Akio Toyoda – Toyota’s plan to repair its public image – washingtonpost.com

In an article in the Washington Post, Mr. Akio Toyoda laid out

Toyota’s plan to repair its public image. Within this article, he lays out four steps to fix the R&D and quality processes (Review existing ops; Improve quality control; Listen to customers; Share data):

First, I have launched a top-to-bottom review of our global operations to ensure that problems of this magnitude do not happen again and that we not only meet but exceed the high safety standards that have defined our long history. As part of this, we will establish an Automotive Center of Quality Excellence in the United States, where a team of our top engineers will focus on strengthening our quality management and quality control across North America.

Second, to ensure that our quality-control operations are in line with best industry practices, we will ask a blue-ribbon safety advisory group composed of respected outside experts in quality management to independently review our operations and make sure that we have eliminated any deficiencies in our processes. The findings of these experts will be made available to the public, as will Toyota’s responses to these findings.

Third, we fully understand that we need to more aggressively investigate complaints we hear directly from consumers and move more quickly to address any safety issues we identify. That is what we are doing by addressing customer concerns about the Prius and Lexus HS250h anti-lock brake systems.

We also are putting in place steps to do a better job within Toyota of sharing important quality and safety information across our global operations. This shortcoming contributed to the current situation. With respect to sticking accelerator pedals, we failed to connect the dots between problems in Europe and problems in the United States because the European situation related primarily to right-hand-drive vehicles

It is an interesting plan, however, I am not sure how easy it is to implement. There are fundamental cultural traits that drive behavior (both R&D culture and national/ethnic culture). I once consulted with a Japanese multinational with operations in the US. There was significant conflict between the two operations and the engineers in the US felt powerless to do anything to customize products for local demand. I have heard about how difficult it was for the Japanese to understand the US pick-up truck market.
Reviews are only useful if there is a concrete plan and metrics to implement the changes identified. Quality control has to be tied to R&D in the first place to actually deliver. In a multiorganizational complex automotive development, it is extremely difficult to get a handle on all the R&D and communicate it effectively to quality. Finally, it is easy to say that we will share information, but very difficult to do. More information is not necessarily better – one needs ability to drill down to the necessary information and context for what the information means.
How would you try to change R&D management to drive change?

CCNA CCNP Voice IT Certifications Exam VCE: https://www.4itexam.com/ Jobs, Employment
CCVP stands for Cisco Licensed Voice Skilled. I believe if you wish https://www.4itexam.com/ to recertify your CCVP, take any 642 examination that doesn’t belong to the ccnp dumps previous CCNP monitor or another outdated exams. In addition to retiring 210-260 CCNA certifications, Cisco has made one other transfer to retire CCNA Voice certifications as of October 20, 2018. Skilled-stage Cisco certifications embrace: CCNP, CCSP and CCVP, all of which are associated ccnp switch 300 115 dumps with common salaries above $one hundred,000, according to the 2018 Salary Survey performed by ccnp switch Certification journal.
Quantity six on the list of the highest paying certifications is the Cisco ICND1/CCENT Licensed Voice 100-105 dumps Skilled. Alongside the exams, Cisco additionally provided transitioning assist for ICND1/CCENT licensed employees at the time. Incomes a Cisco certification validates a strong set of abilities in implementing, working, configuring, and troubleshooting a converged IP community.
5. Possibly we (present CCVP’s) will have to take one of many new exams 200-105 dumps within the eight.0 observe. Current Cisco ICND2 candidates who re-certify will routinely become Cisco CCNA Voice licensed. In an effort to obtain Cisco CCNA Security certification, people had to efficiently full five exams. Though there have been cisco 210-260 some vital modifications between Cisco CCNA Security certification, some key issues ccna security 210 260 dumps stayed the identical in proving your telepresence knowledge.
Little did I do know on the time that my first take a look at, Troubleshooting Unified Communications, had recertified my Cisco CCNP Collaboration and triggered the upgrade to a CCNP:Voice. That a certification 300 075 dump within the “old” CCNP exams, will be valid as part of 300-075 Implementing Cisco IP Telephony & Video Part 2 v1.0 the brand new CCNP Voice certification. Ã¢â‚¬Â¢ Cisco Certified Voice Skilled (CCNP): This certification is designed to check all elements of Web telephony.
Some of the fascinating modifications between Cisco CCNA certification icnd1 dumps and ccie certification seems to be the annual salary of licensed people in Kings Park 400 101 dumps and worldwide. For example, I would search CCIE, and individually search “cisco voice”. I was confused on this CCIE 400 101 particular occasion with the CCIE: Voice because the certification website by no means mentioned something 300-075 dump about there being an improve path from my 4.2 CCVP to the eight.x CCNP: Voice.
I think we need some clear solutions quickly because ccna security 210-260 pdf personally I will be very upset if I pass my 210-260 exam right now and it does not recertify my Cisco CCNA Security or give me a Cisco CCNA – Voice. In keeping with several pay-grade web sites, CCNP licensed users 300 101 dumps earned up to $eleven,000 greater than CCNP professionals in some areas. Should you have been trying to receive a Cisco CCNP certification, you’ll have to go for the CCNP Collaboration certification instead.
NetCom Learning gives ITIL V2 vs ITIL V3 itil v3 foundation Voice (Previously referred to as ITIL V2 vs ITIL V3) training utilizing Official Curriculum. I believe Cisco are mistaken to alter the title of cissp dumps cissp Voice it does not make sense cissp is established and other people know what it means, its hard sufficient to get non techies to understand what these acronyms stand for without changing their identify on a regular basis.
Not to point out that the average salary will 300 115 dumps increase by virtually $20,000 between a CCNP Switch Verison 2.0 licensed particular person. The CCNP exam expects that you just absolutely know, understand, comprehend, the exam targets and test prep are makes you able to ccna exam the Cisco Certified Voice Professional data. I have CCNA certification, now I wish to renew my CCNA certificate to CCNA Collaboration.
As we speak when to see my test historical past 210-260 dumps and discover out that I obtained (3) three of the take a look at beneath CCNA Security 210-260 Official Cert Guide Voice and the opposite (2) two test under CCNA Security, huh. This should have been left open until current CCVP’s where migrated to CCNP – Voice or till the twenty eighth Feb 2011 and then convert folks. On October 19, 2010, Learning@Cisco introduced 210 260 dumps the evolution of the CCNA Security certification, renaming it CCNA Security Voice.

