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Scrum

Leading an Agile Team

While less than 20 years old, the agile philosophy has immensely impacted how we do projects, interact on teams, and manage resources. First applied to software and IT projects, the agile theory emphasizes people over processes, and experimentation over documentation. Today, we apply the flexibility of agile management to tangible product development as well as computer-based projects.

One of the greatest challenges for an organization that transitions from a traditional project management approach is the role of managers. In a waterfall methodology, the PM directs tasks and activities of the project by assigning work to individual team member. S/he monitors task completion as well as the overall project budget and schedule. The project manager’s role is to keep things on track and to implement corrective actions if there is a deviation from the plan.

In sharp contrast, an agile project leader is a servant leader. In this role, the project leader helps to smooth the pathway for the project team by removing roadblocks and streamlining paperwork and systems as needed. The agile project leader’s role is to engage, empower, and encourage.

Engage

In traditional projects, the project manager is a manager by definition. S/he has authority and influence. Accomplishing the written project goals is the primary objective of the project manager. Success is measured by achieving the project scope on-time and on-budget.

As the agile philosophy emphasizes people and interactions over plans and contracts, an agile project leader will focus on building relationships. Engaging the project team and the customer are within the roles and responsibility of an agile team leader.

Notice, too, that we don’t say “agile project manager;” instead we use the term “agile team leader”. This is quite intentional as a manager expects to have the organization line up behind his/her decisions and act on these. In contrast, the agile team leader engages the team in decision-making processes.

Peculiar to new product development (NPD), agile team leaders facilitate customer engagement. Products are designed, developed, and tested to meet customer needs. Engaging customers to gain insights and preferences throughout the life cycle of the NPD project is critical to success in commercializing goods and services.

Empower

It is probably apparent in the agile philosophy that the project leader serves to empower the team. Because relationships are placed higher than documentation, systems, and plans, the servant leader works to establish team autonomy. Agile NPD teams, like traditional project teams, are made up of cross-functional representatives. What’s different, however, is that the agile NPD team members are empowered to act autonomously in their creative design. The goal is to create a product desired by customers – not to match a complicated scope of work etched in stone.

Agile NPD teams are also empowered to meet with potential customers directly to test concepts, feature ideas, and prototypes. This feedback is incredibly valuable to the development of a new product and will help the team with speed-to-market. Ultimately, these relationships serve not only to empower external interactions but also help to bond the agile NPD team to a common mission.

Encourage

A final role of the agile project leader is to encourage the team. Of course, any good leader demonstrates empathy and encouragement, but it is a special characteristic of successful agile NPD team leaders.

Any NPD project faces failures and setbacks. It’s a matter of course in our chosen field. We find that the technology didn’t work as we had hoped, the market size is dwindling, or the customers didn’t like that feature after all. This is discouraging to NPD project team members who have worked hard and long hours to meet the challenge. It is normal to feel a bit depressed about these results.

An effective project leader recognizes the highs and lows in NPD project work and encourages the team. One form of encouragement is simply a reminder of the overall mission of the team. Most products and services are designed to improve customers’ lives and this focus can re-energize the team to establish new energy to accomplish goals. A benefit of the agile methodology is the frequent feedback from potential customers which is motivating in and of itself.

Traits of an Agile Leader

Agile leaders for NDP project teams are successful when they engage, empower, and encourage the team. Engaging with the team and with customers helps to provide focus on the best design. Teams accomplish goals and achieve better results when they are empowered to act autonomously and to build strong customer relationships. Finally, team leaders are effective when they encourage and reward team members as the team experiments with various ideas, concepts, and behaviors.

In our on-line tutorial on Design Thinking and in our Agile NPD course, we discuss failing fast and failing often to drive learning. However, we must first categorize the type of failure to benefit from lessons learned. Not all failures offer a growth opportunity, but we must be open and honest when we do encounter such circumstances. Join us for the Agile NPD course or check out our self-study and other NPDP Workshops. Feel free to contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717. At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications. You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

 

Reading Recommendation

We discuss different customer insight methodologies in NPDP Certification Prep: A 24-Hour Study Guide, and you can find additional references at https://globalnpsolutions.com/services/npd-resources/.   Some other books you might enjoy:

 

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

© Simple-PDH.com

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Lean Innovation

Many entrepreneurs come up with great ideas. They decide to sell these new products and services into a market yet are often disappointed at the customers’ responses. Sales revenues do not generate adequate income to cover costs and so, the business shuts down.

Corporations, likewise, struggle with innovation. A grand technical breakthrough is converted to a commercial product. But, existing customers don’t really seem all that interested in the new features and few new customers are drawn to the brand through the new offering. The product may linger in inventory for months or years while R&D moves on to the next cool technical invention.

Study after study shows that new products fail to achieve sales targets or meet customer satisfaction goals. This is not an issue with strategic objectives but rather a matter of implementation. New product development (NPD) is not simply a matter of great ideas. New product success is a matter of meeting customer needs.

The Lean Startup Method

The Lean Startup has its roots in the lean manufacturing movement, pioneered by Toyota. In lean manufacturing, quality is baked into the product by operating with small batch sizes. If a quality issue arises, fewer products are wasted to scrap or rework. Changes can be implemented quickly to improve the products as a quality issue is resolved. In essence, learning and continuous improvement are the real products of lean manufacturing.

Similarly, learning and continuous improvement are the core concepts of the lean startup method of innovation. “The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build” (pg. 20). Entrepreneurs have the initiating idea, but ideas are not perfect at birth. They need to be nurtured and groomed to grow into marketable products.

However, just as every parent claims their baby is the most beautiful and most intelligent of all children ever, entrepreneurs and new product development practitioners have blinders when first testing their new products. We tend to dismiss negative feedback by saying that those weren’t really our target customers (Chapter 3 of The Lean Startup). And we sue our optimism bias to continue to build the feature we like when potential customers give any sign of neutral or positive feedback on the feature selections.

Therefore, it is imperative that entrepreneurs and NPD teams capture and assess all potential and existing customer feedback. Consider if an automobile manufacturer knows that there is a quality defect on the assembly line. Will it cost them more or less to allow the defect to continue? Likewise, will it cost the entrepreneur more or less to continue to design and build a product that is ‘defective” (not meeting a customer’s needs)?

