Posts Tagged ‘project management’

Adding ideas to the Roadmap……

Friday, August 20th, 2010

Bizplan03

Now you need to add those ideas generated from your Brainstorming session to your Product Roadmap. We suggest the following process:-

1) The first key step is to match the New Product Ideas to the Technology Roadmap. If the Idea does not match up to the Technology available then the capability to bring it to market will be extremely limited and the cost of developing the appropriate technology will have to be taken into consideration.

2) The Business Case should be thoroughly reviewed in terms of potential Market, Unit Cost, Selling Price, Volume, Resources etc

3) Products generating the greatest IRR (Internal Rate of Return) should be given priority.

4) Only when the above process has been followed and New Product Ideas meet the required Company criteria should the New Product Development commence.

By pursuing a New Product Development process which follows a defined Product Roadmapping process you will ensure that New Product Developments are resourced effectively and time to market is minimized which brings maximum returns.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

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Failure breeds success………

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

Most would agree that Apple is one of the most innovative and successful companies involved in new product development. However even they have had their fair share of Bloopers, so lets take a look at some of them:-

MacTV The Mac TV was released in 1993 and was Apple’s first attempt to integrate the functionality of a P.C with a cable ready T.V. Unforthunately it’s slow bus speed  of 16 MHz made for a slow P.C compared to it’s rivals and a very expensive T.V at over $2000. Needless to say it flopped and only 10k were produced.

macintosh_portableApple’s first attempt at a portable computer was the Macintosh portable. Released in 1989 it was way ahead of its time, and so it should have been at a whopping $6500.  It weighed in at a hefty 7.2kg and had an active matrix LCD screen which was fantastic but the major contributor to its cost.

apple_pipinIn 1995 Apple licensed its PIPPIN technology to Bandai to make a PC based game consol. The only problem was the competition, SEGA, SONY, Nintendo and PC based systems were already dominating the market. Only 42,000 PIPPIN units sold and it was withdrawn from the market.

O.K, you get the picture. Even the most innovative companies have their fair share of commercial failures. Typically this may run as high as 8 failures for every 2 successes, following the well known Pareto rule.

Less successful companies will have an even higher failure rate and in many cases this will lead to their ultimate demise.

So how should an organization skew the playing field to ensure a higher success rate ?

That will be the subject of the next post.

Until then, just remember, failure breeds success.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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Interim solution….

Monday, June 21st, 2010

ap4If you need a project manager sometimes the best solution is an interim one:-

* You appoint a project manager on a fixed term contract to address a specific need.

* The interim project manager will normally have a lot of industry experience gained from a number of roles.

* Having being appointed for a specific purpose leads to a very focused approach.

* If things don’t work out the contract can be terminated quickly and without additional costs such as redundancy or notice.

* The cost of hire will be short term and project specific.

* Interims can normally avoid the organizations political distractions and focus on the job at hand.

Sometimes an Interim solution is the best solution.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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May the best team win………

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

north-koreaWhilst the football may not have lived up to the hype so far we have still seen a couple of excellent team performances. So what is it that makes for a great team performance whatever the situation ?

* A leader who doesn’t just tell the team what to do but who provides a vision and who communicates that goal to the team by clearly outlining the task at hand and how it is to be achieved.

* The team are all pulling in the same direction putting individual disagreement behind them.

* The rewards of success are shared equally amongst the team members.

* There is no “finger pointing” if someone makes a mistake and the rest of the team rally round to support the individual.

* The Team leader provides all of the tools and instructions neccessary to complete the task.

As we enjoy the World Cup see which teams exhibit these qualities and measure their success.

The best team may not have the most outstanding individual players but the best team will win.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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Don’t fear failure…..

Friday, June 11th, 2010

jigsawWe are conditioned to fear failure. We must succeed at all costs. Throughout our schooling we are expected to pass our exams with flying colours and to fail is to be labelled as useless.

This fear of failure is stifling and killing our ability to innovate. Thankfully many individuals overcome this conditioning and realize that failure paves the road to success. The secret is to NEVER GIVE UP. To fail is perfectly natural and through failure we improve and succeed.

Any product innovation will fail many times but with an attitude of continuous improvement you will eventually succeed with a product which exceeds all expectations.

For inspiration about new product development success and persistence in the face of failure read the inspiring story of Charles Goodyear the pioneering inventor of vulcanized rubber.

