How to build a product and R&D team – Gdynia

Most entrepreneurs and managers we talk to emphasize that the most important barriers in effective development and launch of products and services are related to the organizational culture. The lack of a clear product strategy means that R&D, innovation and product teams cannot obtain necessary resources. Product and R&D teams are often managed by people from Production and Operations so they are not given space for experiments. Finally, the lack of trust and acceptance for failures means that the company does not test new solutions.

During this event we will learn how to build an organization that has the ability to both create and implement new products. We will discuss what are the main constrains for innovation. There will be case studies from various industries and workshops to leave you with practical skills in the field of organization culture management, designing organizational structure and building product teams.

Who will benefit

Entrepreneurs and executives whose competitive strategy is innovation and new technologies
Directors of product departments, product and service development managers
Directors of R&D and innovation
Marketing, sales and business development managers
Researchers interested in the subject of innovation

What you will learn

PDMA best practices of product management
Real experience of specialists from the industry
you will practice tools during workshops
You will meet other product management, innovation and R&D experts

This event has come to an end

We would like to thank the participants, partners and speakers.

Agenda

8:30 – Registration/coffee

9:00 – Introduction to PDMA – Wojciech Ozimek, Chairman of PDMA Central Europe

We will learn how the Product Development and Management Association gathers, conducts research and disseminates product management practices and how those practices can contribute to gaining completive advantage

10:00 – Accepting failures – experimental approach to product developement – Jarosław Pilarczyk, CEO Skyrise.tech

Failure is associated with something negative in business. We do everything to prevent mistakes, we introduce processes that are supposed to protect us from failures. However, mistakes are a natural part of learning process – thanks to them we gain experience. Can we really create an innovative product without making mistakes? I will show how experiments can be used to create products and the cases studies of successful companies with organizational culture that promotes such an approach to product development.

11:00 – How to grow an R&D Team – Wojciech Klimek, Senior R&D Director, Adva Optical Networking

I will tell you how advanced telecommunication devices are developed and I will share my experience on how to effectively support people growth in the R&D department in a company like ours

12:00 – NPD Project team competencies – physical product and product data – Cezary Janas, Director of Product Implementation and Analysis Department, Nowy Styl Group

Modern products consist of physical and utility features that are designed to meet customers’ needs and features related to product data and information – so we can offer and sell the product. Both aspects are equally important in the product implementation process. Therefore, projects teams must have competences in both areas.

13:00 – lunch break

14 :00 – Workshops 1 – Innovation culture in practice – Agata Rutkowska – TTP Partners

Building the innovation culture, just like any other project needs its own plan. During the interactive training session, we will practice how to analyse and work with culture of an organization and team leaders. We will also discuss examples of teams that have undergone such a transformation.

14:00 – Workshops 2 – Selecting members of a project team – quality and innovation – Marcin Sarnecki, Product & Business Development Manager, Cognition Forge AS

Quality Assurance in practice – how to prevent failures without killing innovation. The workshop will allow you to experience interaction in teams and learn how behaviors impact productivity. It will also show how to care for quality in the first stages of a project – selection of team members. We will use ATO (Applied Team Optimization ™ by Cognition Forge) and case studies of these micro (start-ups in Norway and Poland) small (Mester Gronn – florist network in Norway) and large organizations (Hewlett-Packard, Pentagon).

14:00 – Workshops 3 – Optimisation of NPD organisation – Wojciech Przychodzeń, Head of NPD Consulting, Rokanan Group

Efficiency of an NPD department depends on a combination of many elements. You should be able to create NPD project selection criteria that are in line with a product strategy. Then you should be able select methods, tools and performance indicators that will help you to execute your strategy. During the workshop, we will try to jointly build a framework on a selected example. We will use World Café – a simple, effective, and flexible format for hosting large group dialogue.

16:30 – networking