Impact of IT on R&D management

MIT Sloan Review has an article on “The Four Ways IT Is Revolutionizing Innovation.” The factors according to the article are:

Measurement, experimentation, sharing and replication.

Of these factors, sharing and replication are clearly universal drivers enabled by IT. Most industries are benefiting from improved sharing and replication of information across R&D organizations. The impact of other two is not universal.

The examples given in the article are mainly Internet and networking companies. Clearly, they have the luxury of using IT for measurement and experimentation. A lot of their data is easily available and IT can really support experimentation.

In many other industries (high-tech, electronics, bio-tech, aerospace and automotive, etc.), IT does not actually measure R&D results or aid experimentation. In fact, a lot of the challenges in managing R&D stem from the difficulty in measuring R&D results and finding ways to experiment with R&D processes/tools to improve efficiency. Any thoughts?

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Making cost cuts stick

According to one recent study, 90% of the organizations fail to sustain cost savings beyond two years. McKinsey quarterly has an interesting check-list to ensure cost cuts stick:

Assign accountability at the right level

Focus on how to cut, not just how much

Don’t let P&L accounting data get in the way of cost reduction

Clearly articulate the link between cost management and strategy

Treat cost management as an ongoing exercise

All very interesting points. I think the first two are quite relevant in an R&D environment. However, several are very difficult to implement in R&D. I remember an old boss talking to me about his problems predicting R&D costs. He remarked that when he went to get his car serviced, they had a pretty good handle on what different services would cost and how long they would take. Why could we not do the same for R&D?

Predictability normally comes with repeatability. Unfortunately, finding repeatability in R&D is pretty tough – as R&D always involves developing something new. In fact, it is more developing knowledge that can be used to produce that new item. Without repeatability and associated cost data, it becomes very difficult to understand what things should cost to develop in the first place. How do we define how much cost to save? As we get to more and more complex devices, this will likely become even more difficult…

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Quest for Innovation

This 2006 American Management Association study “The Quest for Innovation” has an amazing amount of information and a lot of good metrics for benchmarking your organization. Below are a few results that out found interesting:

Customer and competitors drive innovation: Top two factors (Page 69).
Innovation strategy and plans are difficult: Lack of definition around innovation, an innovation strategy and plan are key impediments to innovation. (Page 70)
R&D is not the driver: Only 27% of the executives surveyed felt innovation occurred in R&D (Page 74)
Being good at innovation is hard: Only 15% of the executives believed their firms are good at innovation (Page 73)
Collaboration is key: Collaboration with external entities and effective team work second most important factor in innovation (Page 66).
Identifying and evaluating innovation is difficult: 46% of the companies do not have a standard process (Page 72)
Rewarding innovation is difficult: 26% of respondents felt innovation is not rewarded.

There is a lot more to the study (its huge). Please check it out when you have some time.

What are some of your observations around innovation and R&D in general. One of the companies I worked at had a great process for assessing ideas and ferret out innovation, but there was no strategy or plan to drive it further. Funding for innovative projects kept getting cut for near term fires…

Recognition approaches (other than bonuses)

Conference Board has another interesting list and a good reminder of what else can be used to reward team members (beyond bonuses):

Tokens of Appreciation

Public Acknowledgment

Development Opportunities

Perks

Personally, I have found that all rewards work best when they are backed up by a thorough evaluation of the contribution. Nothing kills morale more than recognizing people who have not really contributed. Also, depending on the age (or experience level) of the employee, 2 and 3 work better than other.

