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Ideation (NPD Accelerator)

This section contains the following topics:

Idea Management

Create and Submit an Idea for Approval

Evaluate an Idea

Prepare an Idea for Gate Scoring

Score an Idea

Fast Track an Idea

Kill an Idea

The Idea Vault

Scheduling Information

Budget Information

Financial Planning

Idea Management

Ideation refers to the act of developing new ideas. New product development (NPD) begins with the submission of ideas for a company-configured approval process. Input from sales, marketing, customers, partners, and other employees is often spread across the organization in numerous databases, email in-boxes, and documents. Anybody in your organization can create and submit an idea—they do not have to be regular CA Clarity PPM Accelerator for NPD users. CA Clarity PPM Accelerator for NPD has assigned a specific role for these types of users—Non-Clarity Users.

For proper resource and budget planning, all the ideas require reviewing and weighing against the company goals. Only then, take decisions regarding the ideas to implement. CA Clarity PPM Accelerator for NPD provides an idea management dashboard designed for the marketing and product managers within your organization. A subset of that dashboard is available for other users as a landing point for them to enter ideas. A variety of portlets track idea metrics, including costs and revenues. CA Clarity PPM Accelerator for NPD also provides an Idea Vault, which is a page that contains all ideas, whether approved or not. Filter the ideas by status and stage to look for older ideas that may be on hold or recycled, and to start the approval process.

Note: Much of your work is performed from the Idea Management Dashboard. Therefore, you might find it useful to set the dashboard as your default CA Clarity PPM Accelerator for NPD home page. Action items can be accessed and managed directly from the page.

Create and Submit an Idea for Approval

Once an idea is submitted for approval, the process manager sends an automatic notification to review it.

Follow these steps:

  1. Open the New Product Development menu, and click Idea Management Dashboard.

    The overview page appears.

  2. In the Ideas section, click New.

    The create page appears.

  3. Complete the following required fields in the General section:
    Subject

    Indicates the name of the idea.

    Idea ID

    Indicates a unique identifier for the idea. Enter an alphanumeric string of characters.

    Idea Priority

    Indicates a classification for the issue. Select a category from the drop-down list.

    • High
    • Low
    • Medium
    Description

    (optional) A description of the idea.

    Project Manager

    The user assigned to manage the potential project, once it is created.

    Idea Submitter

    The user who entered the new idea.

    Process Manager

    The user assigned to oversee the idea review process and gate score management.

    Stage

    The default selection is Idea Screen. Click the lookup icon to browse for a company-defined stage for the project (optional). The following are the out-of-the-box NPD lookup values:

    New Product Development (Level = Investment Process)
    • Idea Screen (Level: Investment Stage)
    • Scoping (Level: Investment Stage)
    • Business Case (Level: Investment Stage)
    • Development (Level: Investment Stage)
    • Testing and Validation (Level: Investment Stage)
    • Launch (Level: Investment Stage)
    Active

    (optional) The box is checked as Active by default.

    Idea Documentation

    (optional) Click the multiselect browse icon to add related files to the idea.

  4. Complete the following fields in the Idea Details section (optional). These details are used in many portlets and require filling based on the business configurations. You can customize the lookup tables to include your own values:
    Product Category

    The category is used to label the product with the appropriate description as it relates to marketing. Select a category from the drop-down list.

    New to World (Class: Breakthrough, market changing products)

    These products have the most potential for huge company changing revenues, but they also carry the most risk. The technology to create the product may not exist, and may ultimately not be feasible.

    New to the Company (Class: Company changing)

    These products are not that your company has built, but competitors have built them. The technology exists, but may not exist in-house. These are risky, but not as risky as New to the World products. Since they have the potential for new product lines, they also have great revenue increasing capability.

    Line Extension (Class: Safest)

    Extensions to existing product lines. These products are low risk, low reward projects.

    Modification (Class: Safe)

    Modifications to existing product lines. A new product is developed, but about more of the same. Low risk, low reward, low innovation.

    Enhancement (Class: Safe)

    Minor additions to existing features in products. A new product is developed, but without new features. Low risk, low reward, low innovation.

    Product Line

    The product line is a set of values that your organization specifies, based on its own manufactured products. The lookup list is populated with out-of-the-box sample values.

    Product Type

    The type is used to track the product type using the following choices:

    • Platform
    • Technical Development
    • Product
    Brand

    The product line delineates where the product fits from a manufacturing perspective and the brand name is used for marketing purposes. The attributes are necessary for tracking of product information and are used extensively in the portfolio management dashboard. The lookup list is populated with out-of-the-box sample values.

