Product

Development:
Engaging with Human
Resources
Marc Bodner
Senior Director of Business Development
Worldwide TechServices

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 Keys to Unlocking Your Team

Training Empowerment Teamwork

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 Determine Business Strategy

Determine appropriate organizational structure – maximize X-training & knowledge sharing.

Emphasize key attributes of successful candidates during recruitment and selection - Identify key competencies.

Versatility - Emphasize versatility and adaptability as products and services are subject to rapid change.

Training and development programs - build company bench strength.

Compensation systems reward desired behaviors – geared towards customer attraction, satisfaction and retention.

Create employment branding initiatives that communicate desired customer experiences.

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 Building your organization – Silo or X-Functional Teams?

Silos - decentralized structure

• Local business units determine features.
• Requires close communication among the business units.
• Continual emphasis is placed on the features and how they
differentiate from local competitors.

Web - Cross-functional work teams

• Discuss and share all aspects of product development -
market research, design, manufacturing, marketing, sales and
costs.

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 Designing the Job

KSA
Propensity toward
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities innovation, creativity
needed to perform the job: and flexibility.

o Degree of autonomy.
o Task identity and significance. Desire for high task variety,
rapid work pace, more
interdependence than
o Skill variety vs. job independence and a high
specialization. level of autonomy.

o Work pace.
Key Factors - Start Ups

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 Performance Management

Starting Point: Job standards and metrics for measuring a

particular job function.

Success: What does success look like, and how will it be

measured?

Compensation: Support the business strategy, and must emphasize

the value of differentiating features of the role:
Innovation
Sales / Marketing

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 Don't Forget...
Special consideration to competencies beyond
employees’ functional skills, such as:

o Business acumen.
o Strategic planning.
o Teamwork and business relationships.
o Managing vision and purpose.
o Organizational agility and drive for results.

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 Training
Develops employees’ abilities, knowledge, and skills.

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 Employee Empowerment

• Allow employees to inspect their own work / stop the production needed.

• Provide supporting framework -- necessary resources and support to

assist in decision making.

Motivate employees and facilitate decentralization --

-- generate new ideas and opportunities for innovation!

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 Teamwork
Teamwork -- breaks
down barriers so that
communication and
information exchange are
improved, contributing to
innovation.

Emphasize the importance

of employees’ ideas and
their continuous growth and
development.

Let employees make their
own mistakes - they
will learn how to be
empowered and manage
their own work!
• Develops individual
initial ideas;
• Encourages knowledge
exchange;
• Produces a divergence
of orientation;
• In turn creating a wider
range of options.

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 Important Definitions:

New Product Development - Regularly develop

new products by identifying customer needs
and understanding new technologies and
processes

Learning Orientation - Organization-wide

activity of creating and using knowledge to
enhance competitive advantage

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 Some More Important Definitions:

Knowledge Integration - Ongoing collective process of

constructing, articulating, and redefining shared beliefs
through social interaction of organizational members .

Strategic Flexibility - Organization’s ability to identify major

changes in the external environment, to quickly commit resources
to new courses of action in response to change, and to recognize
and act promptly when it is time to halt or reverse such resource
commitments.

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 Examples:

The team dynamic is designed to

encourage employees to create
systems that break the status quo.
Once a month, the company holds
an InDay - employees set aside
regular work to explore new ideas.
Expresses an appreciation for creative
culture -- leaders encourage employees
to innovate without a fear of failure.
Even trainees are empowered to innovate
and create on a regular basis!
“When people are free to create, they do
remarkable things.”

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Learning-oriented organization,
empower employees through
horizontal communication
systems, teamwork, and
delegation of decision-making.
Empowers the workforce to
continually improve the way
the job is done
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Built a work environment
characterized by trust, open
communication, and
participation, and provides the
resources needed to carry out
complete training.
High-trust environment results
in a low turnover rate.
 Thank You!
Contact Me:
Marc Bodner
Senior Director of Business Development
Worldwide TechServices

marc.bodner@wwts.com

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