You need to pull-in the schedule just to be able to meet the schedule. This is called "time banking." You accelerate to gain time now, since you know unexpected things will happen in the future where you will need to use that banked time (i.e. loose that saved time). What is certain is uncertainty!
Read MoreWe've been working with a large European venture fund to determine their optimal portfolio of investment opportunities. The modeling concept is based on the work we have been doing prioritizing strategy, markets, customers, product requirements, and new product project portfolios. It is based on the idea that these decisions are influenced by objectives or decision criteria.
Read MoreBased on hundreds of project experiences we have learned that specific factors set those fast teams apart from other teams that are less successful vis-a-vis meeting their schedule commitment.
Read MoreKeep in mind, for example, Hewlett Packard purportedly makes 80% of its profit from products released within the last 2 years. So, why is schedule not "king" - even though it's given lip service?
Read MoreWhen we think of supply chain, we think of manufacturing and the problem of various materials suppliers feeding a chain that leads to the manufacturing of goods. The same supply chain concept is applied to product development today with the ever increasing complexity of technology products and global market distribution. We called this a development supply chain. Typically this is characterized by customers and suppliers of product development teams that lead to the integration of sub-components into a system at the end of the chain closest to the final customer.
Read MoreRecently, we’ve been working with a client to solve the classic problem between marketing and engineering functions; reconciling customer/market needs (i.e. requirements) with the budget and resource constraints of an already stretched engineering organization. How do you reconcile what is wanted by marketing/customers with what can be done by engineering with their available resources within the expected delivery time frame?
Read MoreWhere do your schedule target dates come from? Are they fact or fiction?
In our experience, schedule target dates (i.e. the point in time which something is needed to be delivered) are difficult to determine. They should be driven by customer demand/needs, but all to often they are artificially generated by either top management or external partners in the case of co-development projects.
Read MoreWhat is wanted versus what can be delivered? A failure to reconcile. Rarely are engineering resources involved in the critical step of reconciling what is wanted with what can be delivered. The Marketing (or product) Requirements Document (MRD or PRD) is written and basically "tossed over the wall" to Engineering, who also typically ignores what they are not interested in, or don't want to do, or don't have the resources to do... and at the end of the day the resulting product is a function of what can be done versus what is really needed (by the customer).
Read MoreWe assess teams prior to engaging. It is important to define the boundaries of the problem and understand root causes or barriers to fast cycle time. This is a typical assessment map that we use during the interview process with selected team members and executives involved with product development.
Read More"I'll work on it, make the changes and email it back to you....then let me know what you think and send me back your comments and or changes..."
Read MoreIBM's "Provisioning Steering Committee" .accelerates decision making and works out systemic inefficiencies in the organization.
Read MoreThese are three different problems solved using the same decision modeling approach based on AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process).
Read MoreWe've found/learned that the most important part of creating an AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) decision model is creating the basic framework or structure of the model.
Read MoreAt the highest level it seems there are four broad areas that impact the $ success of a company's product portfolio: Whether or not products accurately target the "right" customers and/or market segment(s), Whether or not the "right" product is being developed for and delivered to the "right" customer, Whether or not the product is being delivered to the customer at the "right" time, Whether or not the product is delivered at or under budget
Read MoreAll to often we see the translation of strategy to execution fail. Tremendous amounts of time and executive effort go into creating and articulating strategy, yet the broad vision and directional guidance that this effort is supposed to generate tends to get "lost in translation" when it is handed down to the operating units to execute. In our work with executive teams we've developed a mapping approach to making this connection.
Read MoreA major problem in organizations is theincremental misinterpretation of a corporate vision by the cascading hierarchy of executives/managers/supervisors and workers as they attempt to translate a relatively abstract vision and strategy into specific "on-the-ground" tactics for each Function, Department and specific job within the organization. In other words, are the "ground level" tactics an accurate "reflection" of (i.e., are they aligned with) the vision/strategy?
Read MoreMost people do voice-of-the-customer (VOC) by showing customers the features of the new product they want to make. The customer usually says "sure, it looks fine." There you have it, this describes most "VOC Systems" in action. This is a feature-based approach.
Read MoreWhen should you terminate a new product development project that has been underway for a good deal of time? The longer it goes, they harder it is to kill.
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