Teaching “New Product Management” for Incremental and Radical Innovation

In educational collaborative design projects with industry, the nature of innovative activity has shifted from radical to incremental product change. This article claims that at leats user andmonetary value creation in New Product Development (NPD) projects can be achieved through competitive design solutions demonstrating better "Style" and "Technology". In terms of educational planning initiatives, both radical (Ansoff's Product-Market matrix) as well as incremental (3-D Positioning Maps) innovations methods and tools should be taught to design students. However, awarness should be created among these students that "Diversification" (= Radical Innovation) on its own is not the only generic growth strategy to gain significant competitive advantage. Focusing on "Development of new products for existing markets" or "Creation of new markets for existing products" as generic growth strategies in combination with a design strategy targeted at the "Upper Right Quadrant" of Cagan and Vogel's positioning map can also lead to a significant value creation for companies.