6893838 Make Projects the School for Leaders Clark e Wheelwright

8/2/2019 6893838 Make Projects the School for Leaders Clark e Wheelwright

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ScHc for Leaders

Kent Bowen, Kim B. Clark, C harles A . Holloway, and S teven C. W heelw right

Leadership is the key to developing great prod-W hat's a great product? On e that surprises and

stom ers. To achieve th at goal, all the

a system, the manu facturing process

Two development efforts that created great prod-c t s - E a s t m a n K o d a k' s F u n S av e r p ro je c t an d

ect, which created a new segm ent in the p rinter

The plain fact of the matter is that creating at on tim e and wit hin budget is very dif-

indeed. But the res u lt- th e ability to create a streamof great products consistently over time-is certain-ly wo rth th e effort.

Developing a new product is relatively easy in a

stable environment, one in which what customerswant and what competitors offer today are similarto what they'll want and offer three years from now.But whe n ma rkets are dynam ic or turbu lent, an tici-pating how customers will perceive and evaluateprod ucts in tw o to three years can be extreme ly dif-ficult, considering that it is the myriad details ofa product and the way they come together that de-termine how customers perceive and evaluate thatproduct. These important details are in the prod-uct 's design, aesthetics, and specific functions as

well as in the man ufacturing processes that will de-termine its quality and reliability, and in the way itwill be sold and serviced. In other words, acbievinggreatness means pulling all tbe details together to-day in a coberent package that will surprise and de-ligbt customers tomorrow.

The D eskJet printer is a superb illu stration. Likeall great products, it acbieved excellence in threedimensions:

L Functionality. Tbe printer supplied superiorprint quali ty (based on HP's proprietary ink-jettechnology) at an unprecedented price point fortbat quality.

2. Coherence. All elements of the total system-



R E G A I N I N G T H E D I N M A N U F A C T U R I N G

process, and the way it was marketed and posi-tioned in customers ' minds - worked together to

acbieve the cost and quality image tbat HP sought.

3 . Fit. The details of the prin ter's design as well as

tbe nuances of its form and features reflected a deepunderstanding of the targeted customer and bis or

ber expectations of wbat a superior printer meant.To be really great, a new product must be tbe

fruit of a project that also builds the capabilitiescritical to the suceess of future products that are in

turn critical to the future suceessof tbe busin ess. Seen in this ligbt,a development project is the way

tbe business botb probes and ere-ates the future. This was the case

The CAD/CAM system

in the FunSaver project, whicb,in addition to tbe product, devel-oped a c u s t o m i z e d c o m p u t e r -aided-design and computer-a id-ed-manufac tur ing (CAD/CAM)s y s t e m to design tbe camera ' splastie parts and tbe molds thatwould be used to make tbe m. By enabling the mem -bers of tbe team to integrate tbeir work and to giveone anotber immediate feedback, the CAD/CAMsystem gave Kodak tbe capability to develop both

quickly and at a low cost not just one camera buta stream of FunSaver products. Tbe first offeringin tbe product line was important , but wbat madetbe FunSaver a great business was all the productsin the family.

Thus a great product and tbe project tbat createsit must be linked to a strategy for the business tbatutilizes and in turn supports the power inherent in

both. Tbere must be a consistency of purpose and

action at the level of the product, the project, and

tbe business. All tbis takes leadership.

Great Products and Patternsof Leadership

of course, tbere are many ways to organize and

lead development projects. The Manufacturing Vi-sion Group found it helpful to use a four-categoryframework originally developed in studies of tbe

automobile industry.' Eaeb mode of organizationand leadership differs in t e rms of wbo exercisesleadership, where responsibility for specific aspectsof tbe project resides, and bow decisions are made.nin functionally organized projects, technical

problem solving, not integrating tbe work of differ-

made possible the w

opment work is divided among functional displines and no one person hasoverall responsibilfor tbe total project. Leadership occurs primarwi thin the specialized groups or disciplines. Wbrelatively narrow in scope, this type of leadershipsubstantive because the leaders witbin tbe fu

