TY - JOUR T1 - Time to Innovate: Reflections and Recommendations on Time Management for Innovation Managers JF - Technology Innovation Management Review Y1 - 2013 A1 - Robert J. Crawhall KW - commercialization KW - innovation KW - product development KW - technology KW - time management AB - Effective time management is a critical success factor for most projects; however, it is particularly challenging for projects involving substantial innovation. For most projects, time (i.e., the schedule) becomes a management "red flag" that signals when something goes wrong or gets out of control. The challenge for projects involving significant innovation is that one or more critical activities may be of an unknown duration or involve factors outside the normal design process and require "red flagging" from the outset. Managers of innovation projects have to distinguish between those activities or work packets that are a part of “business as usual” and those that involve innovation. They must identify and quantify the schedule risks and develop strategies to mitigate them. For example, one strategy to manage time-related risk is to decouple the innovation value as perceived by the customer (innovation output) from the technology innovation that is needed to deliver the product value in a cost-effective manner (innovation input). This strategy should take into account the likely consequences of longer-than-anticipated innovation time. Two common risks associated with poor time management for innovation are running out of financial runway to reach sustainable revenue and missing a critical market window. In this article, the author reflects on almost 30 years of experience in the Canadian innovation system across several industry sectors and provides some practical recommendations on time management for innovation managers. PB - Talent First Network CY - Ottawa VL - 3 UR - http://timreview.ca/article/723 IS - 9 U1 - Innoxec Innovation Executive Services Robert Crawhall is Principal Consultant at Innoxec Innovation Executive Services. He works with senior managers of companies and organizations on the development and implementation of innovation strategy. He is Board member with the ArboraNano Business-Led Network of Centres of Excellence, NanoOntario, and the Canadian Association of Security and Intelligence Studies. He is formerly COO of Precarn Inc. a federal pre-commercialization fund for intelligent systems companies, CEO of NanoQuébec, Executive Director of the Ontario Research Network in Electronic Commerce, CEO of the National Capital Institute of Telecommunications. He held three Director roles at Nortel in Strategic Planning, Advanced Research Networks, and Disruptive Technologies as well as four management roles in technology development with BNR and Northern Telecom Electronics. He started his career with General Electric (Canada) in manufacturing engineering and with Sulzer (Canada) in project management for nuclear energy systems. He holds degrees in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is a registered professional engineer in the province of Ontario, a member of the IEEE, and a certified project management professional (PMP). ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Using Boundary Management for More Effective Product Development JF - Technology Innovation Management Review Y1 - 2013 A1 - John Thomson A1 - Vince Thomson KW - boundary management KW - collaborative product development KW - outsourcing KW - partnering KW - product development KW - review-approve process AB - Twenty years ago, most companies developed their own products in a single location and brought them to market themselves. Today, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are enlisting partners on a global scale as subsystem designers and producers in order to create and deliver new products into the market more rapidly and more frequently. This is especially true for large, complex products from the aerospace, telecommunications, electronics, and software industries. To assure the delivery of information across organizational boundaries, new coordination mechanisms need to be adopted (boundary management). In this article, best practices are described on how OEMs and partners self-organize and use agile, cooperative techniques to maintain daily communication among numerous internal and partner engineers to better coordinate product design and system integration. This article focuses on examples from the aerospace industry; however; these tactics can be applied in any organization to innovate at faster rates, to make delivery times more predictable, and to realize shorter product development timelines. PB - Talent First Network CY - Ottawa VL - 3 UR - http://timreview.ca/article/734 IS - 10 U1 - Thoven Consulting John Thomson is a Senior Researcher at Thoven Consulting, and he graduated with a BA in Religious Studies and Psychology from the University of Toronto, Canada. He has contributed to research and writing projects in the areas of Lean, Six Sigma, healthcare, the food supply chain, and manufacturing. He has also developed programs for training how to use social media in a job search and for teaching computer technology to non-technical adults. U2 - McGill University Vince Thomson is a post-retirement professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Canada. He has been involved in research related to manufacturing and information technology for the past 35 years at McGill University and the National Research Council Canada. His research interests include manufacturing, real-time control, and process management. In process management, he has focused on new-product development, where he is currently working with many aerospace companies on issues such as change management, collaboration among partners, performance measurement, and the reduction of time to market. ER -