Steer

At the heart of the lean startup method is the “Build-Measure-Learn” feedback loop. Early, frequent, and small product concept and feature tests validate the vision for the new product. But, to grow a business, entrepreneurs must test a bevy of assumptions. These assumptions cover how we perceive customers will access and purchase the product, how they will use the product, and how they expect next generation products to be designed and integrated into their ecosystem.

In The Lean Startup, Ries gives a running example of his company IMVU, founded for the purpose of computer user to create movable avatars. The entrepreneurs assumed users would bring along their friends and by increasing the number of users, increase revenue. When they honestly assessed how people were using their product, the discovered that people really wanted to connect and make new friends.

These enlightening moments allow for a company to “pivot”. A pivot is a change in the strategic direction for a new product that is linked to the existing offering. Consider a pivot in basketball – the player can turn and change direction, as long as he keeps one foot stationary.

Product pivots should not be wholesale remodels and reinventions. The NPD team, at this point, has learned what works and what features customers value. A pivot is designed to capture new value based on what customers need for continuous improvement. And the pivot is supported by lean thinking as features that are not meeting customer needs are discarded, thus reducing waste.

Accelerate

Business growth is imperative whether you are a startup, entrepreneur, or an established firm. Clayton Christensen’s seminal book on disruptive innovation, The Innovator’s Dilemma, demonstrates that incremental (or sustaining) innovations provide profit for a limited time period. New technologies, new markets, and new business models are constantly being created that will disrupt existing markets. Lean thinking demands that growth actions do not stall with sustaining innovations.

In Chapter 9 of The Lean Startup, Ries tells a story of stuffing and addressing envelopes. It is counterintuitive to learn that doing the task one-at-a-time is more productive than filling all the envelopes in one step, addressing them in the next step, and sealing and stamping in a final step. When we consider any probability of errors, mistakes, or defects, the small batch (one-at-a-time) operation is best to reduce waste. Companies can use small batches to ensure that new products are meeting customer demands; and if not, they are in a situation to make rapid changes.

When – and not if – growth begins to stall, entrepreneurs and NPD practitioners can borrow another quality tool: the 5 Whys. Drilling down to the root cause of a problem reduces the risk of repeated errors and can eliminate waste. The 5 Whys can also be used as a brainstorming tool to create ideas for next generation product categories when coupled with customer insights.

Lessons from Lean Startup

By definition, innovators must be flexible and adaptive to new information and new situations. Too often entrepreneurs and new product development practitioners are blinded by their faith and optimism in an idea. They create a marketing and production plan but are disappointed (emotionally and financially) when things don’t work out how they had hoped.

The lean startup methodology championed by Eric Ries focuses on an agile approach to new product development using a continuous feedback loop: build-measure-learn. This framework supports innovation best practices with frequent and deep customer interactions, eliminating “waste” or features that don’t add value, and continuous improvement. Innovation is most successful when we test our assumptions and make honest, data-driven assessments. The results of each experiment inform us and lead us to the next product design which we will proactively test with existing and potential customers.

To learn more about innovation processes, please check out our self-study and other NPDP Workshops. In particular, the Agile NPD course builds on the lean startup method and reducing waste in development. Feel free to contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717. At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications. You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

 

Reading Recommendation

Some important references for lean innovation include two books by Eric Ries: The Lean Startup and The Startup Way. Also, every innovator, entrepreneur, and new product developer should own and read a copy of Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma and the follow-up text, The Innovator’s Solution. I also like Being Agile by Ekas and Will, a book that gives tips to truly move from waterfall to agile methodologies in product development.

We also discuss different NPD methods in NPDP Certification Prep: A 24-Hour Study Guide, and you can find additional references at https://globalnpsolutions.com/services/npd-resources/.

 

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

© Simple-PDH.com

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Three Keys to Organizational Success

Today’s companies are faced with rapidly changing markets, technologies, and pe9ople.  Employees are spread across as many as four generations with different approaches to work and family, and with different frameworks for managing projects to grow the business.  Organizations can be successful with innovation projects by focusing on three key elements:  strategic orientation, business priorities, and cultural values.

Strategic Orientation

Companies do not exist just to be around.  Instead, firms are in business to serve a specific purpose.  A part of that purpose is to make a profit and to satisfy stockholders, but a much larger definition of purpose is why the company exists.

Many companies state their purpose within their strategy and mission statements.  Google doesn’t want to do evil and Starbucks want to nourish the human spirit.  Understanding the business purpose frames the company’s innovation strategy.

A strategic orientation directs and defines the company’s purpose as well as it’s tolerance for risk.  A firm that is tolerant of risk and jumps onto each new technology (a prospector) can get new products to market quickly.  A company that improves the quality of that product and improves the manufacturing efficiency (an analyzer) will also gain market share.  Analyzers are typically less risk tolerant than prospectors yet value the benefits of continuous innovation.

Firms with prospector and analyzer strategies have very different approaches to implementing technology and different perspectives of risk.  Yet, the strategic approach to innovation and project management is built into the purpose of the company and how it tackles any new market opportunities.

Business Priorities

Once an organization has a clear strategy in place, it can prioritize business goals.  With a risk accepting culture and a strategic purpose to be first-to-market, a firm can rank new product development projects and ideas to lead with new technologies.  On the other hand, a firm that is less risk tolerant with an existing high market share may instead focus on incremental innovation.  New technology may be incorporated at the fringes with minimal impact to the core business.  A hobby and craft store may add a smartphone application with a weekly coupon but maintain face-to-face classroom teaching as a way to draw in new customers and increase sales volume.

Cultural Values

Lat, but certainly not least, a successful project or innovation organization must be consistent in cultural values.  The degree of risk tolerance and business priorities send strong messages to employees, vendors, and other stakeholders.  For example, an organization that focuses on growing existing markets with incremental developments will prioritize manufacturing efficiency and cost-control over new technology.  In contrast, a firm with a goal of radical inventions to serve niche consumers will employ whatever means it takes to create a new product prototype.

The messages conveyed by the strategy and business priorities set the company culture.  In the former case, employees are expected to conform to rules, practices, and procedures.  Deviations lead to decreased productivity or inefficiencies.  In the latter case, employees are expected to act first and apologize later.

