Refresh Planning... The weekly rhythm of refreshes is what makes them work. Team members know they are accountable to their colleagues every week at a set time. It can’t move and it can’t be postponed. And doing them more than once a week is even better, but they must be short and crisp value-added events.
Read MoreThese concepts are based on increasing the cycles of learning. More learning cycles in a shorter period of time = more rapid acquisition of knowledge = faster results. The other principle of fast cultures is the idea that you have to "fail fast" in order to learn faster.
Read MoreSinek’s idea is that the “Why” defines the Purpose, Cause, and or Belief of what you are trying to achieve. Often we find that this is not clearly articulated or commonly understood by a group of people, yet without knowing the “why for” of something, it is very hard to define the steps to get there and it is hard to motivate people to extraordinary performance.
Read MoreProblem: Create a means to get across a waterway (without getting wet). Solution: Build an un-bridge
Read MoreBest-in-class teams do refreshes three or more times a week. The fastest teams we’ve worked with do it every day (<15 min/session). One client recently had six teams doing it twice a day on a very time senstive program.
Read More"There falls a shadow between the conception and the creation. In the annals of innovation, new ideas are only part of the equation. Execution is just as important."
Read MoreIt seems odd to ask this question, Why accelerate?, since it’s obvious in the technology business that you die if you don’t release new products faster than your competition. Fast teams know this reality and communicate the “need for speed” to the engineering teams. In slow environments, this critical information is insulated from the technical teams and only reserved for marketing, finance, and leadership forums.
Read More"And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important."
Read MoreThis is the FTTM Model we use with clients that have a portfolio of products in development. The driver is to accelerate “Time-To-Break-Even.” The fastest teams we’ve worked with measure success by quantifying the complete life-cycle of development from team formation to break-even.
Read MoreWhen implementing improvement systems that impact business processes and require methodology and tools; you must first define the problem you are trying to solve. Often we see organizations start with possible solutions without first define the business problem they are trying to solve.
Read MoreWe’ve developed a common and reusable metric by which teams can assess and track their growth or “maturity" in using the methodology on multiple projects. Clients that use this system are typically running FTTM on tens if not hundreds of concurrent projects.
Read MoreFor many years we have worked with clients on “process research and development projects.” These are characterized by projects to create (in most cases) bleeding edge manufacturing capability for a complex fabrication process.
Read MoreA few recent client situations sent me rushing back to my Stephen Covey book, “The Seven Habits of Effective People” and specifically to look up his Urgent/Important matrix where Covey classified tasks according to their importance or urgency. It is a good reminder of what to stay focused on — the Urgent and Important tasks.
Read MoreRecently we were asked to anticipate the questions a CEO would ask a Program Manager at a scheduled review meeting for an important project.
Read MoreI’d argue “no” for the most part, but there are exceptions. Let me defend this unconventional “opinion.”
Read MoreOver the years we've been asked by clients to help them select Program Managers that demonstrate FTTM (fast-time-to-market) behavior and skills. This post will discuss some of these attributes and a selection process used.
Read MoreThe essence of FTTM success is Refresh Planning. The key to deploying Refresh Planning is to make it a habit. It is the rhythm of the process which drives team rhythm that makes it effective as one of the key factors of schedule acceleration -- it is the rhythm of accountability.
Read MoreWe often see advanced development teams miss the obvious; in terms of a technical solution or an innovation in the way they work, which could result in an acceleration of the project schedule. Why do brilliant people sometimes miss the obvious?
Read MoreWe’ve observed two types of project environments; one where people seem to have their head’s in the sand; they try to avoid looking into the future for fear they may find potential problems, and another type on fast projects where they design-in an “early warning system,” so they can quickly identify future failures while they have time to prevent or fix them.
Read MoreA senior executive asked us, when presenting our portfolio modeling system, “What business problem does this solve?” She then made the comment, “All my projects are important and therefore are all the top priority, we have to do them all.” Good questions that required a thoughtful response.
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