    Customer Market

    The geographical region of the customer market.

    • AsiaPac
    • EMEA
    • North America
    • South America
    • Global
    Customer Segment

    Describes the part of the new or existing customer base that the product addresses.

    • Business
    • Consumer
  5. Complete the fields in the Estimated Costs and Revenues section (optional).

    See the Demand Management User Guide for more information.

    Estimate Type

    Defines the type of estimate benefits, cost, and revenue impact for the idea.

    Currency Code

    Defines the system currency and a read-only field. If multi currency is enabled, a drop-down list of all active currency codes. During the conversion process, the currency code is the currency code for the investment.

    Business Unit

    Defines the business unit associated to the idea.

    Revenue Description

    A brief description of the revenue from the investment.

    Estimated Cost

    Defines the estimated total cost of the idea. During the conversion process, the estimated cost is the investment planned cost.

    Estimated Benefit

    Defines the estimated total financial benefit of the idea both in term of revenue and money saved.

    Estimated Start Date

    Indicates the estimated start date for the idea. The date must be on or before the estimated finish date.

    Estimated Finish Date

    Indicates the estimated finish date for the idea. The date must be on or before the estimated finish date.

    Breakeven Date

    Defines the estimated break-even date for the idea. During the conversion process, the break-even date is the budget break-even date for the investment.

  6. Save and submit for approval.

Idea Screening

Once preliminary research on a submitted idea is complete using the idea approval steps, the process manager decides to implement and develop the idea as a project. Although ultimately responsible for the final decision in the system, the process manager does not make the choice without collaboration. Committee of team members decide, each reviewing the idea and providing counsel as to the feasibility of the idea.

Ideas require passing though the Idea Gate Review page before becoming a real project.

The Idea Gate Review page is tied to a review process that is initiated once the marketing manager submits the idea for gate scoring. An action item is sent to the process manager who acts as the decision maker for idea approval. The choices are Go or Kill.

After an idea is submitted, the process manager reviews it and decides about further investigating. If so, they launch the Idea Gate Review page. The process can involve many teams to estimate or further explore the idea. It culminates in a gate scoring review, where the team decides to proceed with or kill the idea.

This sub process notifies each of the listed gatekeepers on the idea (through action items) that they log in and score the idea against specific factors related to company goals. Once scoring is completed, the process manager makes a final decision to go, kill, or hold the idea. Define the gatekeepers when the idea is first created.

If the idea is moved to a Go status, a project is automatically created for that idea and the gate score is entered into the Idea Gate Review page. The gate score is automatically calculated based on the average of all gatekeeper entries.

All ideas in the "Kill" or "Hold" status are moved into the Idea Vault and can be resurrected at a later date as business goals shift.

More information:

Idea Gate Review

Evaluate an Idea

When an idea is submitted for approval, the process manager receives an action item to evaluate it. After this evaluation, the process manager determines whether the idea warrants further consideration or not.

Depending on your role, view and evaluate the idea from one or more of the NPD dashboards that display action items: the Idea Management Dashboard, the Portfolio Management Dashboard, and the Executive Dashboard.

Follow these steps:

  1. Log in to CA Clarity PPM Accelerator for NPD.

    The overview page appears.

    Note: If you change your default home page to a specific dashboard, the specified page appears instead of the overview page.

  2. Open the Action Items menu and click the Idea Review action item.

    The action item details page appears.

  3. In the Object Links section, click the idea link in the Objects field.

    The properties page appears.

  4. Review and evaluate the data. You can add additional details at this time.
  5. Save the changes.

After completing the evaluation, it is time for the process manager to either continue the idea along the NPD process or kill it.

You can choose from the following options:

Prepare an Idea for Gate Scoring

  1. Open the idea properties page and click Idea Gate Review.

    The idea gate review page appears.

  2. Complete the following fields in the Gatekeepers section:
    Gatekeepers - Gate 1

    The users assigned to provide a gate score to the project. This field is optional if a resource is assigned to the Gatekeepers - All Gates selection.

    Gatekeepers - All Gates

    The users assigned to provide a gate score to the project. This field is required if more than one gate approval step exists, or if no resources are assigned to the Gatekeepers - Gate 1 selection. The gatekeepers are carried over to the project and remain gatekeepers during later stages in the process.

  3. Save the changes.

    The filter page appears.

