1. How do frog's activities affect its ability to (a) maximize the fit with customer needs, (b) minimize development cycle time, and (c) control development costs?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of involving customers fairly early in the design process?

3. What are the pros and cons of using computer-aided design/manufacturing (CAD/CAM) and photorealistic renderings instead of functional prototypes in the development process?

4. Would frog's approach be more suitable for some kinds of development projects than others? If so, what kinds would it be appropriate or inappropriate for?

5. Would frog's approach to product development be effective in a firm that primarily manufactured, marketed, and distributed its own products?

Nanaging the New Product Development Process froga frog is a global design firm with more than 1,600 designers, strategists and software engineers in thirteen studios around the world (Amsterdam, Austin, Bangalore, Boston, Johannesburg, Kiev, Milan, Munich, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Shanghai, and Vinnitsa). frog designed such products as the Apple Macintosh computer, airline terminals for Lufthansa, and the groundbreaking Sony Trinitron television. frog has also applied its design methodology to corporate structure, treating the organization itself as a design object. frog works with clients in a range of industries that includes consumer electronics, retail, entertainment, finance, medical, automotive, software, and fashion, among others. frog's client list includes some of the most notable companies in the world, including Disney, Hewlett-Packard, GE, AT\&T, Dell, Louis Vuitton, MTV, Sprint, Seimens, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. The company is known for its techno-hip style and its philosophyarticulated as "Form follows Emotion" - of creating products with an aesthetic appeal that evokes an emotional response in the consumer. More than an Industrial Design Firm For frog, "design" meant more than creating new products-it meant helping firms plan their strategic directions for the future, sometimes "re-creating" themselves. As described by Mick Malisic, director of marketing, frog engaged in three kinds of activities: - "Evolving." Reinvigorating a company's existing assets. For example, frog redesigned Lufthansa's first- and business-class cabins and lounges, reinvigorating products they already had and rethinking the customer experience for them. - "Expanding." Identifying new products and services for existing and new markets. For example, when Disney expressed interest in developing its own line of consumer electronics products (rather than license the brand to a third-party consumer electronics producer), frog developed a line of consumer electronics for Disney that included DVD players, televisions, walkietalkies, cordless phones, and more. frog started by identifying features and cost points desired by retailers and worked backward to develop a line of products that became highly successful. - "Envision." Rethinking the brand. For example, frog helped Motorola identify an opportunity to reinvent itself for the future by envisioning what kinds of products it could create in the future. A key aspect of this process was to identify a product revolution that was 5 to 10 years out, and then build the evolutionary product steps that would ease customers into a new way of using a product. In Motorola's case, this meant developing a concept design for a line of wearable wireless computing devices, including sunglasses with a miniature digital camera and a display inside the lens for reading e-mail, a watch with a two-way radio and smart phone capabilities, and an intelligent pen that stores a digital copy of your handwriting. From a Tadpole... In 1969, Hartmut Esslinger, a 30-year-old student at a German polytechnic university, won a student design competition that led to a commission to design a new television for German electronics giant Wega. This prompted Esslinger to found his own design studio, Esslinger Design, with two other students, Andreas Haug and George Spreng. The television design was a huge hit, and Esslinger ended up designing more than a hundred products for Wega. Wega was later bought by Sony, for whom Esslinger designed the landmark Sony Trinitron TV in 1978. Esslinger's next big break came in 1981. Steve Jobs was hunting worldwide for the right design team for his next big project - the Macintosh computer. When Jobs found Esslinger, he knew he had found the team for the Macintosh. Jobs and Esslinger struck a multimillion-dollar deal that led to Esslinger's establishing a California office. In 1982, Esslinger Design was renamed frog design, and was by now synonymous with innovation and daring creative vision. Esslinger himself became a larger-than-life persona-high technology's first industrial design superstar. b In 1990, Esslinger appeared on BusinessWeek's cover dressed in leather and astride a motorcycle, sealing his iconic status. frog Teams For each client project, frog assembled a multidisciplinary team that typically included visual designers, design analysts, business and brand strategists, and mechanical and software engineers. The design analysts tended to be dedicated permanently to the same team until the project was complete. Visual designers, on the other hand, often worked on multiple projects simultaneously. Business and brand strategists tended to be very heavily involved in the beginning of the project when the team was