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Is Agile a Digital Version of Waterfall?

I first encountered the terms “analog” and “digital” in high school physics.  While I probably remember more about the pranks my classmates played on our teacher, the terms analog and digital repeatedly popped up in my engineering education.  For those of you who had a high school physics teacher NOT named Mr. Founds, we’ll touch on the definitions of these two words and investigate how they relate to product and project management.

Analog vs. Digital

Analog – in layman’s language – means you can select whatever value you want.  Think of an old-fashioned radio tuning dial that turns back-and-forth.  As you seek a particular frequency, you first hear static, then a mix of static with the music, then the music comes in strongly.  If you turn the dial too far, you’re back in the static zone.

In Houston, I enjoy listening to 89.3FM.  With a digital device, there are exact increments, and your radio “dial” will lock onto specific stations.  So, in my car, I tune from 89.1 (static) to 89.3 (music) to 89.5 (static).  The “digital” increment on my car radio is 0.2 on the FM frequency.

Waterfall Project Management

Waterfall project management has fallen out of favor in recent years.  I believe there is a place for waterfall project management, especially in the space of tangible product development.  In general, waterfall suggests upfront planning and a detailed list of features and requirements for the new product.  Usually, detailed schedules are created during early project planning phases, with assigned tasks and resources.

Agile Project Management

While extensive upfront planning can work for projects with low levels of technical uncertainty and low levels of requirements uncertainty, waterfall fails to be flexible and adaptable to changing customer needs throughout the project lifecycle.  When the schedule is disrupted, the plan must be re-created and tasks dependent on other tasks fall behind schedule.

Agile project management promises flexibility by planning just the minimum work necessary to build a minimum set of features (often called an MVP, minimum viable product).  Teams and tasks are designed to be isolated from interruptions (dependencies).  Autonomy and empowerment are key to success in Agile implementations.

Agile is Digital Waterfall

The drawback, I believe, of many Agile implementations is a heavy emphasis on the ceremonies and artifacts of the process.  Instead of using these elements as tools to assist development work, some Agile teams use the ceremonies and artifacts in the same way waterfall teams use upfront planning tools (e.g., Gantt charts and critical path analysis).  The sprint increment in Agile becomes a set of planning meetings that could have been handled with a larger, upfront activity in waterfall.  In essence, sprints tune the radio at specific frequency increments while waterfall can spin the dial to get close to the final result.

WAGILE Product Development Meets in the Middle

Some of the equipment I used in engineering school had a combination of analog and digital tuning.  You used the digital selection to get to the right range of data (e.g., the left end of the radio dial) while you used analog tuning to get to the specific reading (e.g., 89.3 FM).  Other pieces of equipment were the opposite – using analog selection to get within range and digital selection for a specific, known incremental value.  Regardless of the device, the benefits of combining analog and digital were obvious and well above analog-alone or digital-alone.

WAGILE product development is much the same.  We use a hybrid project management model, picking the best aspects of waterfall and of Agile.  (Thus, the name – WAGILE.)  Overlaying incremental feature development with frequent customer interactions onto a disciplined, risk-balanced staged-and-gated process can lead to faster development times and increased customer satisfaction.

Learn more in the upcoming WAGILE Product Development workshop (15 & 17 February).

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The Wagile Philosophy

Watch the short video summary and then read on for the details!

In business and innovation, we often talk about strategy.  I think of strategy like a destination when I take a trip.  I need to know where I’m going so that I can plan how to get there and what resources I will need.  Strategy indicates the vision, mission, and values. 

When I take a vacation, I enjoy hiking and being outdoors.  I also enjoy history and trying new foods.  These are a reflection of my values or philosophy in choosing a destination.  In business and innovation, our values form how we make decisions and what activities or behaviors are acceptable in achieving strategic goals. 