Of course, a free-wheeling culture cannot sustain long-term profitability and a risk-averse culture will design such boring products that it will send itself to an early death.  A successful innovation organization lays out a framework for expected behaviors within the strategic orientation and business priorities of the firm.  A hotel front desk agent can waive room service charges for a guest with a fussy infant rather than have them dine in the public space, disrupting other patrons.  But, the same employee understands that she cannot waive the extra room fee for connecting suites for the family’s other children.

Successful Innovation Organizations

Culture is powerful in a successful customer-centric innovation organization.  But, culture is built upon a clear strategic purpose and business priorities.  The strategy explains – beyond profit – why a business exists.  Whoa re the customers?  What is the expected outcome?  How will the world be a better place because this company exists?

Business priorities and projects are then selected based upon this ove4rall strategic vision.  Companies that are successful with innovation projects build on the purpose by growing core competencies and market share in familiar arenas.  They adopt new technologies to support the mission.  New products are commercialized that align with these strategic opportunities.

To learn more about new product development management, check out self-study and other NPDP Workshops.  Feel free to contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717.  At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications.  You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

 

Reading Recommendation

One of my favorite new books on innovation strategy is The Power of Little Ideas by David C. Robertson and Kent Lineback.  Of course, anyone interested supporting a repetitive NPD process should read Bob Cooper’s Winning at New Products and New Product Forecasting by Ken Kahn.  Stories of entrepreneurial success, like Airbnb, are artfully included in The Creator’s Code and Barking Up the Wrong Tree (affiliate links).  I also dedicate an entire chapter to NPD processes in NPDP Certification Prep:  A 24-Hour Study Guide, and you can find additional references at https://globalnpsolutions.com/services/npd-resources/.

 

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

© Simple-PDH.com

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

“Wagile” in New Product Development

Most businesses today employ a new product development (NPD) process to manage innovation.  Studies indicate that over 80% of leading US companies use a phased and gated framework to convert embryonic ideas to commercial products.  Yet research also shows that about half of all new products fail.

So, it is not surprising that companies are looking for other systems to manage NPD projects.  Because Agile has been successful in software development, many firms are considering project management frameworks, like Scrum, for physical new product development.  You can learn more about traditional, waterfall NPD processes here and Scrum for NPD here.

A disadvantage of Scrum in physical product development is that while features can be designed during a typical two- to four-week long sprint, it is often difficult to test a feature without the availability of the whole product solution.  Consider, for example, testing automatic collision avoidance on a vehicle without knowing the weight, horsepower, or tire diameter of that vehicle.

“Wagile” for NPD

So, we know that NPD projects must be faster and more responsive to customer needs than we can normally deliver in a traditional phased and gated process.  We also know that going fully agile is not practical in many situations.  What’s the answer?  “Wagile!”

“Wagile” is a hybrid of waterfall and agile processes, adopting the positive aspects of each project management framework to physical product development.  Wagile processes are faster and more flexible than conventional staged and gated processes but recognize the whole system as a product.  Moreover, wagile processes interface with customers at key intervals to determine functional needs and to garner important design insights at the right times in the project life cycle.

Iterative Wagile

Iterative wagile processes are often used for new product development projects that have a few, higher risk technical or market uncertainties.  The market is known and developing so speed-to-market is a critical factor in commercial success.  Frequently the firm has significant technical competency in the product category and is skilled at quality production in this product arena.

In this variety of wagile NPD project management, sprints are applied early in the process to address specific technical questions or to gain customer feedback for a particular product feature.  The business case is documented upfront and project requirements are known within a wide bandwidth.

The iterative sprints are used to answer some specific questions so that the product design can be locked.  Once those design requirements are determined, through a series of iterative technology or market experiments, a traditional waterfall process is followed for prototype generation, technical development, and commercial launch.

An example of a product for iterative wagile development is the iPad™.  The market was generally known and growing as the use of eReaders was expanding in 2010.  However, the iPad touchscreen required technical design beyond the smaller iPhone™ screens and some user interactions needed testing.  However, once these design specifications were frozen, technical development and product manufacturing followed Apple’s traditional project management models – the same used for other existing products.

Incremental Wagile

In other cases, new products are really new platforms built to serve customers and users with new technologies and with novel applications.  Consider, for instance, wearable fitness trackers.  The goal of the NPD project is to deliver quality and to meet customer satisfaction objectives.  Customers needed to be educated on how the product worked yet were knowledgeable about the intention and utility of the product.

For fitness trackers, an incremental wagile NPD process was appropriate.  While technical and market uncertainties were both high, it was important to test proofs and prototypes in the marketplace.  A minimally viable product (MVP) that simply counted steps was a first version of the product.  The company gains market insights from the niche customers using an MVP and develops a second version of the product, purchased by a growing customer base.

Again, technical requirements are developed based on customer insights and feedback rom using the real product.  Another, more sophisticated version is released based on this new market information, and the cycle repeats itself again and again.

Incremental wagile is an especially useful project management approach for a new product category.  Fitbit™, like Kleenex™ and Xerox™, identifies the product category for fitness tracker today, yet functionality is radically more complex than the original step counters released as MVPs just a few years ago.

Wagile for NPD

Each NPD project is unique in some way.  Thus, applying the “right” NPD and project management process approach requires evaluating several variables for the project.  Some of these factors include the following.

  • Technical uncertainty
  • Market uncertainty
  • Customer availability
  • Company culture
  • Team structure
  • Competitive threats

However, most NPD projects can be successfully implement using a waterfall (staged and gated), agile (Scrum), or hybrid (wagile) approach.

We invite you to learn more about “wagile” new product development in an upcoming Agile NPD or New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification workshop.  Check out our full class schedule at Simple-PDH.com.  Please contact me if you’d like a free pdf copy of the Scrum Body of Knowledge (SBOK) and check out our current course list for Agile NPD and Scrum here.  Feel free to contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717.  At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications.  You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

 

Reading Recommendation

Some great references on agile and Scrum are:

 

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

© Simple-PDH.com

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Scrum in New Product Development

One of the hottest topics in project management and product development today is Agile.  Agile is a set of values that generate several different project management frameworks to increase productivity, customer satisfaction, and team morale.  While agile methodologies are widespread in software and IT, they are only recently being adapted to the development of physical products.