conducting design research and evaluating the market opportunities; mechanical engineers and design technologists tended to be very involved in the later project stages when designs had to be translated into physical realities. However, strategists, engineers, and technologists offered opinions and analysis throughout the project process to validate and shape the design. Each studio also had two creative directors that were responsible for helping navigate all of the projects through the various design and development stages. Creative directors had to be fluent in the technical language of all of the disciplines represented on the design team to ensure that the project's meaning and purpose remained coherent, and that frog's contribution could be communicated to the ciient. The frog Process frog's design process stretches from the idea stage through the sale of the product, often including product design, engineering, production, graphics, logos, and packaging. frog's approach emphasizes reaching customers at a deep, emotional level. As noted by Esslinger, "The magic is when both the manufacturer and the consumer get something good that they don't expect." frog's process is organized in three phases: discover, design, and deliver. Discover In the discover phase, frog design team members do significant research to understand the client's business, market, brand, users, and technology. In this stage of the process, findings are synthesized to identify goals, opportunities, and critical success factors. frog teams use a variety of activities to help them generate novel design solutions. These activities often include a facilitated brainstorming session that includes frog designers, members from the client's project team, and potential consumers. A "key facilitator" leads the group through a structured ideation session that could range from several hours to 5 days. The group is broken into smaller groups that are led through a variety of activities designed to help them connect aspects of their technology, brand, and consumer experience in new ways. The ideas are then harvested and analyzed in a process that relies heavily on intuition, subjectivity, and emotion, rather than empirical analysis. The discover phase often has considerable overlap with the design phase, with several activities from each phase occurring in parallel. Design During the design phase, the frog design team transforms intangible inspirations and ideas into tangible solutions that can be used and evaluated. Product concepts and opportunities are compared against production and marketing objectives and constraints. The design phase can include such activities as developing sketch renderings and basic three-dimensional models, conducting usability testing, and assessing project feasibility. Sometimes the design team uses design charrettes-an intense rapid design session in which multiple designers participate to create a design solution by drawing sketches, or crafting prototypes with basic materials such as foam core, tape, and glue. The design process often relies heavily on multiple iterations with potential consumers, incorporating consumer design suggestions. For example, a designer might craft a simple three-dimensional model out of foam and ask consumers to handle the model and talk about how they would use it or how it could be modified to be more useful or appealing. frog Creative Director Valerie Casey noted that often the best feedback was obtained by letting consumers handle very simple, rudimentary models. Consumers, she noted, felt freer to suggest major changes when models were not yet well developed or refined. By contrast, more elaborate or detailed models tended to constrain consumers' suggestions for modification of the potential product. Casey also noted that frequent design iterations with consumers-often four or more per project as the design took form-not only resulted in better product designs but also saved a lot of time in the development process because they allow for early identification of design priorities and avoid costly rework. frog design emphasizes rudimentary prototypes, sketches, and digital renderings rather than functional prototypes. Rudimentary prototypes or visual mockups are both more malleable than functional prototypes and far less expensive. For example, an "appearance prototype" (a prototype that looks like a functioning product but does not actually work) for something as simple as a coffeepot can cost as much as $60,000 to produce. Photo-realistic renderings, paper or foam mock-ups, or computer-aided-design can provide much of the same benefit at a small fraction of the cost. Deliver In the deliver phase, frog's design team refines and documents the chosen solutions. All of the product specifics, models, tools, and production details are turned over to the client. Training, testing, or manufacturing-partner support is conducted if necessary. For some clients, this meant just delivering specifications that the client would implement; for others it meant following the product all the way through manufacturing and distribution. For example, for Disney, frog worked closely with manufacturers and with Target to ensure that the products actually made it to Target's shelves. frog also had a relationship with contract manufacturing giant Flextronics that enabled it to take projects from start to finish, designing the electronic components, creating the "look and feel" of the finished product, and performing the manufacturing for the customer