Recently, I encountered two small businesses with similar goals but different value systems.  The first bicycle shop I visited had a huge sign on its door – “We are not taking any repairs.  Wait here and phone us to enter the store.”  The second bicycle shop, sounding exasperated at the disruption in supply chains by the corona-panic, said “We are only taking repairs.  We’ve improved our delivery time to four days from two weeks.”  It’s easy to see the difference in philosophy and values for these two businesses.  And, I bet you can guess which store got my money!

What is Wagile?

Wagile is a hybrid innovation management system taking advantage of the rigor from a staged-and-gated system while adding in the flexibility of an Agile development process.  Most organizations end up becoming overly bureaucratic with staged-and-gated processes, hindering speed-to-market. 

On the other hand, many organizations that have tried implementing Agile have struggled, too.  Scrum (read more about Scrum here) is the most common way that firms implement Agile in a new product development (NPD) project.  Yet, Scrum was designed for software.  Companies are challenged by the definition of “done” and in getting sophisticated technical design elements completed in a two-week sprint. 

Wagile – part waterfall and part Agile – encourages iterations where necessary and increases customer interactions.  But, Wagile maintains the discipline of a waterfall (or staged-and-gated) process. 

The Wagile Philosophy

For any project management system to succeed, the values of the organization must support the steps, tasks, and expected outcomes of the process.  The Wagile philosophy supports a key innovation goal of speed-to-market. 

  • Move fast
  • Practice discipline
  • Understand risks
  • Engage customers
  • Provide autonomy
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Move fast.  The benefit of Scrum is moving fast and creating prototypes quickly.  Customers test many different versions of the potential product and designers select the attributes that best satisfy the needs of end-users.  The Wagile philosophy includes moving fast to quickly determine the most important features and to eliminate bad concepts early.  The end result?  Cost and time savings during development. 

Practice discipline.  While waterfall (staged-and-gated) processes can become overly bureaucratic, Agile projects are often viewed by senior executives as chaotic with ill-defined scope and goals.  Wagile enforces discipline by placing critical success metrics on each project.  An innovation project does not pass a gate review without a clear go-forward plan.  We know that creativity is expanded when the problem is bounded by clear expectations and aspirations so discipline is necessary to win with new products. 

Understand risks.  Uncertainty is always present in an innovation project.  Waterfall processes attempt to manage risk with detailed upfront planning.  Yet, plans usually are erroneous in one way or another.  You might plan two separate electrical feeds for a fire water system but forget that a utility outage will disable the whole plant.  Risks are managed, but not eliminated, with planning.

On the other hand, Agile gives a “hand wave” response to risk.  These systems assume you’ll know it when you see it.  So, the Wagile philosophy endorses risk management and creates a trigger/ response list to manage risk.  However, the Wagile philosophy also recognizes “positive uncertainties” to expand and capitalize on surprise results. 

Engage customers.  While Scrum includes a specific role for the Product Owner (read more here), end-users are still frequently neglected from the process.  Wagile forces customer interactions via specific measures at each gate review (e.g. competitive analysis at the Idea Gate and market testing at the Constructability Gate).  Moreover, the role of the Customer Representative (see more about the Wagile Roles and Responsibilities here) is wholly responsible to ensure end-user feedback is both accurate and timely.  Design Thinking tools are crucial in gathering information throughout the NPD project.  (Join me on 11 November 2020 for a complimentary life design workshop – register here.) 

Provide autonomy.  Many of my readers know I am a chemical engineer.  I suffer from some of the common “nerd” traits of engineers – we need quiet time to deeply study a problem and we need to justify a solution based on data and facts. 

The Wagile philosophy supports engineers and product development teams by providing autonomy.  Senior executives typically are far removed from customers and daily operations on the factory floor.  Let the people with the expertise make the decisions. 

Of course, when a decision crosses a threshold of high investment or unusually high risk, the team should consult upper management.  But under normal circumstances, a flat organizational structure with responsible decision-making guardrails in place allows an innovation team to function most efficiently and productively. 

