MIT_Sloan_Management_Review_-_Spring_2020

SLOANREVIEW.MIT.EDU SPRING 2020 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENTREVIEW 11

aerospace, automotive, and medical in-
dustries. It recently combined the roles of
the product development manager and
the product manager in all its lines of
business — a radical step that immedi-
ately helped speed up cycle times.
To have a product position that is both
inward- and customer-facing is unusual
even today. Traditionally, the product
manager would assess market trends and
customer needs while developing working
relationships with the company’s clients.
He or she would then feed the R&D team —
led by a product development manager —
the information to develop new products,
systems, and solutions, or improve old
ones. Once the company combined the two
roles, the speed with which new technical
solutions were matched with prospects, and
vice versa, rose dramatically.
Combing the two roles also created av-
enues for the cocreation of nontraditional
solutions. For instance, by drawing on
data from IoT sensors, the company was
able to develop several new applications
that reduced operating costs in areas that
could not be assessed earlier, because the
product development/product manager
could now understand clients’ pain points
as well as all the solutions the company’s
technologies could provide.

4. Ethical Intelligence
   Machines, overseen by smart humans, will
   make many design decisions. Though they
   are innately logical, they lack empathy. That
   will have consequences for companies, con-
   sumers, and society. Doing the right thing
   will become only more challenging as digi-
   tal systems become increasingly complex.
   People must examine machines’
   choices through an ethical lens — and
   weigh in. Companies will have to figure
   out how design decisions and digital sys-
   tems affect each stakeholder and factor in
   the likely unintended consequences. In in-
   dustries such as aerospace, automotive, and
   medical device development, traditional

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