Portfolio Management for New Products

I find Robert Cooper to be a bit grandiose in all of his publications in his conclusions from various studies (including his own) and thus you have to take them with a grain of salt. However, this book is very good in showing lots of different ways of approaching the problem of portfolio management. You can be assured that the right answer is different for every company, so read how others have done it and decide which version or hybrid may be right for you.

I'd highly recommend this book to anyone establishing and/or revising a portfolio management process. There are several real-company examples that can be used as a starting point for discussion for your own organization.

Great guide for those with multiple NPD projects in the pipeline. Best when used in conjunction with "The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development, Second Edition."

In this text, the authors thoroughly review the methods currently being practiced in companies to make decisions about their investments in new products and technologies, and the success of these various methods. They recognize the difficulties of making such decisions, especially by relying on simple processes without understanding shorfalls of the process and the robustness of the data. They focus on the goals of maximizing value, achieving a balanced portfolio and linking the decisions to business strategy. They tie this process into other key processes in the company, including the product development process and the new product strategy. By far the most valuable aspect of the book, however, is the link between process and real operation provided by the "Points for Management to Ponder" commentary which runs throughout the book. This is a current, encyclopedic and practical guide to this very difficult business process.

Developing new industrial and commercial products is one of the most expensive and risky tasks facing management. New product development is bound to be difficult because new technology or new markets are always involved. Risk in selecting new projects for R & D to spend the company's money on can be managed in a similar way to managing financial investments. You assemble a portfolio, which is collection of investments (i.e. projects) having thought-out risks and an estimated probability of meeting your requirements. This book shows you how. Cooper's team in Canada have been working on new product management for over 20 years and they are the world experts.