Don’t fear failure – Strive for success.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

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Why time to market is critical…

Saturday, April 24th, 2010

Are your products taking to long to develop and adversely affecting your revenue stream ? Time to Market  is absolutely critical in determining product revenue and payback. With product lifecycles becoming ever shorter as new, better, faster models are introduced the development timescale is critical to success. Every day lost in development is a day lost in sales. This is because the overall lifecycle of the product is reduced the longer the development takes.

This may, at first, seem counterintuitive as the product is deemed to have, say, a 12 month sales life following release to the market but this takes no account of the competition which may already have a better model in development. Consequently each day of lost sales is gone forever and never recovered.

If you want to stay ahead of the competition and maximize payback for your developments you need to minimize product development timescales.

No one should pretend that this is easy. There is a fine balance to be struck between developing a quality product which meets the customers requirements as well as any in-house and external Quality approvals. The product development process needs to be robust and well defined.

Your in-house development process will probably be similar to the typical ISO9001 process below.

ISO9001designprocess

Sometimes the only way to generate time to market reduction is to have a look at the process with a fresh “set of eyes”

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk


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ESA launch fuels global warming debate..

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

The successful launch and deployment earlier today of the European Space Agency’s Cryosat-2 satellite represents a tremendous achievement for the organization. The satellite will measure and track ice thickness in the polar regions providing invaluable data for environmental scientists. Hopefully this data will prove , one way or the other, that global warming is indeed a fact and is caused by man’s activities and needs to be addressed politically in a united and effective manner.

The Scientific project has been ably led by Professor Duncan Wingham of the University College London who commented:-

“Today, it’s just a real pleasure; and I speak on behalf of all the scientists who will use the data to just thank all of those many people who contributed to this mission. Personally, it’s been a fabulous ride for me,” he told the assembled guests at the German centre.

Congratulations Professor Wingham & all at ESA for the successful launch of this incredible Scientific venture.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

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Masterchef..lessons for PM’s #pmot

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

MASTERCHEFI don’t know about you but I love BBC’s Masterchef, not just for the food and the cooking skills but the lessons it has for Project Managers.

And before I hear you scream “not another popular T.V program – tenuous Blog link story” please bear with me, bear with me.

First of all I love the passion. The contestants exude passion about food and cooking, we experience the love of their craft and their pain when their expectations are not met. One scowl off John is enough to reduce the strongest contestant to tears. As project managers we need to display the same level of passion for our project deliverables.

Secondly I love the drama of execution as the dish is put together to arrive at the nominated time, cooked perfectly, presented beautifully and demanding to be eaten. The time management skills on display would put the best project manager to shame and if we could deliver our projects to the same standard we would be very happy PM’s indeed.

Of course, like any project, things can go wrong and mistaking sugar for salt will end in disaster, a lesson in attention to detail there.

At the end there is only one winner but the runners up all learn from their mistakes, another attribute of good project managers.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk
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The Innovation game…

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

innovationInnovation is the name of the game; especially in the competitive world of consumer electronics. The only way to remain competitive is to continue to produce new, relevant products which the customer wants.

Apple is a terrific example, before the release of the ipod Apple was a company on decline; despite the fact that it had the worlds best desk top computers for graphic design and desk top publishing they were too expensive for the home computer market which was cornered by IBM clones.

Then along came the ipod, the revolutionary pocket music player which was cool, trendy, affordable and  desirable.

The rest is history and Apple also leads the field in Smartphones with their iconic iphone. Recently they have released their latest product, the touchscreen notebook – the ipad.

These are terrific examples of product Innovation in the highly competitive field of consumer electronics which show that a company which continues to innovate will continue to thrive.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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The Brain Machine….

Friday, March 12th, 2010

brainmachineThere has been lots of recent talk from politicians, particularly The Conservative Party, about rejuvinating British Industry. Indeed James Dyson, the renowned inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner which bears his name, recently issued his  Ingenious Britain  report on the subject.

Such debate is welcome and well overdue. With manufacturing in the U.K shrinking to around 10% of GDP we urgently need a strategy which focuses on what we do best – Innovation.

There is no way we can compete with Far East manufacturers on cost (labor or Capital) but we can and do compete strongly when it comes to Innovative design and technology. This is partly due to our strong engineering history and professional project management skills. It is also down to our open and democratic culture which leads to a rigorous debate of ideas.

We have a wealth of scientific and engineering talent in the U.K which we can exploit to deliver new and innovative products to the worlds markets.

We need to rev up the Brain Machine.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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