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Why Product Development is Like a Bank Loan

Loans among friends can quickly impact their friendship in a negative way.  I have learned that loaning a book to a friend really means giving them the book.  Not intentionally, people lose or damage the items they have borrowed so they cannot return them.  (Or are embarrassed to admit it.)

My dad was a CPA, so I also learned at a very early age that family and friends should never loan money to family and friends.  He spent many hours sorting out promises and loans in the estates of his clients, including treasures of furniture and jewelry along with monetary wealth.  Nothing good ever came from these squabbles among family members.

That’s why throughout time, advanced societies use neutral parties for loans.  Americans borrow money from banks and repay those loans over an agreed-upon period of time.  The bank charges interest because they do not have the use of that sum during the loan.  Interest also covers the risk that the borrower may never repay the loan.  Where there is higher risk, the interest rate is also higher.

New product development (NPD) is much like a bank loan.  A company is making an investment gamble and cannot use the resources committed to a project in any other way.  For example, human resources can only work on one thing at a time.  If you choose to design and develop a new product, your human talent cannot also simultaneously work on production improvement.  Hiring more staff allows multiple initiatives to occur at the same time, but we are all restricted – as human beings – to doing only one thing at a time.

Investment

NPD is like a bank loan from the perspective of investment.  Financial experts do not loan money to every person who walks through the door.  Entrepreneurs are well aware that they must prepare a legitimate business case to receive a bank loan.  The banker is evaluating whether the investment will pay off as well as considering other investment options.  Money, like time, can usually only be spent once.

Product development is an investment by a firm in the idea.  Management must be convinced that the business case (market and technology) for the new product is the best use of limited financial resources.  Just like bankers, management considers trade-offs on the use of limited resources (time, money, equipment, and staff).  Product development is often a long-term investment for a firm.

Risk

Again, banks take risks that some people will default on their loans.  Just as I have learned that “loaning” a book to a friend really means “giving” them the book, bankers recognize that a certain percentage of loans will go bad.  Not only has the bank made an investment by loaning that money, the risk is they will lose not simply the gains (interest) but also the principal.  In other words, they may be worse off because the transaction took place.

New product development is inherently risky.  We do not know – at the beginning of a project – whether we can develop a cost-effective technology or whether consumers will buy the product at a price to deliver a profit.  Some product designs will never be commercialized, and the investment is lost, just like a defaulted loan.

Collateral

Banks often ask for collateral in exchange for risking their money.  If you borrow money to buy a car, the car itself holds value.  If you default on the loan, the bank can repossess the car to regain some of their investment.  Similarly, if you take out a home mortgage, the house itself serves as collateral for the loan.

While investment and risk have ready parallels between NPD and bank loans, collateral is a little more esoteric.  Companies specialize in certain products, technologies, and markets.  Their knowledge, including patents and license or franchise potential, serve as long-term collateral for product development.

For example, if the R&D group at your firm investigates a new plastic treatment for a part on a new product, they retain that knowledge whether or not the part is used on a commercial product.  Learning and knowledge are key to successful product design and development.  That’s what companies mean when they say, “Our people are our greatest asset.”  The knowledge asset is the collateral for an NPD gamble.

NPD is Like a Bank Loan

Banks take risks and invest money where they expect a payback.  They charge interest to earn a profit on those investments.  Loan risks are balanced by collateral, or assets, that will recover a portion of the investment if the borrower defaults.  This system is fair for both the lender (the bank) and the borrower.

New product development (NPD) is an investment risk taken by companies of all sizes.  They hope that sales revenues will deliver a profit on the investment made in designing and developing the new product.  The risk of a failed project is balanced by the collateral of increased corporate knowledge.

Do you need to understand and evaluate NPD risks?  If so, please contact me and we’ll discuss how processes and portfolios can reduce the inherent risk of NPD.  We strive to help our clients improve speed-to-market and improve effective team collaboration. 

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The Culture of NPD Processes

We all know that culture influences business outcomes more than any other variable.  Great strategies must be translated into effective business plans and implemented at the operational level.  Yet, if there is a breakdown in communication as a result of cultural conflict, a great business strategy can fail mightily.