Apply the Wagile Philosophy

While you may be using a traditional staged-and-gated process for innovation or you’ve been trying to implement Scrum, you can make some giant steps to effectiveness by adopting the Wagile philosophy.  Focus on moving fast within a discipline of critical success metrics.  Understand the project risks and uncertainties but test those limitations with customers.  Feedback from end-users should guide a product development effort.  Finally, let the experts do their work and give your teams autonomy to make decisions within their control. 

Learn More

Learn more about Wagile Product Development in my Webcast with PDMA on 10 September (register here). 

  • Get the full Wagile Product Development course in a virtual, facilitated workshop on 10 November 2020 (register here).  Includes templates, tools, and implementation tips.
  • Check out where I’m speaking next (click here) and book me for your next event.
  • Get your copy of The Innovation ANSWER Book available at Amazon (now available on Kindle).
  • Reference the new PDMA Body of Knowledge, available at Amazon.
  • Get your NPDP Certification!  Join our October online class (Thursdays) following the brand new, 2nd edition PDMA Body of Knowledge.  REGISTER HERE!

About Me

I am inspired by writing, teaching, and speaking at great professional events.  I tackle life with an infusion of rigor, zeal, and faith.   It brings me joy to help you build innovation leaders.  Teresa Jurgens-Kowal is an experienced innovation professional with a passion for lifelong learning with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Computer and Information Decision Making.  My credentials include PE (State of Louisiana), NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM, and I am a DiSC® certified facilitator.  Contact me at [email protected] or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

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Job Crafting to Increase Creativity

Working as product, project, and engineering managers, we often balance quality with deadlines.  Product concept tests must be completed before the engineer designs for the plant can be locked in. Customer testing – while ongoing – must be limited by budgets and workforce availability.  

These trade-offs are frustrating to both managers and new product development (NPD) team members alike.  Too many project boundaries can constrain innovation, yet infrequent or fuzzy milestones can delay a market launch.  NPD managers ask their team members for both rigorous adherence to schedules and budgets and creative, out-of-the-box problem-solving.

One solution to improve the trade-offs that are inherent in a complex innovation project is to increase the role of job crafting.  Job crafting is a set of tools that allows team members to frame their work to capitalize on their most important skills, to increase learning and engagement.

Job Enhancement

Enhancing a job typically means adding horizontal tasks to improve the skill sets of the worker.  To a point, job enhancement will improve employee motivation.  But job enhancement sometimes means just adding more tasks without re-balancing the staff’s existing job responsibilities.  Managers have good intentions in expanding a team member’s work, including learning and growth, increased exposure, and skill development.

Years ago, in one of my earlier assignments as an engineering manager, I specifically sought job enhancement for a star employee.  Darcy, as I’ll call her, was a smart engineer, had great interpersonal skills, and was dedicated to her work.  Knowing that the performance ranking system at the corporation was treating her (and many others) unfairly, I wanted to improve her potential and give a new opportunity to showcase her competency as an engineer.  To that end, I assigned Darcy to lead a small, customer-focused research study.  As the project lead, she would gain visibility with senior management and would be able to demonstrate skills in which I knew she excelled.  Compared to her peers, Darcy was best positioned to successfully deliver the results of the research study.

To my chagrin, Darcy responded negatively when I offered her the opportunity to lead the research project.  What I thought was a job enhancement, she interpreted simply as “more work”.  At the time, I didn’t know she was attending night school to get an MBA and was also trying to start a family.  Of course, any “job enhancement” in those circumstances would be viewed as “more work.”

Job Crafting

A better alternative to job enhancement is job crafting.  Job crafting allows team members to select the majority of their work tasks based on their likes and dislikes, anticipated learning opportunities, personal career trajectories.  When you allow your team members to work on what they like and what they choose, creativity and motivation skyrocket. 