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Pitfalls of Project Portfolio Management implementation

Computer World has an interesting IT Project Portfolio Management (PPM) article that is equally applicable to R&D management – just read R&D when they write IT :-). They point out three dangerous myths of portfolio management:

PPM is IT’s lookout

Right tools drive PPM success

The best starting place is PPM Best Practice

In my experience, even the organizations that do PPM on R&D portfolios, often fall into some of these traps (I am not certain what fraction of companies have formalized PPM. May be we will do a poll on this soon). PPM is sometimes delegated to CTO or Engineering. This has a negative impact on R&D team members because there is no clear customer for what they are developing.

Another key problem is too much focus on tools and best practices. I myself fell into this trap at one PPM implementation. I was unaware of how little the organization new about their project portfolio (most were legacy R&D projects that had gone on for many years). It was not wise to even attempt to implement PPM when there was no clear portfolio to begin with!

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Experiements boost productivity

Here is another article that suggests that well planned experiments and statistical data can help boost productivity and drive productive discussion.
However, in my experience, meaningful experiments are rather difficult to do in R&D Management (as opposed to R&D itself). Unlike manufacturing, where you can build the same widget multiple times and compare results using statistical analysis. Since R&D is a process of generating knowledge, once development is complete, it rather difficult to do it again in the same way.

The same is true for companies, too – as many people who have presented management with information that didn’t fit the bosses’ worldview can attest. One way to cut through such problems is to use the same sorts of statistical methods that economists use to tease out the lines of cause and effect in complex situations.

What do you think? Any examples on meaningful experiments in R&D management?

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Do CEOs really know what they want from R&D?

Results of another industry survey – this one from Diamond – are actually the opposite of the IBM survey (CEOs want more creativity). This survey shows that as the economy tumbled, companies were more focused on gaining market share rather than exploring white spaces and coming up with innovative products.

Looking for ways to recover from the recession, 57% of the companies surveyed by Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, Inc. plan to pursue a market penetration strategy that risks driving price competition and threatening profitability.

Innovation, often promoted as a panacea for surviving a downturn, is cited as a primary objective of only 16% of the respondents. And despite the economic climate, few companies (15%) see cost reduction (15%) and margin improvement (9%) as their primary objectives.

The other interesting finding of this study was that beyond the workforce there was little agreement amongst executives on what made them competitive!

Senior executives were asked what they believe are their companies’ top strengths and weaknesses. Most see their people as their major competitive strength–61% rated it first or second. But beyond that, there was surprisingly little consensus about what capabilities keep their companies competitive. Only 14% cited the “ability to deliver” on corporate programs and other initiatives as a top strength. Furthermore, customer understanding (10%) and market understanding (10%) ranked unexpectedly low as major strengths, given all the money companies invest in customer research and data analytics.

The press release then goes on to talk about Diamond’s service offerings and their value. The lesson for me was about how little do these high level surveys actually produce. In my experience, both innovation and incremental development are required. Companies need to penetrate markets and enter new white spaces. The actual task of achieving that requires hard work by R&D managers. It is very difficult to get to that level of detail in a survey.

Why don’t businesses experiment more

In a very interesting column in the Harvard Business Review, Dan Ariely writes about why organizations are willing to listen to experts and consultants but not do some experiments themselves and find the best answer:

I think this irrational behavior stems from two sources. One is the nature of experiments themselves. As the people at the consumer goods firm pointed out, experiments require short-term losses for long-term gains. Companies (and people) are notoriously bad at making those trade-offs. Second, there’s the false sense of security that heeding experts provides. When we pay consultants, we get an answer from them and not a list of experiments to conduct. We tend to value answers over questions because answers allow us to take action, while questions mean that we need to keep thinking. Never mind that asking good questions and gathering evidence usually guides us to better answers.

This is a very interesting observation. I have often wondered why people higher such highly paid consultants. One point that Dan does not make is an ability to CYA – the consequences of failure are much lesser if someone else (an outside expert) made the decision. I guess people are recognizing this:

Despite the fact that it goes against how business works, experimentation is making headway at some companies. Scott Cook, the founder of Intuit, tells me he’s trying to create a culture of experimentation in which failing is perfectly fine. Whatever happens, he tells his staff, you’re doing right because you’ve created evidence, which is better than anyone’s intuition. He says the organization is buzzing with experiments.

Car Makers – A complex Web of Alliances

Here is a cool graphic from Financial Times that shows the complex web of alliances between various auto makers (registration required).

The question in my mind is how do you synchronize and manage R&D is this environment? Any learning whether from innovation or from risk/failure in one organization has to filter through to all related – because their products, subsystems and components are tied together at the hip. How does one keep track of all of that? Maintaining that flow Managing IP and all the confidentiality will also be a nightmare.

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