The Agile Manifesto

The core values of the agile philosophy are reflected in The Agile Manifesto.  This proclamation was produced by a group of software developers in 2001 in an attempt to improve speed-to-market and accuracy of product delivery.

The Agile Manifesto compares a preferred way of doing things in a project to the traditional way.  So, while conventional project management tools, techniques, and procedures are not rejected outright, the agile philosophy recognizes a better and more efficient way to accomplish project tasks.  These are shown on the left-hand side of the comparison statements, while conventional policies are shown the right-hand side.

  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working products over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change instead of following a plan

Scrum

While there are literally dozens of implementations of the agile philosophy, the most commonly adopted framework for physical product development is Scrum.  Scrum is an adaptative, flexible approach to projects that allows for iterative development and improves communication across a team and with the customer.  Elements of Scrum fall into three categories:  artifacts, tools, and roles.

Artifacts

A key artifact or process in Scrum is the idea of time-boxing.  This produces a rhythm and cadence in the work and, for product development, helps to minimize risk.  Several events are time-boxed or limited.  The first is the sprint.

A sprint typically lasts two to four weeks and is a period of intense work for the product development team.  Only a few, priority tasks are completed in each sprint so that the team maintains focus.  For example, a sprint may be designed to gain customer insights through market research by conducting customer focus groups or testing a particular concept in a real environment.  Sprint tasks re prioritized to bring the highest value to the project as early as possible.  Thus, by keying in on a few, critical items early in the project, a new product can be designed with appropriate features that customers want and need.

A disadvantage of the sprint in physical product design is in the definition of “done”.  Whereas a software project can deliver completed lines of code at the end of a sprint, physical product development sprints may deliver test results or qualitative market research.  It may be useful to view the sprint as a learning period.

Other artifacts in Scrum include the daily stand-up meeting and retrospectives.  I’d like to refer you to other posts and papers for more information on these artifacts.

Tools

As indicated, the new product development (NPD) team works on gaining customer feedback or delivering a working feature during each sprint.  A crucial decision-making tool for Scrum is the product backlog.  This is loosely like a list of project requirements in a traditional phased and gated product development process.

The product backlog is developed at the beginning of a project and is constantly reviewed and updated (“groomed”) during the project life cycle.  Product features and attributes, along with the most critical customer experiments are listed in rank order.  Items from the product backlog are worked during any given sprint.  The NPD team commits to only work on a product backlog item during a sprint which can be completed in the timeframe (e.g. 2 to 4 weeks).  In this way, the highest business value items are worked first.

In physical product development, it is of high value to determine the business case for a new product as well as to test a minimally viable product (MVP).  Market studies and technical experiments are often conducted int eh early sprints to determine customer need and product feasibility.  Such knowledge-building activities are designed to eliminate uncertainty in the product development effort.

Scrum Roles

Three important roles in a Scrum project are the team, the Scrum Master, and the product owner.  A cross-functional, co-located team does the work of the project during the time-boxed sprints.  Close collaboration among team members is often cited as a reason for improved productivity in an agile project versus traditional staged and gated processes.

The Scrum Master is a bit like a project leader yet works in a service role more than a directional one.  The team largely decides how to accomplish tasks during any given sprint while the Scrum Master interfaces with the customer, and removes roadblocks and obstacles facing the team in their daily work.

The product owner is a unique role in Scrum and a role that is frequently overlooked in practice of traditional NPD and project management processes.  Product owners create the prioritized product backlog, making the decisions of which features are most important – and valuable – to the business and to the customer.  It is the product owner who approves features and applications at the end of each sprint.  NPD projects benefit from creating personas for the product owner to assume in this role.

Agile for NPD

While initially designed for software development, agile methodologies are gaining traction in NPD for physical, tangible product development.  Often, the agile processes, like those in Scrum, are overlaid on a traditional NPD process.  Learning cycles are especially important in the market and technology development of a new product.

Please contact me if you’d like a free pdf copy of the Scrum Body of Knowledge (SBOK).  To learn more about applying agile to new product development management, check out self-study and other NPDP Workshops.  Feel free to contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717.  At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications.  You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

 

Reading Recommendation

Stories of entrepreneurial success, like Airbnb, using agile techniques for new business are artfully included in The Creator’s Code and Barking Up the Wrong Tree (affiliate links).  I also dedicate an entire chapter to traditional NPD processes in NPDP Certification Prep:  A 24-Hour Study Guide, and you can find additional references at https://globalnpsolutions.com/services/npd-resources/.   Some more great references on agile and Scrum are:

 

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

© Simple-PDH.com

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC  

Motivation – A Leadership Skill

Dictionary.com defines motivation as “the act of providing a reason to act in a certain way.”  Motivation can be internal or external. We often discuss motivation for successful leaders to guide teams.  Today, we’ll review the differences between internal and external motivation and how leaders can use this tool to improve project team performance.

Internal Motivation

All of us are motivated to do or act in certain ways.  We do certain things and follow certain behaviors whether others observe us or not.  We take pride in activities that we enjoy and share our success when we accomplish our goals.

This is a description of internally-inspired motivation.  The individual is driven to meet objectives whether an external party offers rewards or recognition.  Internal motivation can be a strong force powering a person to improve behaviors or performance.

Take Linda, for example.  Linda was rifling through photos on her phone and landed on vacation photos from 2014.  With a jolt, she realized how thin she looked in them.  She compared the vacation photos to recent photos at a park last month.  “Wow,” she thought, “I need to lose weight.”

Next, Linda engaged in a more rigorous fitness routine.  She began bicycling every morning and going to the gym after work.  She monitored her snacks and kept looking at the 2014 vacation photos to remind herself why she was working out.  Within two months, Linda lost 10 pounds.  She was internally motivated to accomplish her goal.  No one told her to lose weight or forced her to go to the gym.  She was driven by an internal desire to improve herself, her behaviors, and her performance.