At first, many managers think that job crafting will leave them with no one to do the steady, boring work like printing and sending invoices, conducting sales calls, or bookkeeping.  Yet, everyone is different and while a Type A personality team member wants to press ahead on a new technical product design, a quiet detail-oriented team member is happy to immerse herself in the statistical analysis of big data.  Together, these team members can tackle all the necessary tasks for an innovation project to reach completion, on-time and on-budget.

Agile Teams

This collaborative approach to NPD is precisely called out in the agile philosophy.  Working as generalist-specialists, the agile NPD team will take on product development projects with a high degree of motivation that is driven from within themselves.  The generalist-specialist on an agile NPD team will work on whatever tasks are necessary to complete a sprint and will do the “heads-down” work of his or her specialty to ensure overall team success.  Collaboration among team members wand with the customer is easy because the generalist-specialist desires to learn new skills and is inspired by the project rather a self-serving ego.

It is natural for an agile team to craft their jobs according to skills and competencies and to do tasks that give them joy.  These types of teams have higher rates of output and their work is more creative as a result of the deep trust and collaboration.

Another characteristic of agile teams is the determination to complete a project for the benefit of the customer.  An agile NPD project is continually driven by customer needs which are tested and validated throughout the product development life cycle.  Rapid concept and prototype testing is used to weed out bad ideas and to ensure customer needs are properly incorporated into the product design requirements.  Frequent customer interaction leads to better designs, faster time-to-market, and higher market share upon product launch.

Job Crafting for Innovation

Successful innovations require a clear understanding of customer needs, good market timing, and excellent design of product and service features.  To generate successful innovation, NPD teams must be motivated, creative, and collaborative.  Allowing team members to craft their work assignments within the NPD project boundaries leads to greater success.

Job crafting is different than job enhancement (as I learned the hard way).  In the latter case, managers try to motivate and engage team members by expanding their roles and responsibilities.  And while job enhancement can increase team engagement, the most motivated and inspired workers are ones that craft their daily work to use skills that they value most.  Team members that craft their own jobs, as in an agile project management environment, are more creative and inspired.  Project work is balanced among team members with different skills and desires.

Learn More

To learn more about job crafting and agile NPD, please join me and other inspired and creative innovation workers in a master mind group where we exchange ideas and hold each other accountable to achieve the highest level innovation goals.  We are currently accepting new applicants to the Life Design Master Mind group with a new cohort starting 21 May 2019.  The discounted upfront payment ends soon, so you’ll want to join soon to learn how to apply Design Thinking tools to craft your own best job!  Contact me at area code (281) plus 280-8717 or at [email protected] for more information.  

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Spiral Development for NPD Projects

New products are the lifeblood of any organization.  You can’t stand still, or you will quickly be overcome by the competition.  Customers not only expect, but indeed they demand, that products and product lines are frequently refreshed and revitalized.  Brands that fail to do so end up with financial issues and serious questions about their viability, like Sears and Payless Shoe Source.

How do successful companies maintain relevancy and prominence in a globally competitive and ever-changing marketplace?  Designing new products that delight customers and generate long-term revenue is a surefire bet to success.  Businesses also need to manage operations with processes like Six Sigma, yet continued growth and increased market share rely upon periodic new product launches to expand product lines and meet customer needs.

NPD Processes

New product development (NPD) processes are significantly broader than those of Six Sigma or traditional project management.  NPD starts with the organization’s mission and creatively builds customer demand through the product life cycle.  Conventional NPD processes are called “waterfall” since the steps in the design and development of a new product fall in a given order and cascade from one to another.  The most commonly instituted waterfall NPD process was developed by Bob Cooper and is a staged and gated system.

Traditional Staged and Gated NPD Process

In a classic staged and gated NPD process, work is done in stages and project decisions are made at gates.  The system design is optimized for risk management in whicheach stage of work requires greater investment than the previous one.  Gate decisions are made by cross-functional management teams of higher rank as the project moves forward.