tions are teebnieal specialists u-bo are overseework on critical, functional problems.n^n projects with "lightweight" organization

structures, where it is more important to coornate tbe work of functions a

to belp them spot problems tcross functional lines, a coordito r and a team of representativfrom tbe functions operate a

hole FunSaver famil

support group. They pull tog etinformation, spot emerging prlems of coherence, and faeilitinteract ion and problem resotion. But functional leaders co

t inue to hold tbe real power. T

project coordinator is not respsible for the overall project, bas mucb less stathan th e functional managers, has no respon sibifor tbe people actually doing the work, and has

direct contact with targeted customers. This is

to suggest, bowever, tbat such a coordinator canhave an important impact on tbe coherence of t

product or process and the speed and efficiencythe project; lightweight does not necessarily meineffective or unimportant. Indeed, in playingcoordinating role exceptionally well, a light weigproject coord inator can exercise a form of diplomie leadership that faeilitates integration. Of courif tbe organization works against that kind of leersbip - if tbe coordinator becomes notbing mtban a de facto clerk who tracks events, schedumeetings, and publishes min ute s-th en l igbtweican mean ineffective.

D In heavyweight projects, integrating work is bcrucial and tbe most important responsibi l i tytbe project leader. The projeet leader, ideally an

fluential manager w^itb experience in more thone function, is responsible for tbe projeet's ovesuccess. He or she acts like a general manager a

wields considerable power over the details of

program and the way invi'hicli tbose details, incling customer expectations, are orebestrated andtegrated into aneffective wb ole. In other word s,

1. KimB. Clark and Takahiro Fuiinmtu, i 'roduci Development Peniiinca: Stnitegy, Ornimization. iiiid Manii<ienu'nt in the World Au



heavyweight-project leader, unlike leaders of func-tionally organized or lightweight projects, overseesboth the way that all critical work is performed andhow it is integrated into the whole. The projectleader is supported by a core team of functionalleaders who command significant authority within

their respective disciplines. But the team m em bers 'loyalty is to the project, not to their individualfunctions. Their paramount goal is achieving anoutstanding system solution, not just a technicallyelegant part . Thus the team provides leadershipwithin the functions as well as across the entireproject effort-

Dln a project conducted by a dedicated, autono-mous team, breaking new ground or taking think-ing "out of the box" is the mission. This is why adedicated team is smaller and more self-contained

than a heavyweight-project team and why its lead-er ac ts l ike an ent repreneur s ta r t ing up a newbusiness. As in heavyweight projects, the leaderhas responsibility for the overall project's successand for all the work critical to that success. But un-like the heavyweight-project leader, the leader of adedicated team does not prosper by exercising lead-ership within the context of established structuresand methods (and with the support of the estab-lished functions). Individuals working on such aproject are removed from their respective functionsand dedicated to the team. Compared with people

on other kinds of project teams, these individualshave to be broader, take on morework, and get things done with-ou t t he r e sources o r t he con-straints of the functional orga-niza t ion. When outs ide he lp i s

HP's DeskJet has been

needed, the team typically sub-contracts tbe job to organizations

independent of the parent compa-ny. So leading such a team meansfinding new ways to get workdone, inventing new procedures,and defining new roles.

When is each of the four modes of organizationand leadership the most appropriate- The fune-t ional structure is best sui ted for si tuat ions inwhich the environment is relatively stable and suc-cess depends on the application of relatively narrowareas of expertise. The lightweight system is bestfor situations in whicb coordination is somewhat

more critical, or in smaller projects. Those includeprojects for developing incremental extensions or

approach is often best for carrying out major com-plex projects in which time is critical. Those proj-ects are typically charged with developing prod-ucts that must satisfy an existing set of customersand be produced, sold, and serviced by an existingoperating system. Good examples include a new

automobile or a new family of computers. The ded-icated, autonomous team should be used when thegoal is to make a technical leap (like developinga radically new process), to invent or enter a newmarket segment, or to create a new business. Thisapproach makes sense when a project does not haveto draw or rely on the organization's existing re-sources and systems.

