| Creating Breakthrough Products:
Innovation from Product Planning to Program Approval
By Jonathan Cagan and Craig M. Vogel
Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2002.
Reviewed by Brian L. Vogel
This book is a well-thought-out and organized “how to”
manual for serious product development. Its quick reference guide
makes it useful for seasoned professionals, as well as for newcomers
eager to learn how design really works, and how to harness design
to make a difference in their companies. In fact, it should be handy
for both practitioners and managers of practitioners. Although the
book is about creating new products, it should also be worthwhile
for teams working on incremental product development. There are
tools and advice for evolutionary, as well as revolutionary, design.
Creating Breakthrough Products comes with its own language
of terms and tools, which is reinforced from chapter to chapter.
Although the authors have included a glossary of these terms, I
found the use of acronyms especially somewhat of a distraction;
you will be forced to adopt them as your own or be left behind.
The book’s visual tools are particularly useful for the visual
orientation of its intended audience, and its figures convey in
a relatively simple way potentially complex relationships with multiple
variables. Good analogies are employed to help the reader to understand
the duality of the “structured” part of design (for
example, rock climbing) and the “unstructured” part
(think improvisational jazz).
The authors have included many comprehensive case studies that
illuminate the text. In fact, they developed Creating Breakthrough
Products with an eye to the best practices observed in a variety
of teams in a variety of companies. The case studies build from
chapter to chapter to illustrate the power of the techniques used
in this book, showing how the focus is shifting from products to
the overall user experience. I did think some of the cases were
dated and have been overused; I’d like to see more-current
examples in subsequent editions. Each chapter ends with a summary
of key points, as well as with recommendations for further reading.
Cagan and Vogel go into great detail about the inner workings of
product-development teams, discussing common problems (preconceived
ideas, power plays, and so on) and how to avoid them. They also
explore the complex and often conflicting relationships among designers
and engineers—and they offer some advice for reducing these
conflicts, such as putting the interests of potential users ahead
of one’s own interests. And Cagan and Vogel don’t shrink
from discussing inspiration—where it comes from and how it
can be encouraged and leveraged rather than stifled. The case studies
they’ve chosen make it clear that designing products well
is intense and hard work, but also fun and very satisfying.
Creating Breakthrough Products, though a “design
book,” provides analytical evaluations that reinforce a designer’s
“gut reactions,” particularly when it discusses understanding
the user and focusing on value in order to know what will make a
product successful. It does a great job capturing and articulating
what has been called the “fuzzy front end” of design,
which deals with “opportunities” rather than concepts
or solutions. The book also places the development process in its
proper business context, describing, for instance, its connections
with strategic planning and brand management. Although I must conclude
that there is nothing really startling about its contents (I found
myself saying “of course” as I read topic after topic),
therein lies the book’s value; it has taken the best thinking
in our industry and combined it into one resource. I wish all my
clients could read Creating Breakthrough Products; it would
help them to understand and appreciate what designers do, and why
we do it.
Brian L. Vogel is not related to book author
Craig Vogel. Brian Vogel is the president of Altitude Inc
This review originally appeared in the Fall
2002 Design Management Review
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