PDmetrics

NEW INTERVIEWS NOW AVAILABLE!

Linking Metrics to Strategy
with Bradford L. Goldense, President, Goldense Group, Inc

Recalibrating Metrics
for New Economic Priorities
with Peter Fritz, Manufacturing Manager, 3M

Click here to access all PDmetrics Interviews

PDm
Expert warns, "Current state of R&D metrics...is bad"

Product development expert and bestselling author, Wayne Mackey, thinks that while most companies have their hearts in the right place when it comes to R&D metrics, the way in which they are typically implemented and used range from marginally useful to potentially hazardous.

“10 or 15 years ago,” said Mackey, “people really started to take measurement seriously, and though I’m not sure we’ve gone backwards, we haven’t gone very far forward. [People] spend a lot of time and money collecting information, but even the people doing the work know there’s not a lot of value in it. None of the concepts behind performance measurement are wrong, but we’ve lost our way on the basics of what we’re measuring and why.”

For example, Mackey offers the metric that a majority of companies use to determine their company’s innovation activity: “% of sales from new products.” When companies started to measure this....continued

Metrics Quick Tip

"A healthy measurement system has a simple purpose: to provide goal-centered feedback to allow you to detect problems and correct course."

--Don Reinertsen

PDmetrics POLL:

13th Annual Conference on Product Development and R&D Metrics

A two-day interactive, knowledge sharing forum on
how to identify the right set of innovation metrics to align resources, increase customer value and drive profitability, competitiveness, and market-share.

Conference Spotlight

Leadership Session:
Metrics for Advanced Development
Innovation Processes

Led by leading R&D metrics authority
Bradford L. Goldense
President
Goldense Group, Inc.

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PLUS Case Studies from:
3M, Weyerhaeuser, Amway Global, GlaxoSmithKline, Millipore and more...

PDm Expert Interview Series

Product Development
Metrics Handbook
Available from
Management Roundtable

Handbook Excerpts:

“Metrics alone are useless. A metric is a piece of a control system. The selection of a metric is a crucial decision in the design of such a system.”

“How many times, in your firm, do people do counterproductive things because they’re trying to make their numbers?”

“We have too many measures in our organizations. If you have any measure that does not lead to action, trash it.”

“’Percent budget spent’ on R&D does not really establish a linkage to strategy.”

“We use measurement to help the business decision making process, not to perform it.”

“When somebody says, “I need to have a measurement system,” they are already on the wrong track. They usually have a management system problem for which measurements are the symptom.”