There are many benefits to a traditional staged and gated NPD process.  First, the system is designed to proactively manage financial and market risk.  If the work in a particular stage does not provide the new product concept, then a “No” gate decision will halt further development.  In this way, risk is minimized.  Another strong benefit of a staged and gated NPD system is that the work required for each stage is clearly delineated, and NPD team members understand gate requirements in advance and in detail.

However, as implemented, many organizations fail to take advantage of the full capability of a staged and gated NPD system.  Cooper intended for frequent customer interactions and that both customer needs and customer satisfaction would receive positive marks in order for a new product project o advance at a gate decision to the next stage.  Instead, many firms fail to involve the customer once the initial project charter is drafted.  Moreover, many gatekeepers err to measuring past progress rather than validating the effectiveness of future project plans.  (See Gatekeeper Training to read more about this topic.)

Spiral NPD

To counteract the negative implementations of a traditional staged and gated NPC process, a Spiral NPD Process has been designed by Bob Cooper and associates as an update to the original water system.  In a spiral process, increased iteration is introduced to each stage of work.  These increments incorporate rapid testing and customer feedback, much like a sprint in an agile project management framework.

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Spirals allow the work of a stage to be broken into smaller, more manageable chunks.  These iterations also encourage NPD team members to test ideas, concepts, and prototypes with customers to gain their feedback.  Steps within a stage cycle through Build-Test-Feedback-Revise functions in order to ensure the product under design will meet customer needs.

Other areas in which Spiral NPD adopts agile practices include the daily stand-up meeting and sprint retrospectives.  The daily stand-up meeting encourages NPD team communication and collaboration via a quick. 15-minute meeting.  Typically, the dedicated team members gather in their designated work area (often called a “war room”) to briefly outline their efforts and challenges.  Each person addresses only three questions and detailed discussions are taken offline and with only the parties directly impacted by this issue.

  1. What did I accomplish yesterday?
  2. What do I plan to do today?
  3. Do I have any challenges to completing my work?

Benefits of Spiral NPD

Using a hybrid agile-staged and gated system for innovation, such as Spiral NPD, can accelerate product development.  With its iterative customer feedback loops, Spiral NPD is more responsive to customer needs.  In addition, Spiral NPD enhances the productivity of the NPD team and of the organization as people work on the right things at the right time.  Feature, product, and business objectives are better prioritized since the voice of the customer is intimately woven throughout each new product development cycle.

Implementing Spiral NPD

In my observations, the biggest challenge for organizations transitioning from a traditional waterfall planning process to an adaptive innovation ecosystem, is a change in culture.  Management no longer dictates top-down directives and project leaders no longer set out aggressive schedules and budgets.  Instead, NPD team members are self-organizing and self-directing.  The NPD team itself will decide how to work each iteration and stage in the product development life cycle.  The sprint retrospective drives learning and behavior change immediately into the next Build-Test-Feedback-Revise cycle.  Project managers also transition into servant leader roles, adopting transformative skills to drive change and flexibility focused on customer expectations.

Learn More

To learn more about Spiral NPD, we are holding a special workshop on Agile NPD on 23 & 24 April 2019 in Houston, Texas, USA.  Register here for the 2-day Agile NPD workshop and save on a full 3-day experience including a one-day pre-workshop course on Design Thinking.  Use code “bundle” at checkout and save 15% on both courses.  Contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717 for more information on innovation, project management, and leadership training or coaching.  I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

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Agile in New Product Development

For some time now, agile project management methods have been a hot topic.  The agile philosophy emerged in 2001 as a group of software developers tried to find a better way to launch completed products.  Until then, they had struggled with severely delayed schedules and rampant budget overruns.

So, what is magical about agile?  Really, there is nothing mysterious or bewitching about the agile approach.  Instead, the philosophy encourages a development framework that forces a team back to the fundamentals of new product project management.  And in innovation, those fundamentals are the customers and their needs.