Having an open, accepting cultures paramount for success in innovation.  The ability to “fail” allows new product development (NPD) teams to take risks.  Without risks, there is no opportunity for innovative growth.  And, of course, growth drives learning.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably thinking, “Yes, culture impacts innovation success, but what do I do about it?”  The answer is that every organization must adapt their NPD process to their culture.  When there is a logical match between organizational culture and the NPD process, strategic goals for innovation are readily achieved.

Different Organizational Cultures

Culture is an unwritten set of rules that dictate how a group of individuals interact.  At a societal level, Asian cultures are known for group consensus while American and European cultures are better known for independent actions.  There is no right or wrong culture; however, people’s behaviors will reflect the dominant culture.

The Prairie Dog Culture

Prairie dogs share a lot of their living space with other prairie dogs.  They mostly live underground within a complex network of tunnels.  Yet, a sentinel is posted who alerts the group to a threat at which point, the entire community responds as one – diving into the tunnels for safety.

The Lion Pride Culture

Lions, on the other hand, are fairly solitary animals in the wild.  Lion prides have a hierarchy that leads to the paternal head.  As in the movie, The Lion King, the head lion might make poor decisions, but the rest of the pride follows.  Similarly with a good decision, the pride follows along obediently.

Everything In-Between Culture

Of course, between the extremes of a prairie dog clan and a hierarchical lion pride are the vast majority of organizational cultures.  Some companies lean more heavily to one side than the other.  Yet, every organization has a distinctive culture that encourages (or discourages) innovation.

Culture and the NPD Process

One of the biggest challenges of Agile implementation for tangible product development, and in large corporations, is cultural change.  The Agile philosophy pushes decisions to the lowest levels in an organization.  However, many senior executives are threatened by their perceived lack of involvement in these day-to-day decisions.  They wonder how they can take responsibility for profit and loss, if they don’t control each and every decision.

Of course, this lack of trust results in a hierarchical decision framework.  From an innovation standpoint, these organizations find it impossible to adopt Agile processes.  Instead, fear of failure results in a review- and approval-heavy staged-and-gated processes.  It’s not unusual to see “half-gates” in these organizations, as senior leaders micromanage the decision points.

In my experience, hybrid NPD processes like WAGILE and Lean NPD, are excellent transitions for hierarchical organizations investigating improvements in speed-to-market.  WAGILE (read more here) is a great NPD process when the product managers have close communication and interaction with end-users and customers.  Lean NPD is a better approach for organizations that innovate in B2B or wholesale markets, relying on market research external to the core development team.

Culture is the Crown of Innovation

Culture not only drives strategy, but culture dictates the innovation process.  Risk-averse organizations are challenged to transition to Agile, regardless of their desire to do so.  Instead, adopting a hybrid waterfall-Agile NPD process allows the organization to design and deliver new products quicker, cheaper, and better while building on internal strengths.

Want to learn more?  Join the PMI CBC chapter on 17 May for a brief discussion of Project Management in New Product Development.  Register here for this free event.  Also join our monthly Product Development Lunch and Learn webinar on 13 June at 12 pm Central Time to learn more about Project Management for NPD Processes.  Register here. 

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Product Development Creativity

Check out the short video summary (about 1 minute) then read on!

The last few years have brought tumult, upheaval, and an endless parade of changes to how we work and live.  Business in the United States has shifted from small companies to large corporations.  Technology has introduced a permanent “work-from-home” culture.  Some people don’t even shop for their own groceries or go to restaurants or the cinema anymore!

Unprecedented change is scary.  As individuals, we can prepare ourselves for desirable changes, like a new fitness routine or an extra-long vacation.  But as a group, people often resist change.  We want to know the benefits of change and one negative voice in the crowd introduces questions to all.

While debate is good and healthy for any society, product development professionals and product managers view debate and change through a different lens.  How can we creatively address a new market need?

Creative Change

In new product development (NPD), we seek to introduce positive change into influence customers.  Creative solutions to our customers’ problems help them to live better lives and to engage in their own businesses at a higher level.  New product designs force change but success is the adoption of that change.

