Two questions:
How should we build new products/services/experiences?
How should we operate our businesses?
The answer to both is artfully. We need to work as crafters, as artisans, not as engineers. A good crafter makes the right thing for the right purpose, and makes it well. A good crafter adapts the work according to changing customer needs and/or the environment, while honing both method and skill.
New Product Development
The term “new product development” means, quite simply, to make something that hasn’t been made before, something bespoke, something fit for a specific person or purpose, something unique. New product development is creative making. It is entirely unlike manufacturing, which is to generate multiple copies of the same item. Manufacturing can be automated; creative making cannot.
New products may be created in one of two ways: they can be engineered, or they can be crafted. The engineering approach requires two distinct phases: first design, then make. The crafting approach combines these activities so the two occur simultaneously, in an emergent, organic way: making begins early on, designing continues throughout. There are no phases.
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