The Agile Philosophy

The agile philosophy is built on a set of four values that favor customer interaction and activity over planning and contract negotiation (agilemanifesto.org).  Traditional project management frameworks, including the staged-and-gated decision process in new product development (NPD), can become document-heavy.  Especially large and risk-averse organizations tend toward adding processes, procedures, and policies to reduce project failures.

Instead of adding documentation to a project plan, the agile methodology adds more communication and testing.  The research to create more detailed plans does indeed make the team more aware of project risks, but it does nothing to actually address those uncertainties.  Brainstorming alternatives to implement IF a risk is triggered is a good practice but testing those alternative solutions in a trial will reveal the best answer in a clear and unconditional manner.

Thus, agile supports close customer interactions, lots of prototype testing, cross-functional (vs. sequential) project tasks, and collaborative communication.  These values are foundational in a successful NPD program, especially if the team is targeting a radical or disruptive innovation.  This is why software products served as an early demonstration of agile implementation.

It is very difficult to document the various cases in which a software tool will be used before the code is written.  It’s also next-to-impossible to know which features customers will use and how they will use them.  Agile allows the development team to build and test to generate information rather than preparing plans with assumed requirements.

As an example, my favorite hobby is scrapbooking, and I make greeting cards for friends and family.  In fact, if I skip a holiday, they are still asking for a handmade card.  I have been subscribing to a scrapbook/card-making magazine for several years to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and to find inspiring, creative ideas from other artists.  I like to take copies of the magazine with me on trips as it is easy to thumb through while in queues or at the airport or in the evening at a hotel.

The publisher began putting a one-page ad into the magazine a couple of years ago about developing a mobile app.  The mobile app would let you view the card photos on your phone or tablet.  Now, keep in mind that the full magazine content includes photos of cards, supply lists, vendor information, and instructions to duplicate the art exactly.

Unfortunately, the publisher moved forward to develop their mobile app without consulting readers (customers).  They spent a lot of money to develop the new product (the app), but it is not differentiated from other, free sources of photos of greeting cards.  In designing a mobile app, the publisher moved away from what made their print magazine special (supply lists, instructions, and grouping of product examples).  I found out recently that the publisher is out of business – losing their base product (magazine) at the cost of a new product (the app) built without customer input.

How Do You Implement Agile in NPD?

Because agile methodologies were originally designed for software, companies working with tangible products sometimes question whether the approach is right for them.  The answer is a resounding, “Yes!”  Remember that the agile framework for project management is a return to fundamentals – what do customers need and is what we are designing meet their needs?

Some of the core principles within agile are very easy to implement.  For example, the idea of rapid prototyping to gain real customer feedback is a step that any NPD team can incorporate to any process immediately.  Talking to and observing customer when they use your product or try to solve a particular problem is inexpensive and drives the agile value of customer interactions.

Other aspects of agile are more difficult to put in place at a firm.  In particular, the agile framework changes the culture of the NPD team and changes the way we do design and development work.  First, teams will learn how to work together collaboratively rather than doing R&D, engineering, or marketing work in sequential silos.  Next, the development effort proceeds much faster – in sprints – with the concepts of time-boxing and delivery of working features at the forefront.  Finally, old forms and templates, and especially directive management, are replaced with transparent and interactive measures of project status.

Scrum

Scrum is the most common implementation of the agile philosophy in new product development.  Scrum utilizes short, but intense, work periods that create usable deliverables.  For example, while a software project might product a few lines of tested code at the completion of a 1-week sprint, an NPD team may product a full customer journey map at the conclusion of a month-long sprint.  Neither deliverable yields a fully integrated working product, but each sub-system is completed and ready-to-go in a short period of time.  Each deliverable is independently tested and validated with customers.

In addition, Scrum utilizes three important roles in implementation.  First, the product owner represents the voice of customer.  This ensures the close interaction with both customer and business needs throughout the life of the NPD project.  The Scrum Master is not a traditional project management but acts to facilitate work and communication among team members and business interfaces. 