Guiding Visions

In the turbulent 1990s, creating great productsand building enduring capabilities linked to busi-ness strategy often requires the type of strong, inte-grative leadership evident in the heavyweight anddedic ated-tea m appro aches. It requires forcefulleadership to integrate tbe business strategy, theproduct concept, and tbe project. But what is it thatsuccessful leaders do to integrate these three lev-els? What sets them and their teams apart from theusual, the traditional, the average?

In the successful efforts it studied, the Manu-facturing Vision Group found a distinctive, consis-tent pattern operating at each level. Effective lead-

ers are those who see a futurethat does not yet exist. Moreover,they must connect that vision tospecific actions that need to beintegrated. Because many other

enerations of products.

people have to be involved, thatintegration is a process of articu-

hiting, communicating, and im-plementing, which we cal l " theguiding vision." And it is a pro-cess. Effective leaders do not justlay out a scenario for the future.

Tbe y have an ability to see the future, to frame it incompelling terms, and to translate it into action-oriented missions both for the members of theproject team and for people in specialized areas whosupport the team. This is the essence of develop-ment leadership.

All the outstanding projects studied by the grouphad powerful guiding visions for tbe business, theproject, and the product. In addition, the three vi-



R E G A I N I N G T H E N M A N U F A C T U R I N G

people on the teams, focusing attention and efforton the right things, and getting them done in the

r ight way. HP's DeskJet project i l lustrates how

powerful leadership ean be when it operates in an

integrat ive fashion at the business, project , and

product-concept levels.

The DeskJet project was l aunched at Hewlet t -Packard's Vancouver division in 1985. The divisionhad been formed in 1979 to develop and m ar k e timpact pr in ters . But by tbe mid-1980s, its mar-

The vision for the DeskJetbu siness was to create a wnew market segm ent.

ket share was declining and its fortunes were at

risk because of two main challenges. The first wasperformance based: the emergence of laser printers,wh ieh, wh ile more expensive, offered m uch higher-qual i ty pr in t . The second and more immedia t ethreat was price based: the emergence of dot-matrixprinters at the low end of the market . The effectwas to squeeze the V ancouver division's mar ket po-sition, imperiling its future.

In November 1985, after a full review of HP's

printer l ine, Vancouver received and endorsed a

new charter from group management: concentrateon developing a printer for the low-end personaland office market. The project that emerged fromthat charter was designed to take HP's ink-jet tech-nology and develop it into a much lower-cost plat-form t ha t could serve as the basis for a whole familyof high-quality produets. The targeted initial prod-uc t that bec am e the focus of a sub stan tial effort wasthe DeskJet printer.

Here, then, w as a business in need of a new strat-

egy, a project designed to build new capability, anda new p roduct headed for a specific m arke t. At eaehlevel , Vancouver 's leaders developed a vision of

what the future could hold. It was this set of guid-ing visions and the leadership behind them thatprovided focus and brought new energy and resolveto the people performing th e actual w ork.

The Vision of the Business. The vision for the

business that emerged at Vancouver w as to create anew m arket segment. The idea was to build a fami-ly of products with print quality close to that of

laser printers but at a price so muc h lower that theywould largely replace low-price, low-quality im-

pact and dot-matrix printers in the general comput-

low end of the market , with an 80% market shaThe future Vancouver's leaders envisioned, thefore, -was one in whieh HP (with its propr iettecbnology) would emerge as a formidable playin the retail end of the computer-printer markThis was not going to be a one- or two-year effo

Success would require sustained activity over tcourse of a decade.

All in all, this w as not a modification of an estalished approach. It was a vision of the future th

would posi t ion HP at the centera very different world. But for V

couver, the alternative was oblivioT h u s it w as not hard for senior maagers in the division to ar t icu lacommunica t e , and sell this new

ture to the people working there.