External Motivation

In contrast, externally-inspired motivation provides us with goals and objectives that are determined by others.  The rewards and recognition tend to be more material in nature yet can be as satisfying as those gained via internal motivation.

I’ll use myself as an example.  I am motivated to participate in 5k fun runs by the t-shirts.  Yes, it’s dumb, but I want to other people to see me wearing a t-shirt for a fun run to know that I finished the event.  And while it seems a bit arrogant, I am really proud of sharing that I could run a 5k and that I’ve been recognized for the activity with a (token) t-shirt.  The t-shirt is a tangible reward for my efforts to train and complete the race.  Just being able to run 5k is not enough to get me out of ben on a cold morning.  But, knowing that I will be part of a group with matching t-shirts demonstrating an accomplishment (and a donation to a cool charity) does indeed drive me to lace up my running shoes!

Team Motivation

Project managers need to balance both internal and external motivations among their team members.  Some team members will be internally motivated to do the work of the project just because it is interesting or challenges them.

In other cases, individuals need to be given an external motivator to complete project tasks.  There are many reasons people need externally-inspired motivation on a project.  They may have done similar tasks on several projects in the past and are bored with work that seems routine.  They may feel like their skills are not matched to the tasks with either too low or too high of an effort required to accomplish project goals.  Finally, they may simply be distracted by other things in “life” such that work is not their top priority.

Team leaders can use external motivators to enhance team performance.  Obvious rewards and recognition include bonus pay, promotional opportunities, and public celebrations (e.g. recognition dinners, plaques, and awards).  However, other external motivators are also appropriate for project teams as well.  It is important for the project leader to recognize those team members that are inspired by external factors and to match recognition and rewards to their needs.

Scrum projects utilize effective externally-inspired motivators.  First, the Scrumboard is a tool that indicates task progress.  The Scrumboard is placed in a public space so that all team members and project stakeholders are aware of the current status of each task or activity – not started, in progress, testing, or complete.  Scrum team members re generally driven to move tasks to the complete status in order to deliver on the promised activities for each sprint.

Next, the daily stand-up meeting also serves as external motivation for the team.  During each stand-up meeting, three questions are addressed.

  1. What did you do/complete yesterday?
  2. What do you plan to do today?
  3. What hurdles or obstacles do you face?

The daily stand-up meeting is short – about 15 minutes.  Yet, it provides each team member a chance to share his/her accomplishments (what did you do yesterday?).  If tasks had not been previously moved from the “in progress” or “testing” column of the Scrumboard to “complete,” the daily stand-up meeting gives this opportunity.  A public recognition of completed tasks can be motivating for many team members.

Driving Internal Motivation

Project leaders also need to support and drive internal motivations.  Of course, this takes more work on the part of the manager.  S/he must identify what motivates and inspires each individual team member.  And there are as many motivators as there are team members!

For instance, Julie worked very hard on the project.  She put in steady hours and produced above-average results.  She didn’t complain about the workload and had no apparent conflicts with other team members.  Julie’s manager recognized that she was self-motivated, but also knew that he had to continue to drive and support her internal goals.  So, Julie’s manager offered her more responsibility on the project.  He also established a route of external motivation by announcing Julie’s expanded role on the project at a daily stand-up meeting.

Leaders and Motivation

As product, project, and engineering leaders, we are called to motivate and inspire our project team members.  We need to recognize and understand the differences between those that are internally or externally motivated.  In any situation, however, effective leaders use tools such as expanded job responsibilities, Scrumboards, and team meetings to energize the team to accomplish its goals.

If you’d like to learn more about Scrum or agile product development, please join us in an ANPD (Agile New Product Development) Workshop.  You may also enjoy learning more about product development in an NPDP Workshop.  Feel free to contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717.  At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications.  You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

 

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

© Simple-PDH.com

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Idea Generation Tools

Project, product, and engineering managers are often faced with new problems – problems that don’t have an already pat answer that will resolve the situation quickly and favorably.  These leaders must facilitate problem-solving sessions with technical experts and others with appropriate business knowledge.  Idea generation tools are useful to stimulate thoughts, ideas, and creativity to find novel solutions to unique problems.

SCAMPER

One idea generation tool uses the acronym “SCAMPER” as a thought starter.  Each letter represents a verb or action that can be applied to an existing product or solution in order to modify or improve it.

  • S – substitute
  • C – combine
  • A – adapt
  • M – modify
  • P – put to another use
  • E – eliminate
  • R – reverse

For example, consider a common coffee mug. A substitute for a coffee mug is a paper cup.  We can combine the coffee mug with a snack plate or can adapt the coffee mug to fit in a vehicle’s cup holder.  We can modify the coffee mug to increase its insulation value and keep the coffee hot longer.  Of course, we can put it to another use and make it a pen and pencil holder on our desk or use it as a vase to hold cut flowers.  We can eliminate coffee mugs altogether by either not drinking coffee (no way!) or by using the paper cup substitute already mentioned.  Finally, we could reverse the coffee mug and by standing several mugs upside down, we can create a work of art.

The purpose of the actions represented by SCAMPER is to encourage the team to think about alternatives.  Some of these ideas may result in new product ideas and others may reveal competitive threats.

SWOT Analysis

Of course, when we consider competitive threats, a problem-solving team should conduct a SWOT analysis.  SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  The former elements are internal evaluations while the latter variables address external influences.  Teams can use SWOT analysis to identify areas in which solutions for problems may exist concentrating on organizational capabilities and environmental factors.

Most organizations are very good at identifying and promoting their strengths.  These are organizational characteristics, assets, or processes that offer a competitive advantage.  Marketing and sales campaigns are built on an organization’s strengths and customers point to these elements as differentiating factors.

On the other hand, most organizations find it very difficult to honestly assess organizational weaknesses. A firm must study its customers, competitors, and markets to truly understand its weaknesses.  Weaknesses can result from supplier dependencies, cash flow, or a shallow “bench” for human resources.  Consider a firm that relies on a single source vendor to supply a critical part for their products.  If the vendor experiences an unexpected disruption (e.g. a fire at the factory), the company faces an immediate challenge in its own production.  Weaknesses like this are often overlooked but creep into a system from the long-term effects of internal decisions and management practices.