Finally, the Scrum team is a cross-functional, collaborative group that does the work of the project.  They remain focused on the project throughout the development cycle.  This team is small enough to make critical product design decisions and is diverse enough to address product development issues across the engineering, operations, and sales spectrum.

Agile NPD

Agile has moved beyond a hot topic to a way of life for many companies.  By re-focusing on the fundamentals of new product development, an agile project management approach can speed time-to-market and increase the quality of the products launched.  Moreover, the very nature of an agile approach to NPD drives more creative and disruptive innovations.

Learn More

To learn more about agile in new product development, we are holding a special workshop on Agile NPD on 23 & 24 April 2019 in Houston, Texas, USA.  Register here for the 2-day Agile NPD workshop and save on a full 3-day experience including a pre-workshop course on Design Thinking.  Use code “bundle” at checkout and save 15% on both courses.  Contact me at [email protected] or 281-280-8717 for more information on innovation, project management, and leadership training or coaching.  I love helping individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their highest innovation goals!

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5 Most Effective Skills Innovators Need

When I tell people that I work in innovation management, I am often asked what product I make.  Of course, with my hobbies, I make lots and lots of scrapbooks and greeting cards.  But, in my business serve my clients more than I create products.  I want to create knowledge and skills for individuals and businesses to take their innovation programs to the next level.  Innovation management is more about learning a continuous improvement process than it is about making “things”.

One of the most rewarding features of my job is to watch an individual or a company develop their own mastery of innovation.  There are five critical skills that innovation managers and new product development (NPD) practitioners need to be effective and to build sustaining innovation programs.

#1-Know the Fundamentals

In sports, music, or theater, participants practice drills on the fundamentals.  Quarterbacks catch the ball from the center and pass it, over and over again during the week and during the off-season.  Pianists play scales, repeatedly, to provide nimble fingers and practice for a concert in B-flat or F-major.  In theater, voice coaches train actors and actresses in delivery as they practice raising and lowering their pitch to build suspense for the performance.

NPD practitioners also need to practice the fundamentals.  Too often, we assume we know what customers want since we assume the project goal is to add features and functionality to the product.  Assumptions are performing, without the practice, and that can be a disaster!

Instead, innovation managers need to ensure that the NPD effort is based n fundamental customer needs.  NPD teams must understand the basic challenge or problem that a customer is trying to solve.  Those customer expectations are matched, one-to-one, with NPD project goals in successful innovation.

For example, a friend of mine had five dogs.  She would launder their blankets and bedding, then undergo a cleaning process for her washing machine.  A purely product-centric view of her challenge would be to make the bleach bottle easier to pour.  Yet, digging into the core need, new products have been released to clean and disinfect the washing machine by running a normal load.  Successful NPD teams focus on the core customer need and seek fundamental understanding.

#2 – Identify and Manage Barriers to Innovation

Innovation introduces change.  That’s why it is such a fun field in which to work.  Yet, change presents a tug-of-war for most people.  We are excited to try something new while at the same time, we are unsure if the risk is worth it.  Resistance to change is one barrier to innovation.

During conversations with existing and potential customer, innovation teams will identify any barriers or constraints to new product development.  I recommend creating a handful of personas, or generic customer profiles to help envision the barriers to innovation.  In this way, the NPD team can “query” the persona during product design and development to validate concepts, features, and functionalities.

For example, one persona may be a family with a lot of pets, like my friend.  Another persona may be a family with kids that play sports and have very dirty clothes needing daily laundering.  And yet another persona may be a single person living in an apartment who rarely needs to do laundry.  The NPD team uses these personas to understand resistance or constraints in the product design, since the challenges of each are unique.

#3 – Plan, Execute, and Be Flexible

There has been a ton of debate in recent years about the best project management methodology for innovation efforts.  Phased and gated processes rose in glory to be dissed by proponents of agile.  Many companies then jumped onto the agile bandwagon to find products still failing in the marketplace.