  4. Open the New Product Development menu, and click Idea Management Dashboard.
  5. Click on the action item in the My Action Items section.
  6. Select Go from the Status drop-down list.
  7. Save the changes.

Your action item closes and the idea is now listed in the Idea Gate Review section of the overview page of idea management dashboard. The status is Running. Additionally, creates a Gate Score action item for the gatekeepers assigned to the project.

Score an Idea

To score an idea, rate a series of factors. Each factor is assigned a number and the average is used to calculate your score and the average gate score from all gatekeepers. The values and lookups attached to these factors can be customized to suit your company needs and policies. Once you submit the scores, they cannot be edited.

Once you begin scoring, you can save to see the stoplight icon calculations assigned to each selected value.

Additionally, the average score displays in the Gate Score field.

Follow these steps:

  1. Open the Executive Dashboard, or the Portfolio Management Dashboard.
  2. In the Gate Review portlet, locate the project, and click the corresponding Properties icon.

    The properties page appears.

  3. Complete the following fields in the Gate Factors section:
    Strategic Fit and Importance
    • Not Aligned
    • Somewhat
    • Supports
    • Aligns Very Well
    Product & Competitive Advantage
    • Limited
    • Modest
    • Positive
    • Significant
    Market Attractiveness
    • Small
    • Modest
    • Significant
    • Large
    Reward to Company
    • Poor Reward
    • Modest
    • Good
    • Excellent
    Synergies - Leverage Core Competencies
    • No Opportunity
    • Some Opportunity
    • Considerable Opportunity
    • Excellent Opportunity
    Technical Feasibility
    • Not Feasible
    • Limited Feasibility
    • Good Likelihood of Feasibility
    • Excellent Feasibility
  4. Save the changes. You can leave the gate scoring process and return to it at another time. The scores are saved, allowing you to change them, or continue scoring the remaining factors.
  5. Select the Scoring Complete check box.
  6. Submit the changes.

Fast Track an Idea

You can evaluate an idea and set it to expedite through the NPD process. You can skip the gate scoring steps and convert it to a project immediately.

Follow these steps:

  1. Complete steps 1 through 4 of the evaluation process.
  2. In the General section, select the Fast Track check box.
  3. Save the changes.

    The properties page appears.

  4. Open the New Product Development menu, and click Idea Management Dashboard.
  5. Click on the action item in the My Action Items section.
  6. Select Go from the Status drop-down list.
  7. Save the changes.

Your action item closes and the idea is now listed in the Idea Processes section of the overview page of idea management dashboard. The Stage is set to Idea Screen and the idea is converted to a project.

Kill an Idea

  1. Complete steps 1 through 4 of the evaluation process.
  2. Click Cancel.
  3. Open the New Product Development menu, and click Idea Management Dashboard.
  4. Click on the action item in the My Action Items section.
  5. Select Kill from the Status drop-down list.
  6. Save the changes.

Your action item closes and the idea is now listed in the Idea Processes section of the overview page of idea management dashboard. The status is Done. The idea also appears in the Idea Vault with a Kill gate decision for future resubmission for approval.

The Idea Vault

The Idea Vault page displays all of the ideas entered into CA Clarity PPM Accelerator for NPD, such as the ideas converted into projects.

For further details on the page, refer to Idea Vault.

Scheduling Information

Use the schedule page of idea properties to define the idea start and finish dates, to open it for time entry, and to define its charge code.

See the Demand Management User Guide for more information.

After defining the scheduling information, enter the budget information.

Budget Information

The idea budget data is essential in managing and analyzing idea portfolios. Correctly defining and recording the idea planned cost and benefit information is key to accurately assessing and analyzing ideas during portfolio management.

Budget information is defined using the budget page of idea properties.

See the Demand Management User Guide for more information.

Financial Planning

The project budget is awarded incrementally. As each stage of the project is completed, the team gains approval to commence to the next stage. This approval involves obtaining the requested budget dollars. CA Clarity PPM Accelerator for NPD uses cost plans and creates a detail row with the information entered on the gate information page once the project receives approval to move on to the next gate.

This means, a cost plan exist for each project with multiple detail rows: one for each stage. Reporting can be for the current stage or for the entire project, depending on the view. All the existing views and portlets continue to use the cumulative totals for planned costs and actuals, with the planned cost increasing with each stage that the project enters.

The project manager distributes the budget amount across the fiscal time periods, based on when the project uses the monies.

A Create Cost Plan action item is automatically sent to the project manager on submitting an idea for the final gate approval.