External influences on production, technology, and the markets also require studying customers, competitors, and trends to understand opportunities and threats.  Market opportunities may arise as new technologies become available or as consumer tastes change.  For instance, automobile manufacturers track the price of oil as a leading indicator of gasoline prices.  Gasoline prices influence consumer spending toward more fuel-efficient, small cars (increase in gas prices) or sturdy, heavy-haul pickup trucks (decrease in gas prices).  Building on the SCAMPER model, opportunities may also come from substitutes (electric cars) or alternative uses for a product in a new market as well (trucks as military vehicles).

Finally, a firm should assess threats to its existing business model and growth plans.  This requires studying competitors’ actions in detail to anticipate market responses to new product launches and market trends.  If a competitor commercializes a product faster than your firm does, they may win the bulk of the market share and lifetime revenues.  As indicated, threats can also come from outside the core industry.  Consider that cell phones have eliminated the need for a separate GPS device.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is the most common idea generation tool.  Most people are familiar with brainstorming.  It is a group collaboration tool used to generate lots of idea in a short amount of time.

Generally, the problem statement is provided to the group and people call out ideas for possible solutions.  Often these ideas will trigger other ideas among the participants so that a large number of potential concepts are documented in a short period of time.  One of the basic rules of brainstorming is to reserve judgement of ideas until later in order to keep the creative juices flowing.

However, a drawback of brainstorming is that a lot of ideas are not feasible or practical, yet each needs to be addressed as it was documented by the team.  Another pitfall in brainstorming is that the environment is often better suited to confident extroverts and you may miss valuable ideas from quieter thinkers.  It is a good idea to couple brainstorming with other idea generation techniques to countermand these drawbacks.

Three Idea Generation Tools

In this post, we have investigated three simple idea generation tools:  SCAMPER, SWOT, and brainstorming.  When an engineering, project, or product manager faces a new situation, s/he will deploy one or more of these tools with the team.  In addition to stimulating new ideas and creativity in an idea generation session, the team should visit the plant, factory, or retail locations to better understand the customer’s perspective of the problem.  Too often, our viewpoint of a problem is internally focused on increasing sales or revenues and in developing sexy new technologies, when a consumer is facing issues regarding quality, distribution, or reliability.  We also must consider how our competitors will respond in any situation as we tackle problems with unique solutions.

To learn more about idea generation tools, please join us for an NPDP workshop where we discuss SCAMPER, SWOT, brainstorming, and a variety of other tools and techniques.  Contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717 to enroll in a free NPDP overview course or any of our newly scheduled PMP, Scrum, or NPDP workshops in Houston as well as our online PDH courses.  At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications.  You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

 

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

© Simple-PDH.com

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Teaching and Learning

Recently, an acquaintance phoned me at about 9 am on a Wednesday. While I’m not 100% sure why, she asked if she had awoken me out of bed.  I’m assuming that because I work from home, she made a leap of judgement that I don’t really work and I get to sleep in every day.

The truth is that I’m usually working by 6:30 am and I often work past 9:30 pm.  Like others who have home offices, my breaks might include throwing a load of laundry into the washer or going running, but my work is equally intense.  In fact, I plan to continue teaching at the university and college level until I am too old or infirm to continue.

Teaching can be done from home for any online class.  A professor could ostensibly wear pajamas and slippers as office dwellers and offhand acquaintances might assume.  In my case, I shower and dress daily and when I make the short commute from the kitchen to my office, I enter my office with the same dedication to work as anyone else.  In this way, I can maintain a high commitment to education of students, colleagues, and clients.  I am as dedicated to being a good teacher as I am to being a good learner.

Teaching as Lifelong Learning

Teaching is the ultimate zenith in knowledge.  Not only do we have to understand a subject with both breadth and depth, we also have to be able to make the topic engaging enough for heterogeneous groups of students to find interest in the topic even for required, foundational classes.  Being able to restate learnings in a new way or apply knowledge to a new situation is what makes education successful – from both the teacher’s perspective and the student’s viewpoint.

What many students don’t realize is that teachers learn from them as well.  Every term, I find that there are new or unusual interpretations of homework assignments.  What seemed to be a clear cut question to the course designer can elicit a wide range of responses.  In some cases, the responses are so far off that the learning materials and homework assignments need redesigning to meet the course objectives.

Planning Learning

Learning events have to be as carefully planned as any college course.  First, the organization’s objectives need to be considered in full.  For a college or university course, the learning objectives typically align with a certificate or degree program, and are often specified by various accreditation bodies.  In corporate learning, our objectives must match a desired business outcome.  If a company wishes to improve its success with new product launches or increase communications among virtual team members, the learning event must include these results as success measures.

Key to a successful learning event or course includes application of the new knowledge or skill in the workplace.  Simply going to a class and having absorbed information is insufficient to demonstrate transfer of knowledge.  An important measure of success, then, tracks the student beyond the classroom to ensure that s/he is applying the skill in the real world.  Firms can measure the implementation of new skills via professional certifications and management surveys to determine that the learning event met corporate objectives.  Colleges and universities measure success by job placement and feedback from employees.

Education Delivery

While I get up every day, shower, and get dressed in real clothes before going to my office, learners today are cramming skills development into ever smaller parcels of time.  A student very well may be wearing his or her pajamas while watching an online lesson or be listening to a podcast during the daily commute.

Online knowledge delivery has changed how we learn.  Indeed, our attention spans as a whole have dropped precipitously.  Most of us remain engaged for less than 10 minutes.  So, education delivery must meet these parameters and still impart a new skill or behavior within each lesson.  All of our online courses at Simple-PDH.com include short videos or podcasts that can be consumed in brief intervals of time, yet each lesson delivers an important topic necessary to gain and maintain professional certification.

Knowledge Checks

Perhaps more important for professional certification and corporate training is a knowledge check that learning new skills has occurred.  Again, the measurement of knowledge transfer should be part of the organizational planning effort.  In the case of university students and candidates for professional credentials, knowledge checks include practice exams leading to the final, formal exam administered by the appropriate credentialing body (PMI, PDMA, or ASEM, for example).