Creativity is defined as “the ability to transcend traditional ideas.”  NPD practitioners and product managers are constantly looking for new ideas and concepts to solve problems in a new way.  For example, e-bikes (electronic bicycles) are experiencing huge growth.  The electric motor offers a creative solution for people who are not fit enough for cycling and for the elderly who still want to enjoy the outdoors.

Steps for Creativity in NPD

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A typical NPD process includes the following steps.

  1. Understand the customers problem
  2. Generate ideas to solve the problem
  3. Create prototypes to test solution ideas
  4. Finalize the results and feedback
  5. Refine the product concept

We apply a variety of creative tools at each step to ensure the product development process advances.  We also want to make sure that our customers accept and will adopt the proposed new product solution.  For instance, e-bikes are much, much heavier than a traditional bicycle so people are less likely to travel with an e-bike.

Here are some creativity tools to apply in the traditional end process to gather customer feedback and lead to greater customer satisfaction.

  1. Customer shadowing, empathy map, journey map
  2. Brainwriting, affinity diagrams
  3. Wizard of Oz, paper prototypes, focus groups A/B testing
  4. Voice of customer, statistical analysis
  5. Product roadmap, feature releases, value stream mapping

Product Development Creativity

Product designers cannot sit still.  Change is happening in tsunami steps all around us.  We must adopt new technologies and generate creative solutions to help our customers.  Learning and applying a set of creativity tools ensures we have a variety of new products available to release in the short-, medium-, and long-term to satisfy consumers across the spectrum.  Creativity can be re-learned and practiced in everything we do every day.

Learn more in our free Product Development Lunch and Learn webinar on 9 May 2022, 12:00 pm CDT, 3 Creativity Tools.  You might also be interested in our Deep Dive Creativity Workshop for Product Managers on 27 May 2022.  Check out our course calendar here, register here for the free Product Development Lunch and Learn, and register here for the in-depth creativity workshop.

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Listening for Customer Needs

I’ve always been interested in how people differentiate “hearing” and “listening”.  I remember one of my Japanese colleagues warning me to get a commitment to action from the multi-national team because saying “Yes” in Japan only meant “I heard you”.  I’m guilty, too, of nodding and saying “Yes” occasionally when someone asks if I heard them.

Hearing is the mechanical process of sound waves entering our ears and being converted to electrical signals.  The electrical signal that registers in our brain allows us to “hear” speech, music, and traffic noises.  Animals also “hear” noises – my cat jumps a mile if you clap your hands during one of his many siestas!

Listening, on the other hand, is a qualitative and emotional response to the sounds we hear.  Listening requires an analysis and understanding of the words, a commitment to action, and/or a witty conversational response.  In new product development (NPD), we often refer to “listening to the voice of the customer” during upfront research.  We do not say we only “hear” the customer.  We say we “listen” to the customer – gathering the qualitative and emotional responses.

Gathering Customer Needs

Of course, in product development and product management, customer needs drive design and implementation.  As product development professionals, we also know that customers are challenged to accurately describe their needs.  It is often easier for a consumer to make a complaint or to offer platitudes than to specify needs and wants.  Interestingly, the voice of the customer is more about multi-channel listening than hearing sounds.

What is multi-channel listing in product development?  It is collecting data and information (the voice of customer, VOC) that reflects a customer’s needs and problems.  “Listening” may include focus groups, observation, or journaling.  In this case, listening includes all our senses, not just hearing.

Creative Listening

Some creative ways to gather customer needs include shadowing, A/B testing, and journey mapping.  Shadowing is a market research technique in which members of the product development team follow customers (or potential customers) while they conduct daily activities.  This allows the NPD team to observe all aspects of product usage as well as pain points and competitor product advantages.  Shadowing, like many VOC methods, can generate a lot of data.  So, the NPD team should be prepared with an analysis and sorting method in advance.

A/B testing can be direct or indirect.  Product designers test preference for one or another feature in the new product.  Alternatively, one set of customers is tested for acceptance of Feature A and another set is tested for acceptance of Feature B.  In this method, you will need to ensure the sample size is adequate for the expected data integrity.