The Vision of the P roject. It is othing to art iculate and lay out a

sion for the future of the business. It is quite anoer to realize th at vision by executin g a series of prects consisten tly over a period of tim e. This w as t

challenge that the Vancouver division faced in t

mid-1980s. The DeskJet project was much mothan simply delivering one product to the markThe project had to deliver a product to the markand begin to bu ild a range of capabilities that wouallow the division to execute a series of projesuccessfully.

In effect, the guiding vision of the business d

fined the agenda for the DeskJet project. Creatithree critical capabilities dominated it. First, to

successful in realizing the b usiness vision, the Vcouver division had to learn how to produce larnumbers of a sophist icated consumer product a

very low eost. Low-cost manufacturing capabilwas therefore crucial. Some of that capabilityvolved creating production system s capable of hivolum e and high yields. Some lay in getting HP dsign engineers to create a manufacturable desi

As a result, a central thrust of the DeskJet projbecame the integration of design and manufacting to create designs that w ere easy to make in vum e and ma nufac turing processes that deliveredficiently everything the design required.

A second critical capability was establishing injet technology in the retail market. As it existedthe mid-1980s, ink-jet technology offered very hiprint quality. But the designs were sophist ieaand expensive, and products using the technolowere sold to profess ional customers . What w

needed was the capability to simplify the ink-mechanism to make it less expensive without huing its ability to deliver a high-quali ty image-hi



customer. At the outset of the project, Van-

tions and new design capab ilities.Finally, because the division was moving into the

ity to serve that market well. This mea nt

The vision for the project was to create specifie

realize its potential. Framed in thesethe bu siness guiding vision defined th e broad

as a plan

s vision a reality.

The Vision of the Product. The challenge for thect also was clear. The first offering in this n ew

f some thing new and exciting from HP.had to be sufficiently com pelling th at it wou ld at-

stom ers and dealers not used to think ing of

ow. It had to plant a stak e in the ground and help

The power of a product concept

at the c usto m er's experience Vk'ith

f a m uc h more ex pensive laser printer, ease of use,

The DeskJet concept had a number of crucial

and in different kinds of people a common under-standing of the overall project goal. This enableddesigners, marketers, and manufacturing people toalign their individual daily decisions with the ob-jectives of the project as a wh ole.

In addition to evoking appropriate responses, the

concept was also enduring. The project leadersowned the concept. They sustained it and made itreal in the minds of all the people involved in theproject. Particularly in light of the need to do thingsthat HP had not done before, it v as important thatthe concept be stable and enduring so people work-ing on the project eould move with confidence toachieve things that required significant change andinvestment on their part.

Finally, the co ncept w as simple and easy to grasp.Everyone understood and related to the concept of

an extraordinarily high-quality printer that could besold at an unbelievably low price. Moreover, as theproduct coneept took shape, team members tookan unusual step: they brought prototypes to shop-ping malls. These mall studies, unprecedented atHP, offered unique insights into how potential cus-tomers would evaluate the product. These studieswere later supplemented by face-to-face meetingsbetween engineers and targeted customers. Thenet effect was a concept that clearly identified whothe customers were, how they would experiencethe product, and what a truly compelling product

would look like to them.Like the business vision and the project vision,

the product concept was not an exercise. It wassomething the project leaders used to shape and

Everyone understood andrelated to the con cep t of aquality printer that had an

unb elievably low p rice .

guide the creation of the DeskJet. The way theyhandled the development of the printhead and per-suaded the design engineers to reverse themselvesand incorporate changes recommended by targetedcustom ers are two eases in po int.