Practice quizzes offer a risk-free environment to learners to hone their test-taking skills as well as verifying their knowledge base.  CAPM and PMP practice tests help to solidify the sometimes peculiar wording used by PMI that is not as common in an industrial project setting.  New Product Development Professional (NPDP) practice tests help to bring higher order strategic processes into focus with objective, application-oriented questions.

Teaching and Learning

We must all be committed to lifelong learning – whether we are working from a traditional office, a home office, or a student wearing pajamas!  Teaching is the ultimate demonstration of lifelong learning.  Both university and corporate learning event should start with extensive planning to ensure that course objectives, goals, and measures align with the desired business outcomes (e.g. job placement or improved results).

As students today, we demand on-the-go knowledge delivery.  Online courses deliver content that is engaging and brief.  Follow-up practice tests are recommended for those seeking professional certification.  And, yes, you can learn and teach while you are at work or at home!

Contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717 to enroll in a free NPDP overview course or any of our newly scheduled PMP, Scrum, or NPDP workshops in Houston as well as our online PDH courses.  At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications.  You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

 

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

© Simple-PDH.com

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Project Management Contract Types

Project managers play an integral role in selecting third party vendors to perform work on projects.  It is no realistic, in most cases, to complete projects with only internal resources.  Additional skills can be accessed via outsourcing and often provide specialty services that are unavailable otherwise.

While procurement, purchasing, and legal departments normally take the lead in contract negotiations, project managers need to also take an active role in procuring third party materials and services.  After all, the project manager will be integrating the work of the vendor or supplier with all other aspects of the project.  This includes understanding the scope, schedule, cost, quality, and risk of the third party work.

Contracts

Contracts are used in projects to outline the legal responsibilities of the seller and the buyer.  The seller may be also identified as the vendor, supplier, or third party.  The buyer may be identified also as the customer, client, or sponsor.

A contract is a legally binding agreement in which the seller agrees to provide labor, equipment, materials, or other services in exchange for some form of payment.  The buyer agrees to pay the seller for the work provided; usually, the payment is made in monetary terms (e.g. $10,000 or 10,000 €).  However, in some cases, exchange of valuable goods may be made in lieu of money.  For instance, the right to license a process or access to patent-protected technology may be considered a valuable exchange by the buyer and seller in a contract.

It is important to keep in mind that a contract is a legally binding agreement.  Normally, the terms and conditions will state the jurisdiction of law under which the contract will be executed.  This may be stated as “according to the laws of the State of Texas” or in discussing mediation if the parties later disagreed upon the service rendered or payment received.  Thus, third party agreements should not be treated casually.

The Basic Contracts

Project, product, and engineering managers should be familiar with the three most common types of contracts.  While there are variations on these types of contracts that add risk or may reduce cost, most project managers can participate in a technical negotiation with a clear understanding of these basics.

Fixed Price Contract

The firm fixed price contract is used when the buyer can explicitly describe the materials, equipment, or services to be acquired.  The buyer agrees to a specific price (“fixed”) and the seller agrees to provide the goods and/or services.

A fixed price contract is of little risk to the buyer because there is no room for variation in the price of the goods or service being procured.  Of course, project, product, and engineering managers will prefer this type of contract since it allows a firm budget estimate.  However, the project manager must be extremely clear in describing the full scope of work in the contract as the seller will be constrained to provide exactly what is stated in the contract.

In a fixed price contract, the seller is at a greater degree of risk than the buyer.  Many factors can impact the completion of the work as specified that may add cost to the project work.  For instance, an unexpected period of high inflation or a labor shortage that drives up wages can impact the cost of the work that the seller provides.  Furthermore, if the seller underestimates the scope of work, they are still legally obligated to provide the agreed-upon work product, even at a financial loss.

Both the buyer and seller will be particularly attentive to changes in a fixed price contract.  The seller will view the contract as a minimum standard.  Anything that the buyer requests that is not explicitly called for in the contract may be considered a change.  Change orders are often expensive and can introduce schedule delays as well.  Again, it is important for the buyer to be familiar with the work and to provide a detailed scope statement to avoid eth potential of costly changes later.

Cost Reimbursable Contracts

Cost reimbursable contracts typically involve more risk for the buyer than the seller.  In this type of agreement, the seller is reimbursed for all actual costs as they are incurred.  Usually, the seller will invoice the customer on a regular basis, say weekly or monthly.

A buyer has more risk with a cost reimbursable contract than in a fixed price contract because the total cost of the work is not predetermined.  Sellers may incur more overhead costs using this type of contract since they will spend more time justifying expenses to the customer.  Buyers normally protect against financial risk by requiring specific documentation for costs incurred and/or by including a price cap within the contract terms and conditions.

A cost reimbursable contract is useful in situations where the end result in unknown.  This might be the case for a research study or if the scope of work is unclear.  For example, a home remodel project may involve uncertainties regarding the condition of subfloors, piping, and supports.  In other situations, the end product may be ill-defined due to the nature of the work, such as in new product development where customer inputs will guide decisions throughout the project life cycle.

Evaluation of fixed price contracts is easy.  Normally, a buyer will choose the lowest bid.  Cost reimbursable contracts must be evaluated based upon estimated total costs as well as other factors.  These can include approach to the work, experience, past performance on similar projects, and/or technical and management capability.  A vendor-customer relationship built on trust will enhance the execution of a cost reimbursable contract.

Time and Materials Contract

Finally, a time and materials contract is a hybrid between a fixed price and cost reimbursable contract.  Materials, equipment, and supplies are provided at a fixed (known) price while labor is reimbursed as necessary to complete the project work.  An example of a project in which a time and materials contract might be used is in venture software installation.  The cost of the software licenses is fixed (e.g. $300 per user) but operating system upgrades, testing, and data transfers are variable.  Like a cost reimbursable contract, buyers often include a price cap for a time and materials contract.

Procurement Contracts

Project managers should be involved when contracts are negotiated for third party work.  Technical specification and requirements are the responsibility of the project manager during negotiations.  Moreover, the project manager has a vested interest in the delivery schedule and cost of outsourced project work because it must be integrated with all other project activities.  Third parties also introduce special concerns regarding risk, quality, and communication – areas which are key responsibilities for a product, project, or engineering manager.

