Reviewing the Usefulness of Lead User Method

Technical Notes on Lilien, Morrison, Searls, Sonnack, and von Hippel (2002)

Abstract

Lilien, Morrison, Searls, Sonnack, and von Hippel (2002) performed quantitative analysis on the new product development performance of 3M projects and concluded lead user idea-generation processes leads better results than non lead user idea-generation processes for new product development, which many following researchers have cited. However, no following researches have seem to review this study thoroughly. Thus, this paper reviews Lilien et al. (2002) and reveals that (a) Lilien et al (2002) is not reliable enough since it uses fairly subjective and personal performance indicator for quantitative analysis and (b) lead user idea-generation processes which Lilien et al. (2002) recoginizes as creative and effective is just one of non-lead user idea-generations.