Finally, customer journey maps (see last week’s post here) are a great way to connect the customers’ decisions and emotions with the steps taken to research, purchase, and use a new product.  Some organizations structure business functions around the typical steps in the customer journey map.  For example, a digital retailer organizes IT projects by webpage presentation (customer shopping), customer ordering domain, shipping, and returns.

Learn More

Listening is tricky business and even more challenging when our customers cannot explain -in words – what they seek as new product features and benefits.  We use market research and design thinking tools to listen to the “voice of the customer”.  Our skills as product development professionals include multi-channel listening, meaning we must hear and observe our customers interacting with a variety of product solutions.

Join me on 9 May 2022 for our free monthly Product Development Lunch and Learn webinar.  This month’s topic is 3 Creativity Tools and you can learn how to better “listen” for customer needs.  REGISTER HERE.

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Creativity In Product Development

What does “creativity” mean to you?  For me, my hobby of card-making is creativity.  I can combine different colors, textures, and patterns on a 5×7-inch canvas that I send with love to family and friends.

Of course, my work life also includes creativity.  Solving problems and coming up with unique answers is creative work, too.  However, like most adults, I often fail to equate “creativity” with trouble-shooting or any other of my day-to-day activities.  Yet, working in product development demands creativity from all professionals and disciplines to successfully generate products to the marketplace.

New Product Development

New product development (NPD) is a broad term covering the design of unique technologies to the introduction of an existing product into a new market.  Products span from the tangible (goods we touch, like cars or cell phones) to software and applications (search engines and instant messaging).  Product managers today are often responsible for identifying new customer needs to feed the product development pipeline.

Successful product managers and product development professionals link customer needs with novel and creative solutions.

Inspired By Creativity

To deliver delightful new product solutions to our customers, we must offer them creative products and services.  NPD teams use several different stimuli to understand customer needs and to identify creative solutions to those consumer problems.  For example, the customer journey map (downloaded a template here) is a creative tool to track customer behaviors and satisfaction throughout the product selection and purchase process.  The figure below shows another example of a customer journey map.

The customer journey map is one of my favorite tools to identify new product needs.  Sometimes, we can creatively solve a customer’s need by changing how we package, deliver or market a product instead of developing additional features and functions.  The customer journey map helps us identify these simple, non-technical opportunities.  Keeping things simple is highly valuable in NPD!

Another creativity tool I love to use with innovation teams is brainwriting.  While traditional brainstorming focuses on collaborative creativity, brainwriting first utilizes individual problem-solving to address NPD questions.  Brainwriting works by presenting a problem to a group of people, typically the innovation team.  Each individual, quickly and by himself, records a potential idea or concept.  After a short period of time (about 30 seconds), they pass their sheet of paper to the person sitting at their right.

This person then adds a new idea or builds on the first idea.  After another 30 seconds, the paper is passed to the right again.  This process repeats several times until perhaps a half dozen ideas are collected on each sheet of paper.  At that point, the page is returned to the originator who then selects the “best” idea.  These concepts are then shared and prioritized as in a traditional brainstorming session.

Creativity Tools in Practice

Please join me for the May Product Development Lunch and Learn session on 9 May 2022 at 12 pm CDT (1 pm EDT) to learn 3 Creativity Tools.  These webinars are free and full of dialogue with fellow NPD professionals and product managers.  REGISTER HERE.

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Understanding Customer Needs

Every new product development professional carries a toolkit for the job.  Just like a carpenter carries a saw, hammer, and clamps, product managers use market research, processes, and planning to finish a job.  Carpenters choose specific saws and blades depending on the fineness of work.  A quick cut of a 2×4 board does not need the same degree of precision or quality as cutting maple veneer for a kitchen cupboard.

Product development professionals select different tools and apparatus to match the outcomes of their job, too.  Market research to gather data on market opportunities is different than the customer insights necessary to establish a pricing strategy (read more here).  While saw blades provide various degrees of fineness and integrity to the carpenter’s job, we similarly use market research tools to better understand specific customer needs throughout the new product development process (see the figure below).

Opportunity Identification

The first phases of new product development focus on opportunity identification.  In early stages of product development – whether you use a traditional staged-and-gated, Agile, or WAGILE approach – you must study and observe customers.  What is the problem they need help solving?  What are the limitations or constraints they face in addressing a given pain point?  What is the solution worth to them?