Project procurement is one of ten (10) knowledge areas covered on the Project Management Professional (PMP™) exam.  If you are planning on becoming certified, you will want to consider a PMP review course and/or practice tests.  Candidates who prepare with a PMP training course are more likely to pass the exam on the first try.  Join us for online study sessions – contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717 for more information on our next available study session.

Contract management is a key responsibility for product, project, and engineering managers.  Be on the lookout for a special PDH course on contract management where you can refresh your skills, learn new tools, and earn professional development hours (PDH).  At Simple-PDH.com where we want to help you gain and maintain your professional certifications.  You can study, learn, and earn – it’s simple!

 

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

© Simple-PDH.com

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Roadblocks to Innovation

An overwhelming majority of CEOs cite innovation as a key component of growth plans for their businesses.  Yet, at the same time, most firms bemoan the lack of creative ideas and new products to generate growth through innovation.  All of us are born as curious and creative people, but we seem to lose the ability to apply innovative solutions to problems in the workplace – and to generate that much desired growth from new product sales.

There are several obstacles that hold us back from creative idea generation.  While not inclusive of all roadblocks to innovation, we will address a few of the most common obstacles to creative problem-solving here.

The “Right” Answer

Through our formal education systems, we have been conditioned to seek and identify the one, “right” answer.  We know that always, always, always two and two equals four (2+2=4).  The answer is not 3.5 or 4.2.  The right answer is exactly, and always, four!

Our formal education system teaches us that cats are not purple, Washington was the first president of the United States of America, and that the Nile River runs through Egypt.  Responses on tests in the fourth grade that guess Jefferson as the first president or that the Nile River is in South America are/were met with angry, red checkmarks and low test scores.  (As they should be.)

Even in college, as we learned about engineering, marketing, and psychology, we were still taught that there is a “right” answer.  However, we were also taught to recognize some trade-offs.  The cost of the heat exchanger should be minimized so we may design the equipment with standard metallurgy.  The advertising campaign should reach a specific, target audience so the media should be limited to print advertising in a popular fitness magazine.

Creative thinking is most productive in problem-solving when we acknowledge that there is no single, “right” answer.  We are not searching for facts (the name of the first president or the location of a river).  Instead, there may be multiple ways to solve a real-life problem.  Some solutions may be cheaper and others might offer higher reliability, while yet other solutions yield a better quality product.  During the idea generation stage of new product development (NPD), we suspend our formal education driving to a “right” answer and investigate trade-offs.  To generate a truly innovative product or service, we must seek answers that may be flawed yet allow us to look at the problem from a new perspective.

For example, a colleague of mine once abandoned all the “right” answers to solve a fluid flow problem in a chemical plant.  The “right” answers addressed pipe diameter and pressure.  Instead, he found that the flow changed throughout the course of the day and was stable only at night.  Creative thinking identified the problem as sun shining on the pipe, warming it, with a resulting change in physical properties that caused the flow rate differential.  No textbook could have provided this solution!

Cognitive Bias

Cognitive bias is a fancy term meaning that humans are habitual.  We prefer the familiar and tend to be overly optimistic about our own performance.  Cognitive bias can be a roadblock to creative thinking by allowing errors to creep into our judgment and stay there.

For instance, studies (PM Journal) have shown that project manager exhibit substantial cognitive bias via unnecessary optimism to meet schedule deadlines.  When a 14-month project is shown to be two months behind schedule, a vast majority of project managers conclude they can still complete the project on time – even at month 12!

While optimism is a desired trait for managers, cognitive bias can lead to serious errors in project planning and product development.  Optimism by itself will not bring the project in on time.  Nor will optimism generate revenue from a new product that is a dud in the marketplace.

You can counter cognitive bias in creative thinking by a healthy dose of “devil’s advocate” and realism.  Ask for a detailed plan of how the project will get back on schedule.  Check the market research for projected sales of the new product.  In many cases, creative problem-solving is better served through an honest assessment of the situation than glossing over a potential issue.

Fear

Finally, creative thinking is often hampered by fear.  Most of us fear being wrong or looking silly (though, I seem to manage latter more than I’d like).  We are inhibited by societal pressures to conform and within many companies, the culture to conform is stifling creative problem-solving.  I can still recall the first time I wore a skirt to work.  Secretaries often wore dresses but the culture dictated that female engineers wear slacks or their fire retardant uniforms.  In challenging the accepted culture, I had to challenge my own fear of being ostracized.  I feared my intellect would be questioned or disregarded if I didn’t “dress the part”.

In a brainstorming session, we have to allow people to “wear skirts” – maybe not literally, but maybe so if it helps your team break out of habits without fear.  Participants in creative brainstorming sessions must be free to express ideas and half-formed thoughts.  These small nuggets can be built upon and refined to generate innovative product solutions.  Keep in mind that your customers probably don’t care about the inner culture at your corporation or what kind of clothes engineers wear.  Your customers care about cutting edge solutions to their most pressing problems.

Overcoming Innovation Roadblocks

Companies need innovative solutions in order to beat the competition to attain aggressive growth targets.  But creative problem-solving is hampered by several roadblocks.  While we have been trained and educated to find the “right” answer, innovative new products and services are born from an amalgam of solutions that may lie outside of formal application of rigid rules and theories from a pure textbook perspective.

Creative and innovative thinking is also limited by our own cognitive biases.  We habitually consider the same, tried and true solutions to problems.  We optimistically assume a positive outcome, regardless of the data.  A successful innovative new product will be generated and deliver revenue with realistic approaches to solving customer problems.  Optimism cannot generate new product sales if the product doesn’t have creative features and attributes that truly address customer needs.

Finally, our own emotions present obstacles and roadblocks to creativity.  We don’t want to be judged or criticized for a “crazy idea”.  During brainstorming sessions, teams must suspend reality for a bit to search for the nugget of insanity that can be converted to a golden product idea.  After all, who would have thought 20 years ago that we could carry an entire set of encyclopedias in our pocket?

To learn more about creative thinking and problem-solving, please join us for New Product Development Professional (NPDP), Six Sigma, or Agile training.  Contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717 for more information. At Simple-PDH, we want to make it simple for you to study, learn, and earn and maintain your professional certifications.

 

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

© Simple-PDH.com

A division of Global NP Solutions, LLC