What’s most important in successful innovation is to plan your work (including customer observation, testing, and validation), execute to the plan, and be flexible (be agile) as needed.  NPD managers and CIOs (Chief Innovation Officers) should be trained as exceptional leaders first, and then, in the particular NPD processes for project management.

Successful leaders often have coaches or master mind groups to share ideas and to learn best practices.  Transformational leaders understand the importance of customer inputs and balance these needs with operational demands in manufacturing and distribution.  Innovation leaders are flexible and adapt to each situation to continuously develop team members and to improve the innovation management process itself.

#4 – Collaborate with Everybody

Another aspect of successful innovation is learning how to collaborate effectively.  Collaboration is not a one-way customer interview or survey, and it is not assigning and directing tasks to NPD team members.  Instead, collaboration builds on the skills and needs of everyone involved in the project, both internally and externally.

Employees working in NPD are often motivated by learning.  This desire to learn can be capitalized by linking NPD team members with target customers to develop a customer journey map and to gain specific market feedback.  Technical folks learn and develop collaboration skills working directly with customers.  Likewise, sales and marketing personnel grow in knowledge by collaborating with technical designers to groom features and attributes for a new product.

And, we don’t want to leave out the customer as a resource.  Customer collaboration means observing, questioning, and testing.  You may meet the customer in the environment where s/he is using the product or service, or you may invite the customer to your facility.  What’s crucial for innovation success is a long-term, interactive relationship with both external and internal customers.

#5 – Evaluate and Measure Success

In peer coaching, I am constantly reminded that success has not a singular definition.  One person views success as a launching a new business, while another views success as selling their enterprise.

Each innovation project has a set of measures that define success.  The metrics ought to be aligned with the organization’s mission, vision, and values.  And the success metrics must be agreed by the NPD team upfront.

For instance, one NPD project used sales volume and market penetration as measures of success.  Sales volume is a readily acquired number – how many units were sold?  Digging deeper you can also gain additional insight into the value of the new product by calculating the ratio of manufactured items and sales price (profit margin).

Market penetration gave the NPD team another measure of success with their target customers and a measure to compare against competition.  Market penetration provides the percentage of branded products sold versus the entire set of products and product solutions available.  “We sold 63% of single use washing machine packs; our nearest competitor controls 20% of the market.”

If innovation success metrics don’t align with the project plans and goals, it’s time to make a change, including further conversations and collaborations with customers.

Necessary Skills for Innovators

Improved speed-to-market and increased return on investment (ROI) depend on the successful initiation and execution of NPD projects.  Successful innovation managers practice, refine, and excel with all five key skills.  The first of these competencies is maintaining customer contact to gain insights regarding market challenges and problems.  This is a foundational innovation skill.

Next, innovators and NPD teams must identify constraints and barriers to developing products and services that delight the customers.  These barriers may be internal processes or a customer’s willingness to invest in a new product solution.  This leads to the innovation skill set of planning, implementing, and adapting.  No project management system is perfect and successful innovators are flexible in how a project meets its goals to deliver exceptional products to a target market.

Fourth, collaboration is a skill that successful NPD managers use in developing their teams, the new product, and customer relationships.  Collaboration requires an open line of communication, empathy, and favors doing something rather than talking about it.

And, finally, innovation success is measures to verify value delivery and to learn.  Metrics for each project are different, but are always objective, leading to more effective decisions.

Learn More

There are two ways to learn more about leadership skills for innovation.  First, New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification addresses best practices in innovation from devising a business strategy to idea generation and to market research for product concept testing.  Second, CIOs, NPD leaders, and R&D managers who are committed to taking their innovation program to the next level must participate in the Innovation Master Mind (IMM).  IMM is a 6-month peer coaching group that allows you to extend your NPD knowledge beyond NPDP certification and to collaborate with other CIOs and innovation managers.  You will realize improved efficiency and growth from our Life Design Master Mind (LDMM), IMM, or through NPDP certification which entails a deep dive into strategy and NPD processes, including design thinking.  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  

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  

“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