Learn from new product failures

Article Type: Abstracts From: Development and Learning in Organizations, Volume 24, Issue 1

Hlavacek J., Maxwell C. and Williams J.Research Technology Management (USA), Jul-Aug 2009, Vol. 52 No. 4, Start page: 31, No. of pages: 9

Purpose – To encourage manufacturing companies to face up to the mistakes they make in new product development and share the knowledge and lessons gained with others in their industry so as to build up organizational knowledge about such failures. Design/methodology/approach – A parallel is drawn with the classical morbidity and mortality (M&M) conferences that are the foundation on which the medical profession learns from its mistakes. Applies this M&M approach to the study of why clever people in research and development (R&D), engineering organizations, and business units regularly fail to learn from their new product development mistakes in the same way that teaching hospitals regularly do. Reports on a brief survey of 50 senior managers who said that they should learn from their mistakes but gave reasons why they did not.Article Type: Research paperISSN: 0895-6308Reference: 38AS023

Keywords: Chief executives, Innovation, Management failures,Organizations, Product design, Product development, Product innovation, Product management, R&D, Surveys, Technology-led strategy, United States of America