The Printhead. The DeskJet 's printhead would becrucial to the printer's success. But developing a

low-cost printhead with a near-laser-quality imageinvolved making technical advances in both theproduct and the production system. It quickly be-



R E G A I N I N G T H E I N M A N U F A C T U R I N G

velopment would require advanced knowledge ofelectronics, mechanics, fluid dynamics, and heattransfer, would need to be disposable. That require-ment was governed by factors as mundane as thevolume of ink that could be stored on the movinghead and tbe durabil i ty of microcomponents de-

signed to throw tiny droplets of ink onto paper.For the printhead to be disposable meant that it

had to be produced at a very low cost and in high

W hen the design engineersdismissed most of marketinfindings, it set off an alarm.

volume - an unt radi t ional approach for the HPorganization. Moreover, the project was under sig-nificant cost and time constraints given the paceand rhythms of the market. (The project had to beconcluded within 22 months.) But thanks to theclarity of tbe product concept, team leaders recog-nized early on the crucial nature of the printheadand assigned the development work to a dedicatedsubteam. The leaders also structured the subteam'sobjectives in creative ways. For example, they re-laxed the target for the operating speed of the print-

head so tbat tbe subteam would not compromiseprint quality in its quest for speed. Then they as-signed groups working on other parts to figure outway s to ma ke the p rinter fast. These efforts enabledthe printhead subteam to make even greater ad-vances in image sharpness than it had originally setout to make.

Listening to Customers. Had the powerful prod-uct concept not led the project leaders to questiontraditional HP ways, the design engineers wouldnot have made crucial visits to malls to listen to

targeted customers. Early in the project, market-ing's interactions with shoppers in malls resultedin 24 suggestions for modifying specific features ofthe printer. But wben mark eting brought those sug-gestions back, R&D engineers accepted only 5.

In most HP projects, that would have been theend of it. But the DeskJet project leaders had kno wnfrom the outset that this would be an unusualproject for HP. While the company's customers hadtraditionally been engineers, a large portion of thetargeted customers this t ime around were mass-market retail consumers who would buy the print-er for use in their homes and small businesses. Sofrom the outset, the project's leaders were sensitive

approaches tha t would h inde r the t eam f roachieving its goals. They included the tendency design engineers to base design decisions on wthey and other HP engineers liked themselves ato pay marke ting little heed.

For this reason, the project leaders made sure t

the marketing people on the team, who would habeen second-class citizens in the typical HP projewere treated as true equals. When the market

people suggested that the team cduct the market tests in malls, project leaders encouraged themdo so. And when the design en

5 neers initially dismissed m ost of

findings, it set off an alarm for project leaders. Moreover, the mketing people did not meekly b

to the design engineers th is t iaround. With both the project leaders and marking pressuring them, the design engineers (aeventually, other functions as well) made the trto the malls to hear for themselves what their ture customers wanted and discovered that threally did want 17 more changes. Tbose featurincluding faster-drying ink and easier ways to loor feed paper into the machine, were incorporainto the product. Without the m, the DeskJet prinwould have fallen far short of its potential.

Linking the Visions

The effectiveness of the DeskJet project's leadship stemmed both from its articulation and appcation of a distinctive product concept and fromability to link that concept to the project and buness visions. Beyond the excitement generated the concept, what was energizing to team mem bwas the realization that they were laying the foudation for a family of HP pro duc ts.

In si tuation after si tuat ion, the leaders of

project took actions that met both short-term pruct requirements and longer-term strategic goaHere are two illustration s.

Early Manufacturing Involvement. I t was edent from the outset that close involvement manufacturing in the design of the product was sential to achieving a high-quality ink-jet printhat could be sold profitably at a retail price of lthan $1,000. Otber than a successful foray ihandheld calculators that began in the 1970s, had only limited experience in selling to retail ctomers and engaging in high-volume producti

To achieve tbese objectives, the project leadmoved aggressively. For example, the project le



The Perils of Inadequate Leadership

Eastman Kodak's "Factory-of-the-Future" projectdemonstrates how and why a project to develop a

product or a process can flounder when it lacks suffi-cient-leadership and compelling guiding visions. In19S4, managers of film manufacturing (a functionaldivision) and of central engineering and design (a cor-porate functional group) agreed that substantial newcapacity would be needed by 1990 for 35 mm film fin-ishing (cutting, perforating, winding, and packaging)-a process involving sophisticated, high-speed, auto-mated equipment. They also agreed that competitivepressures dictated that the company create new ap-proaches to f inishing to improve performance interm s of cost and qua lity.

