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Product development projects are not all the same. Some represent slight modifications of an existing, time-tested product, a workhorse for your company. Other projects might represent startling, new-

An escalation process clarifies the boundaries and channels of decision-making throughout an organization to solve a problem quickly and clearly. Designed around the concept of a core project team wit

Our clients often ask us how they can become more innovative. Some seem to believe that innovation just appears as if by magic. Many believe that there is no innovation process, even though there have

Agile is not just for software anymore. Many companies that develop tangible products – be they hardware or mixed software/hardware systems – are applying techniques borrowed from Agile. By combining

Figure: Product Development Strategy Diagram Before projects become products, they are ideas in the minds of your teams. They begin their life as product concepts , germs of your company's future grow

The time has come to de-mystify Agile. Our research and client work show that even those software firms that boast about being Agile do not necessarily follow every point in the Agile Manifesto. They

Project Efficiency - What’s New? Project overloading is anything but new. However it seems to be getting worse rapidly with the increasing speed of development, especially with SAAS (Software as a Ser

Our clients are finding that the savings garnered from outsourcing manufacturing have declined. Increasingly, they are looking for exciting new products in new categories as the most reliable way to g

We have found that many organizations are struggling with predictability. One reason is that they don’t use common sense when estimating a project’s timeline. The Lite Schedule Estimating Matrix is a

The fastest way to destroy an agile project management implementation is to let functional silos get in the way. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. And it happens because many companies underesti

Retrospectives, also known as post mortems or project histories are commonly performed after the conclusion of a release. Typically, they involve a subset of the team with a project manager or process

Many companies are measuring the wrong things and ending up with the wrong results. Many times we see organizations get stuck on measuring what’s easy instead of what’s useful. Or they focus on metric

Out of Bounds Review - What’s new? This is a process that is lean, fast, and effective in getting teams focused and back on track when material changes are made in a project. Setting “boundary conditi

Can you imagine an organization that had no interest in improving its factory output, upgrading its IT, or in optimizing its financial investments? Can you imagine a company that had used the same pro

Dot Voting - What’s New? Within the course of managing a project to completion or evaluating the delivery of a program, brainstorming sessions can be useful to creatively evaluate and solve problems.

3 steps to implementing Predictive Metrics and achieving better results. How you noticed how most companies have huge dash-boards and spreadsheets containing dozens of metrics? But to what end? Does a

ANPP (Apple New Product Process) Goal to Execute and Scale Apple's New Product Development Process Case Study Many companies face internal problems because they can't see the bigger picture. I came fa

In this time of slow job growth, many excellent people, either unemployed or unhappily employed, are checking job boards and sending out inquiries and resumes. It is a great time for forward-looking c

So-called "Waterfall" or "Phase-Gate" product development methodologies often give management the illusion that they control the project while meddling and slowing it down. Each formal gate meeting or

Many of today’s leaders try to coordinate business resources that are scattered over a large geographic area – perhaps even the whole world. It is common for such people to have direct reports on two

Sorting out who does what on a project with a cross functional team is pretty basic. Clear tasks with clear responsibilities and deadlines is Project Management 101. But how many projects have you man

Project post mortems can be an excellent tool for learning from mistakes and implementing process and decision-making improvements. However, many times, these meetings, if held at all, get off to a ba

One of the most difficult challenges our clients face is determining the optimum balance of skills on a cross functional team . Getting the right balance of functions on the team – such that it is sup

What is the Improvement Forecaster? The Half-Life Diagram consists of an equation, and a graphical plot of expected improvement over time. The Half-Life Diagram uses estimated degrees of technical and

Teams that develop new products are challenged to produce a high-quality, valuable solutions in as short a time as possible and within a tight budget. We all know that slippage in time-to-market; decr

It's management, not Ceremonies. That is the problem and solution We repeatedly hear statements from hardware teams trying to increase speed and predictability in their product development projects bu

In product development limited resources (time, money, or staff) force tradeoffs both at the level of the product portfolio and within individual products. Lacking a methodology for evaluating potenti

Most businesses today are looking to take advantage of innovation to drive revenue growth, but they lack 1) an overall strategic planning process for innovation and 2) methods to fund the R&D expense

The Platform/Derivative distinction is a key to product development strategy . According to David Robertson, a platform is “the collection of assets that are shared by a set of products.” These assets

If I had the definitive answer to this, I would be a millionaire! For the sake of simplicity (and for most real situations) we will assume that this question is asked by a manager or business owners a

Innovation means doing something that has never been done before. And that’s fraught with risk. In new product development, innovation may entail technical risk, market risk, risk relating to outside

Have you ever wondered how to create a great product vision? Let’s show you. Start with some examples to get your reference frame properly set. Then look at some of the formats that might work best fo

Apple is an iconic brand noted for disruptive innovation. In the heat of the digital revolution that it helped spark, Apple’s products became a portfolio of increasingly complex and diverse offerings.

I had the good fortune to work with Dr. Amar Bose and with the great company he founded. I helped to bring into the world two blockbuster products – BOSE’s Noise-Cancelling Headphones and the BOSE® Wa

With shrinking technology lifecycles, as well as economic and technology developments happening every day, people are confronting the reality of continuous organizational change management. Managers a

We’ve been surprised lately how few companies are getting the most out of their Technology Roadmaps. We also find that clients often confuse a Technology Roadmap with an Agile Product Development Road

We see many of our clients using virtual communities to communicate and collaborate with customers, suppliers, or other partners. They find that social solutions can accelerate innovation and product

Product development is a risky activity. Managers often ask us how they can learn to better anticipate risks and how they can prepare to face these challenges as they occur. Mindmapping is a fresh app

What Is the Tool? Four-Fields Process Map Originated in Japan, the Four-Fields Map is a graphical technique most commonly applied to cross-functional processes . Unlike more traditional project planni

What Is the Tool? Deliverable Hit Rate Chart The Deliverable Hit Rate tool monitors the progress of completed tasks against a target over time. Best applied to complex programs with a large number of

H. Stanley Judd: “ A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there. " exc-5ab2c733ae1f695ccdf71369 What Is a Product Roadmap? Product roadmaps ofte

Product Management is often an understaffed, overworked function. Yet, the impact that this organization has on development is huge. The best analogy is a lever. One Product Manager can effectively mo

Like many things in life, benchmarking often fails just when you need it most. In order to motivate organizations to improve, external yardsticks are often used to motivate action. In many cases, this