You may use tools like observation, interviews, or questionnaires during this stage of product development.  Essentially, product managers are researching the needs and desires of customers as well as available product solutions.  If the market is very crowded with competitors, product development may take a different pathway.  Market research is invaluable to determine needs of existing and potential customers.

Design and Development

During design and development of a new product, we begin to identify potential concepts that we feel will address the customer’s pain points.  We specify the requirements and features of that solution, thus allowing the engineering teams to craft a working product.

Market research tools deployed during design and development include concept testing, AB testing, and QFD (quality function deployment – read more here).  The goal is to determine a narrow set of features that will deliver the expected consumer benefit while also creating value (profit) for the firm.

Production

Finished products move into production which includes manufacturing and servicing the product as a normal part of the business.  For example, after a carpenter finishes the job, a homeowner continues to perform maintenance.  We sometimes have to fix things – like a loose knob on the kitchen cupboard – but we also do maintenance to ensure long time enjoyment of the product.  Wiping spills from cupboards keeps them clean and shiny, preserving the wood quality for a long life. 

Likewise, once a product is launched, we perform maintenance to fix bugs or quality issues not identified pre-launch.  Long-term profits are maintained as product managers ensure cost-effective and reliable manufacturing is in place for the product.

During production, market research entails lead user panels, for instance, to identify next generation features.  Focus groups are used to uncover needs of non-users.  For example, how can we transition the product to more markets?  Which market segments demand a premium version of the product?  Can we make it less expensively but still maintain quality and customer satisfaction?

Market Research Tools

Market research tools help new product development practitioners understand customer needs.  We deploy different techniques depending on the stage of development and the desired fidelity for the data.  We use qualitative market research to gather thoughts, feelings, and opinions of customers while we use quantitative market research to validate and verify product specifications statistically.

Learn more in our New Product Development Lunch and Learn sessions.   On 14 March, the free webinar discusses customer insights and market research tools.   Register here.  For more information on Customer Insights, also check out Chapter 2 of The Innovation ANSWER Book, 2nd edition and Chapter 3 of The Innovation QUESTION Book.

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Market Research Tools

Market research is an industry term referring to studies of customers, marketplaces, trends, and even economics.  For new product practitioners and product managers, market research is a crucial step in the process of designing and developing products and services.  On a macro-basis, we might think of general fads and trends as “market research” in the formal sense.  At a company- or product-level, we consider customer insights to guide product development.

Watch the super-quick video summary and then read on.

Primary Forms of Market Research

Traditionally, market research is divided into two categories:  qualitative and quantitative.  In Qualitative Market Research, we seek opinions and beliefs that draw customer needs from an emotional perspective.  In Quantitative Market Research, we gather objective data for statistical analysis, guiding pricing and sales strategies.

Qualitative Market Research

Customer insights, for brands and specific product design work, tend to be more qualitative in nature.  Many companies convene lead user panels to regularly interact with and gauge product use with consumers.  These panels involve groups of customers that are actively involved in using a product and they are driven to improve the product because it serves to benefit them.

For example, gathering a lead user panel to evaluate new product features is a common purpose of market research.  Suppose you manufacture gardening tools.  Your lead user panel consists of Master Gardeners in a semi-tropical zone, like southern Alabama and Florida.  You might present different combinations of gardening tools to bundle into a spring planting kit – a handheld spade and trowel along with a sturdy pair of gloves.  You will investigate reactions to the bundle from the consumer panel.

Quantitative Market Research

While qualitative market research points the product development effort in the right direction, product designers and engineers need specifications to build the product.  Quantitative market research supplements the “why” of qualitative market research with a set of measures and constraints that define “what” and “how”.  Examples of quantitative market research include surveys, market share, and failure rates.  Often, qualitative market research uses statistics to analyze customer and market data in a detailed and objective way.

Other Market Research Tools

Market research is a very broad field with numerous tools available to the product development professional.  As in all research, no single assessment provides enough data and information to draw actionable conclusions.  Instead, a combination of market research and design thinking tools will help a product development team identify opportunities for ideas and concepts that will benefit their customers.