The engineering and design group saw th is as an op-portunity to make a quantum leap in finishing tech-nology. The project that emerged w as dubbed the Fac-tory of the Fu ture. Eve ntually, the project had a staff ofmore than 100 full-time representatives from five Ko-dak functional groups: man ufacturing , engineeringand design (from which the majority came], mainte-nance, quality assurance, and marketing. There wasno overall project leader with heavyweight responsi-bility, and each group had its own perspective on w hatthe project w as intended to do.

The people from engineering were determined topush th e process-technology envelope as much as pos-

sible. They saw the project as an opp ortunity (perhapsone of the last) to incorporate advanced technologyinto finishing. In their eyes, the key was speed andquality-developing a process that could finish film ata high speed without compromising quality.

The team members from manufacturing saw theproject as a chance to turn the com pany into a "world-class manu facturer" by improving materials handling,work flows, employment practices, and systems. Forthem, the project was a hroad-gauged improvement ef-fort in which new equipment played an important butnot cen tral role.

For

the marketing people, the project was an oppor-tunity to reduce the need to repackage m illions of rollsof film for specialty markets. They saw a growing needfor different packaging for different channels and cus-tom ers. For them , variety and flexibility were key.

At the senior level, the overarching mission of theproject was to add capacity to meet the growing de-

ma nd for 35 mm film. While impro vem ents in the pro-cess would he desirable, senior managers consideredthem secondary.

With a leadership vacuum and no vision at the levelof the b usiness, th e project, or the process, the Facto-ry-of-the-Future effort went off in several directions.As conflicts and inco nsistenc ies surfaced, the team fo-cused its efforts on redesigning the technical elem entsof the process to try to come up with a total systemthat could meet the com plex interests and needs of thevarious functional groups. And, as the project grew incomplexity, the original budget and lead t ime bal-looned. What had started out as an 18-mGnth project

wa s turnin g in to a five-year effort.

While the project was struggling to find coherence,Kodak reorganized its operations into business units.In 1987, the managers of the new film line of businesstook a hard look at the Factory-of-the-Future project.They realized it would be anothe r two years hefore ca-pacity would he on-line, and they canceled the project.

Not all the work was abandoned, however. Seniormanagers of the film business mounted a new finish-ing project. This tim e around, they made sure that thenew initiative was guided hy a coherent strategy forthe husiness and by a much more focused, consistent

vision for the project and the sought-after process. De-mand for film was growing, so capacity was crucial.The m arket w as increasingly fragmented, requiring anincreasing variety of packaging and the ability to re-spond quickly to shifts in the needed product m ix. Thenew finishing process had to supply the required totalcapacity and had to he ahle to produce a high volumeat a low cost. It also had to he fast and flexible so that itcould cope with a much higher level of variety.

Armed with a much clearer sense of purpose andmuch stronger overall leadership, the Factory-of-the-Future project was launched again. Led hy a busines s-

unit team, the project utilized improvements in con-ven t i ona l t echno l ogy and m any new i deas i noperational flexibility, materials handling, work flow,and sys tem s to achieve its oh jectives. In the end. Fac-tory of the F uture II was a significant succ ess.

within the R&D organizat ion a manufactur ing-engineering group assigned solely to the DeskJetproject. Th ese engineers significantly influencedthe design engineers.

At a very early stage of design, they compiled a

understand cost issues. Later, the manufacturingengineers got ahead of the game and had tooling de-signed and released to build early test units. Thetraditional approach at HP was to have design engi-neers use temporary tooling and let manufacturing



R E G A I N I N G T H E D N M A N U F A C T U R I N G

All this work n ot only had a positive impac t on the

DeskJet project hut also began to huild a capabilityfor high-volume, low-cost, high-quality manufac-turing with in the Vancouver division.

