Harvard Business Schoo -491-036

Rev. 3,1,91

Mod IV Product Development Team

It was April 1989. Just four months remained until the Honeywell Building Controls
Division (BCD) planned to introduce the Mod IV, and the product deveiopment team w&
fighting to stay on schedule, Mod IV, a motor used in heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning
(I-IVAC) applications, represented the most ambitious project in the division's history, and the
product's development reflected many of the changes the division had experienced in recent
years. For three people in particular. Mod IV also typified the challenges of working amid new
pressures and demands.

As director of EvAc Controls, one of the Building Controls Division's four product
areas, Linda Whitman was the senior marketing person for the Mod IV product line and had
primary profit and loss responsibility for Mod 1V. She could see the impact a delay would have
on her area's performance., and she understood the pressing market need to have Mod IV contain
attractive features. When she first became director of HV AC Commis io 1986, she realized that
marketing had to play a more active role in development of Med IV_ Since then she had watched
her fellow marketers on the Mod IV team work through prt,blems and canatiel'S with engineers,
and she knew some of the roost difficult issues still had to he resolved. But addr=sing tiny issue
required patience, persistence, and tact, and even then Linda often found herself torn. She had
to make surf. /Acr,ontroluzpijturpiesti.o. L.ss IsrriLmop&Li collaborating withenjpeering
aack manufacturing, bath of whichseemed ti.,:mgys,rM*aztara,g_tirn.cs unresponsive.
Larry Rodgers. lead design engineer ors Mod IV, had been involved in the Mod IV project
for five years. He could tease the pressure mounting both on the team and on the division as
Mod IV encountered dif_ficulties entering the final months of the project. Larry and six of the
engineers he supervised had their hands full trying to reduce the noise the Mod IV motor was.
generating. He knew the tn.arketers had concerns about Mad W's appeal to customers, but with
BCD's limited resources and its stress no fast development, he wondered how be could address
himself to marketing's concerns at this time. Like many engineers at BCD, Larry understood the
competitive and fmanMal challenges BCD faced, but be wondered if others appriated the depth
and complexi7 of design work and engineering problems.

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