Savvy Workshop

Product innovation, design and development at Toyota is a dynamic system comprised of highly competent engineering knowledge workers, exploratory (learning) processes, a matrix organization, decision making mechanisms, internal-external interface mechanisms, performance metrics, time compressed culture and a leadership model. This PD system has generated and launched a stream of 60-plus new products in the 21st century that outperform competition. Toyota’s “chief engineer” is an exemplary product design program leadership model worth learning. The chief engineer is customer focused, visual communicator, persistent, technically skilled, visionary, entrepreneurial and a “true leader.” This true leader maintains a “dynamic balance” leveraging the internal people, external resources and assets of Toyota’s system to get the new car in the market place.
As ideal as the Toyota chief engineer role/ tasks appears, in practice it is within the capability of most new product development organizations. The presenters will describe the thinking/practices and experiences that chief engineers at Toyota and other firms use to integrate all elements of a Product Development system from concept to launch. They will discuss how similar as well as how different the thinking practices are with examples chief engineer project management practices from Savvy consortium members and other organizations. This workshop will present key elements of a transform plan to an improved product project management that has the benefits of the chief engineer practice.

The presenters designed this workshop for product development project leaders committed to improving their NPD projects to better focus on customer expectations,  improve design quality, innovate with better designs, improve engineering problems solving competence, and achieve “towering” project leadership.

Chief Engineer Workshop Content and exercises are based on Savvy Conference presentation by Ken Kreafle, Toyota Chief Engineer -Avalon 05 and based on the experiences of the Savvy Consortium product development engineering leaders working in a variety of industrial , commercial and consumer product/ market industries. The exercises, visuals and content are presented by experienced engineers with strong instruction skills.

Workshop Content and Learning

• The nine product development fundamentals which the chief engineer leverages to get the new product to market on time

• Engineering problem solving thinking/practices

• Exploratory and learning processes that generate engineering design knowledge

• Chief engineer’s communication documents:  voice of the customer visuals, product concept and image, competitive positioning, product system architecture, chief engineer’s plan  (detailed spec goals) , the obeya space designed for people /project productivity,  the prototype task, the CE’s targets and convergence on the specifications, the product launch, the customer experiential knowledge feedback loop. A3 reports

• Leadership practices that sustains individual motivation in a rigorous, problem-solving design culture led by the systems/entrepreneur who meets tight schedules

• Transformation plan for product development project management improvement

Who should participate?  Product development (PD) program managers, PD project managers, PD team leaders,  engineering functions managers, product marketing managers, product planning managers,  process improvement leaders, green belts, black belts, lean improvement managers, design engineers, test engineers, quality engineers,  technology development managers, new product marketing managers and knowledge workers who support the PD team.

Workshop Deliverables: presentation visuals, communication documents, exercise forms and source materials that can be used for product development team instruction. Chief engineer transformation plan visual. Product Development System elements visual.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
The Holiday Inn I-35W at 94th Street
Bloomington MN 55431
Cost: $800

To register click here.

Future workshop dates and locations call:

Jim Jacobs 952-922-7006 Savvy-Minneapolis or

Gene Kania 630-781-1104 Savvy-Chicago

Event content, presentation materials and presenters may change without notice, but with intent to maintain or increase quality and relevance.