My approach to Rapid NPD owes a lot to how I play with LEGO®.
I know that my desire to get into engineering was significantly influenced by my playing with LEGO® as a child. I loved the space sets and recall many, many hours playing with them. I would build something, play with it, change it, play some more, change it again, etc. I was always tinkering with my designs. Always learning and making improvements. I was still playing with these sets in college and I still have many of these pieces.
It is clear to me that the combination of rules and structure (bricks only connect in certain ways and there are a limited set of parts) along with the flexibility to be creative (there are so many connection combinations) is what engineering is all about. Engineers create useful products from combinations of elements (analogous to the LEGO® bricks, plates, etc.) that must adhere to the laws of physics (analogous to the ways the LEGO® elements mate).
What I have discovered with my continuing LEGO® play (Technics and Mindstorms get most of my attention now – see my LEGO® Development Lab picture below) is that it is process of building something quickly, discovering the strengths and weaknesses of the design, iterating on the design, and tweaking the best concepts, is the best part. These LEGO® creations draw upon multiple domains: structures, mechanisms, motors, transmissions, pneumatics, sensors, and programming. Development is happening simultaneously across these domains – even if there is more than one person one working on the machine. Everything must be integrated on the machine. This is the ideal multi-domain, collaborative, and agile development environment! This is how the students in the
FIRST LEGO® League develop their robots for competition.
This is the way New Product Development should be! Sadly, much of what happens in engineering departments follows an overly prescriptive approach that often reinforces domain specialization, denies real collaboration, and does not allow for rapid concept exploration and iterations. I’ll continue to work with New Product Development teams in a model that owes a lot to LEGO® play. These teams will develop innovative products faster, to higher performance and quality levels, at lower costs; and have fun doing it. Who wants to play?
