So, what's the big story for our 2005 conference? It's the people! Take the example of a divisional GM from a multinational company that had the lowest return on assets performance of any of its parent company's 10 divisions. Over two years he took the division from rock-bottom to the top. His secret? Unleashing the power of his people. Whether going global or going local, getting the people right - even before the processes and technologies - is key.

In this highly interactive track, a cross-cultural, cross-company and cross-country sharing of executive experience will show how individual and group differences can be leveraged for competitive advantage in product discovery, development, and commercialization.

Learn how colleagues use people, teams and culture to:

• Drive NPD global collaboration
• Get better ideas from all over the world
• Leverage returns on global assets and infrastructure
• Get and sustain competitive people advantage
• Create and manage virtual global R&D, marketing and strategy teams

Come to this track to learn how good people with good processes can behave badly. Learn how building team understanding and tolerance for individual differences can lead to global home runs. Be in the audience to share experiences, cultural blunders, and winning team strategies.

Track Chairs:

• Shayne Smith, Vice President Manufacturing, Wardrop Engineering, Inc. [Bio]
• Anne Orban, Director Discovery & Inovation, Innovation Focus Inc. [Bio]

Track Team:

• Carla Gracen, Sr. Product Manager, Ceridian
• Harvey Seifter, President, Seifter Associates

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Cultural Collaboration for Winning Products

Stephen Lane brought 15 years of China experience to Dina Chu’s new product manufacturing challenge. Dina Chu brought business savvy and cultural sensitivity to communicating manufacturing quality specifications. Find out what these veterans knew going in and what new insights they garnered about the difference between success and failure in their recent NPD collaboration across the Pacific Ocean.

Lost in Translation - Interactive Session - Creating and Fostering Innovation Culture in Global Companies - What do Leaders Do?

When a multinational brings a vast number of people from different countries, professions, and organizations to work on a common project, more than one kind of diversity is at play. In this session, we study why and how national cultures make a difference in terms of the design phase, systems design and development, and implementation and launch. The session is focused on the mindset and actions of leaders who represent a diverse range of industries and cultures.

Star Wars - Battling the Dark Side and Overcoming Cultural Resistance to the Introduction of Process Rigor

Printpack, a billion dollar privately-held Company, provides flexible packaging to consumer package goods companies. To capitalize on lessons learned from a high performance division, Printpack initiated a company- wide program to implement a standardized development process across its five SBUs, automating this new process using Sopheon Accolade software. This study will review Printpack’s internal change management initiative to accelerate adoption of process rigor and to achieve enterprisewide buy-in.

It's a Long Way to Tipperary - Finding a 4 Leaf Clover in a Field of 3 Cultures

Ceridian is a leading information services company in the human resource, retail and transportation markets that develops solutions for global deployment in Europe, Canada and the United States. These three countries can bring three development processes, three product philosophies, and three organizational cultures. Where do you apply consistency and which part of the organization takes the lead role? What to do when nationalistic partisanship sets in? Using a real life case study, this session will act out and examine the dynamics of people, teams and culture in a situation that is common challenge for global operations.

The Full Monty - Teams that Take it All Off

During a seven-year innovation collaboration that contributed to the recent successful first flight of the Airbus A380, Parker Hannifin and Airbus UK experienced the truth of George Bernard Shaw’s quip about England and America being two nations divided by a common language. Find out how these two companies learned to innovate together and take away a blueprint for successful cross-cultural team collaboration.

Being There - Is it Necessary with Virtual Co-Location Technology?

Julia Gluesing has been studying collaboration and innovation in global product development for over 10 years, advising both virtually and physically co-located teams. She will moderate and provide expert commentary on the pros and cons of being there physically or virtually in a presentation that features tools used by both automotive and aerospace organizations. Visteon will present their perspective on collaborating for innovation, using both physical co-location and new technologies for virtual co-location to incorporate the customer viewpoint and process discipline for their engineering projects globally.