Prototypes. Tradit ional ly, HP design engineersused the scheduling of prototypes to al low them-

selves as much t ime as possible for l as t -minutechanges, many of which created subsequent m anu-facturing problems and often led to delays and poorquality. To blaze a newpath, DeskJet project lead-ers put manufacturing in charge of prototypes, and

each month, regardless of whether the R&D groupwas ready, manufacturing huilt 50 prototypes. T hishelped the team maintain a fast paee and was cru-

cial in t es t ing performance and proving out the

ability of the system to deliver a printer that couldbe sold for less than $ 1,000. Building prototypes on

a regular schedule made the state of readiness ofeach function and subsystem apparent to all. It gavemanufacturing and marketing a view into the de-

sign work andprovided the discipline for tbe inte-gration that was crucial in meet ing the project 'sgoals. And it played an important role in creatingnew ways of working. The DeskJet team leadersused prototypes and coloeation (having R&D, m an-

1 1peop le who

do two things effectively: serveas team members and lead the

effort within their functions.

ufacturing, and marketing people share the sameworkplace) as tools to get t eam members to com-

municate and to integrate their work.

This approach to using prototypes w as not some-

thing the team did just to meet all the objectivesfor the DeskJet printer; they real ized they werepioneering a whole new way of working that wouldbe crucial in future HP projects wben time, cost,and quality pressures would intensify. Thus man-

aging with a guiding project vision as well as a

clear business strategy gave leaders in Vancouvera framework for l inking action on the product to

the long-term heal th of the enterprise. They not

only launched a product, they built a business.

The success of leadership in the DeskJet project

(and in the Vancouver division) is evident in themarke t resul ts. The team got the initial product to

market in the planned 22 months. When the prod-

share rose dramatically. Subsequent products - improved variants of the basic DeskJet, includinghigh-end color version and a portable ve rsio n-h avalso been highly successful. HP has leveraged its ives tment in the DeskJet project many times ove

Leadership and Leaders

We hegan this article with a recognition that cosistent ly creat ing great products is difficult bu

powerful w hen achieved. To use a m oun tain-climing analogy, the patb is not easy, the cl imb is steebut the view is breathtaking andvery few can fo

low those who make i t . Without in any way slighing the role of good, sturdy hiking boots, stronropes, or a good backpack, we have em phasized th

importance of leaders whoknow how to pick th

r ight mou ntain, to chart the course, to build climing skills, and to lead the team so that it overcoma series of obstacles and achieves key objectives o

the trail to the top.

We are now beginning to understand what effetive leadership of development projects means an

how it can be achieved. The notion of guiding v

sions at multiple levels of the enterprise has proveparticularly useful in understandinwh at leaders do.

Invariably, however, senior exectives arrive at this point with somfundamental questions: "What we'vseen here makes sense . But l ooat what you are asking these leaers of heavyw eight projects and dedcated, autonomous teams to do. Yowant them to bo influential acroa range of disciplines. Yet they ha

to be able to integrate and see the whole. You wathem to have a down-to-earth business sense. Y

they need imag ination: their crystal ball m ust a nticpate custom ers ' unart iculated needs, preempt com

peti tors ' moves, and spot technological trends. Inot that we don't have any people like that, b

wh ere arc we going to find e nough of t h em ?"

The problem is actually m uch worse. Companinot only need project leaders of substantial qualitThey also need people who can do two things effetively: serve as t eam members and lead the effowithin their respect ive funct ions. What is morthey need senior executives (heads of businessand heads of functions) who are capable of a vedifferent kind of leadership than they have execised in the past.

The chal lenge is both to find and develop th

right kind of people and to expand significant



understand what leadership requires of people andto create a process and a system in which leadersdevelop naturally as part of the life of the husiness.In all the companies that we have studied whereleadership thrives, senior managers con sistently dothree things.

1. They expect leadership. Leaders will not andcannot lead unless that role has been defined andthat expectation established. Part ofthis involves simply setting up some-thing like a heavyweight structure(or a dedicated team} with formalroles for the project leader and thecore functional leaders. But it alsomeans setting expectations for whatsenior managers want those lead-ers to do. Expectations define not

only the responsibilities but also the attitudes, be-haviors, and patterns of action required to carrythem out.

