulting
I agree with Jon, Chuck, Amy and many others emphasizing a well-defined and often-updated marketing requirements document. Reviewing this document at each stage gate or phase review can help identify both the beautiful and the ugly babies before it gets too late.

As John points out, senior management can derail these efforts. This unfortunate truth derives, I believe, from management viewing the product from their own perspective (say, a pet project), instead of from the perspective of the customer. Viewing the product from the eyes of the customer through extensive research, along with frequent reviews, can go a long way towards derailing doomed projects.

In short:
1. All aspects of product development should be viewed through the eyes of the customer.
2. Make what the customer wants.
3. Don’t make it just because you can. If the customer doesn’t want what you can make, don’t make it!

Members of the development team should be reminded of this frequently. The culture needs to come from the top down.

Prashant Soni
Technology for Transportation
As it has been rightly put that we often get the observation right but kill a nascent idea on its way to implementation and make it an ugly one.

Clearly, “spotting the ugly baby” is as intriguing a problem as the identifying an opportunity for a new product or business- an intersection of technology and human behaviour. Much of what we contribute in a new product/business development initiative is governed by both technical expertise and established processes. However, processes aid only efficiency and not innovation, and hence very likely to conceive an ugly baby. Essentially, in our strife to match our pace and results to the established processes, we often tend to twist theories. As Sherlock Holmes said, we create a disaster when we twist theories to match our observation, rather than mending results to suit theories.

Despite of whims and fancies of my peers, I would prefer to stick to science. I would experiment with my ideas and ask myself again and again “what was the rationale of my experiment, what were the fundamentals I used, what were the results I received, do they follow my hypothesis”. If my results build upon my hypothesis, I would inch forward but if they do not, I would go back and change my hypothesis, refine my fundamentals and start afresh.

Kris Gebow
Experienced Designer and Developer Helping Small Businesses Get Ideas into Production
In my experience, a company where products are driven by marketing (as opposed to technology-driven), it is the Marketing Requirements Document that determines what “ugly” is. This document quantifiably and completely defines “beautiful.” After all, Marketing will be accountable for the success of the product in the market, not the designer. It is Marketing’s job to know what the buyer (and future buyers) wants, and make sure it’s documented. Designers must focus on meeting the MRD, if it’s met, they’ve succeeded.