Making the Product Development FrameWORK: Insights from the Frontlines

Citation

Borrieci, R.N. (2013), "Making the Product Development FrameWORK: Insights from the Frontlines", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 97-97. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610421311298777

In marketing, the acronym, PLC, means the product life cycle and in Making the Product Development FrameWORK, the authors use this term and, although the words are the same, the meanings are vastly different.

This book is about the internal struggles, battles, and lessons learned by Intel managers in improving their product development process. The product life cycle documented in this book closely represents how marketers understand the “new product process” rather than the consumer product life cycle.

This book, in ten short chapters, chronicles the story of how key Intel managers tried and ultimately succeeded in institutionalizing a product development process that can (and ultimately did) work across Intel's divisions and sections, and might work for large and small corporations. It is, as is stated in the forward, a “case study demonstrating everything change agents know about continuous and transformative organizational change” (p. 9).

In fact, the charts shown on page 22 in the book, called the “PLC Revision 2.0”, and the final PLC shown in Appendix A on page 115 are, in my opinion, good examples of the new product development process.

Making the Product Development FrameWORK is also about change agents – those necessary and brave individuals – who are willing to risk their careers by showing middle managers that change is good and necessary, and who have the courage to pursue this mission!

There were two elements of the book that stood out for me as being especially helpful. First, at the end of each chapter, were the “lessons” learned. These were short, usually three to four key lessons learned by the Intel managers during the process. These lessons corresponded to questions that the authors gave us to “ask and answer” before moving forward. Any practitioner will find insights most helpful to guide them through the process of delivering a product to market.

The second element, and another great feature of the book, were the comments and insights quoted by over 30 Intel managers working on all aspects of implementing the PLC concept. As I read their words, I could place myself in their shoes, worrying about what would happen if they failed. Certain comments expressed fear of failure, frustration, pride, and the loneliness of being the “first”.

The general dilemma for the groups working on the PLC was: “How do you manage the needs of convergence and divergence forces?” (p. 104). Intel's managers answered this important question by developing a set of synchronization checkpoints, which is the main story of the book.

While if found this book to be very technical (it is after all about computers and those working in the hardware side of the computer business) it was a quick read and very informative in nature. It gave me some great information about how the PLC internal process should work and how to implement change into an organization (take risks!). It did not however, relate directly to marketing and the marketer's concept of the product life cycle. Perhaps tales of that experience waits for a follow up book!