2. They support leaders. In some of the five com-panies studied, the job of project leader was not anattractive assignment. One engineering manager atDigital Equipment spoke disdainfully about hisrole as a project leader. "It's not my real job," hesaid. He derived satisfaction and respect only fromhis engineering work and his role as an engineeringmanager. In such settings, project leaders are littlemore than clerks. So part of what support means is

to redefine the status of the role.Project leaders also need supporting processes

and systems that give them what they need tolead. They need a project charter that defines theproject's link to the business strategy. They needa contract with senior managers that defines theboundaries of the project, its vision, its objectives,and its access to resources. They need informationcritical to the project. They need a senior-executivesponsor who counsels and coaches,advises and consults, and provides

air cover for the project, protectingit from meddling. They need mean-ingful control and influence overcritical resources. They need a li-cense to challenge what needs to hechallenged in order for the projectto achieve its ohjectives. And, ahoveall else, they need an o rganization that has provid-ed them with the right experience, training, andpersonal development. This is what outstandingcompanies do.

3. They reward leaders. To be consistent, compa-nies must reward good leaders for substance; ac-tions taken, not just form. There is much to learn

panies, where the rewards for leading a great proj-ect and for building the business are clear. The coinof the realm is equity, promotions, and the chanceto take on the next really great project. Too often,big companies offer too few rewards. Especiallywhere the functions control the rewards, leading

a project can be a big ne ga tiv e-o ut of sight, out ofmind. It is almost impossible to attract the best

Too often, co m panies offer toofew rew ards to those who lead

projects successfully.

people to project leadership if the job is not valuedenough or means missed promotions or lower com-pensation. Outstanding companies value and re-ward leadership.

Taken together, these three actions define a dis-tinctive pattern of senior-executive leadership inproduct development. At its heart is the notion thatthe way to grow and attract leaders and make themeffective in a heavyweight or a dedicated team is tomake projects the engines that power the enter-prise. In most companies, but especially those w itha strong functional orientation, projects are too of-ten an exception to the standard way of gettingthings done. The functions are at the center ofthe b usiness.

But to make heavyweight and dedicated teamswork, to build great leaders capable of creating greatproducts, projects must be central. Indeed, in orga-nizations where the concept of teams and leader-ship takes Uold, projects become the way the busi-ness gets anything complex and significant done on

To grow and a ttract lea der s,projects must be the engines

that power the e nte rp rise.

time, on target, and within budget. And we meananything: entering a new market, opening a newstore, huilding a new information system, startingup a new channel of distribution, or introducing

a new class of service. Anything that is complex,confronts an uncertain future, involves multiplefunctions or disciplines, and must happen under



R E G A I N I N G T H E I N M A N U F A C T U R I N G

opportunity for a heavyweight or dedicated teamand heavyweight leadership.

I t should he clear from this perspect ive thatwhere projects are central^ where leaders thrive, thev a l u es , co n cep t s , an d p r ac t i c e s t h a t w e h av esketched permeate the organization, hi an impor-

tant way, leadership in product development andleadership in carrying out major projects is like afractal: no matter how far down in the organizationone goes, one sees the same patter n.

Once that happens, the question the senior exec-ut ive posed earl ier-where to f ind enough leaders-finds a ready answer. As that pattern of gettingwork done and as that kind of leadership hegins totake hold, experience in the business attracts andcreates a new kind of leader. Not everyone will be

a leader, hut leaders will emerge naturally as part normal growth and development within the company. Leading projects will become the way one dvelops as a general m anager. O ver time , the ra nks the senior executives will he filled by people capble of integrative leadership w ith a rich h ackgroun

of getting things done through projects. For thembuilding capabilities, using projects to change tcompany, and fostering leadership throughout torganization will he second nature. And it is thcapacity that will he crucial in the turbulent yeaahead. It is the capacity for perpetually renewithe en terprise - the ah ility to see a different futurto seize opportunities, to marshal resources, and take action to huild that future - that will he ttouch stone of the future.

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6893838 Make Projects the School for Leaders Clark e Wheelwright

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