Learn More

Join me on 14 March for a free webinar on market research tools.  Register here.  For more information on Customer Insights, check out Chapter 2 of The Innovation ANSWER Book, 2nd edition.

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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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Hybrid Product Development Today

Today, many of us are working in very different environments than two years ago.  A lot of people are permanently working from home (“remote”).  Others are going to the office a couple of days per week.  Still others are doing the same job, at the same place, as they have always done (truck drivers, hospitality workers, factory and assembly plant personnel).

Learning to work in a new way can be stressful, but we are also living in a time when technology helps to bridge gaps.  With video conferencing, we have face-to-face conversations with our coworkers and can easily share documents or files.  While some of us might be in a shared space looking at the hard copy, others participate equally from remote locations looking at the same electronic document.

What Does Hybrid Mean?

Hybrid, therefore, means a blend of geographical working environments, facilitated by technology.  But what does hybrid mean culturally or for our work processes?

Unfortunately, as “Zoom fatigue” is a real symptom of work burnout, we know that our hybrid work cultures must adapt.  It is a very different atmosphere to welcome a new employee to your campus and to show him around the office building than it is to dive into work tasks as the new employee logs onto her first meeting.  Trust, especially emotional trust, is critical to tackling higher risk tasks and projects.  And, trust is hard to build in a hybrid culture.

Consider converting five minutes of each meeting to team-building.  Use the time to create social relationships with your hybrid teams.  Talk about sports, hobbies, or travel.  You want to generate a culture that shares openly and will lead to trust.  Sharing personal life interests alongside our professional engagements supports relationships among team members.

Our processes change in a hybrid work environment, too.  We no longer have quick hallway conversations.  Instead, we hold scheduled meetings and discussions (lots of them!).  Hand-offs and transfers of tasks between functions and departments are more complicated, especially if the receiver does not have the appropriate project background (why, how, when).  Shared files and chats can help to facilitate processes.  Even better, document your workflows, roles and responsibilities, and follow the agreed-upon processes.

Creativity in a Hybrid World

While relationships, culture, and processes are manageable in remote and dispersed work environments, creativity becomes even more challenging.  Again, tools are available for us to use technology, to share ideas, to capture concepts and activities, and to interact with fellow team members and customers.  I recommend using a facilitator to help your team focus on the work instead of the ever-changing technology.  A group like MAFN (Mid-Atlantic Facilitators Network) can help you find a skilled technical facilitator.  In that way, you can capture creative ideas, without interrupting ideation.

Finally, our approaches to creativity in a hybrid world must take advantage of all we have learned to generate ideas within teams over the years – regardless of technology.  Join me starting on 11 February for a special-request, three-part Creativity Master Class.  Register here.

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Innovation Project Planning

Project planning is a best practice.  We all plan big projects at work that involve construction or R&D effort.  We create project plans when there is a requirement for integration of many functions and the coordination of multiple tasks.

Types of Project Plans

Traditionally, project plans are created based on the scope of work.  We estimate the tasks necessary to complete the project and calculate the duration of each activity.  Next, we assign resources by function and name to each task.  The output is a pre-determined project plan with a critical path of tasks and expected resources that show how quickly the project can be executed.

In an Agile framework, project planning uses progressive elaboration.  As in traditional project planning, we determine a list of requirements upfront.  However, in Scrum (the most common Agile implementation for innovation and tangible new product development, NPD) we determine product features necessary to satisfy the end-user’s application.  A rank-ordered list of features prioritizes project execution based upon developing the most important features first.

Scrum estimates are usually relative and compared to tasks with known duration and cost.  For example T-shirt sizing (small, medium, and large) is a common way of estimating Agile projects.  In this example, relative sizes are based upon known standards and each feature development is estimated relative to that standard. 

Visualizing the Project Plan

In traditional project management, the output is typically a Gantt chart showing task relationships and duration.  The critical path represents all tasks that must be completed on schedule to prevent the entire project schedule from slipping.  These tasks are often resource-constrained, as projects rely on experts to do specialized product development work.  In other cases, vendor-supplied equipment and customer use tests can be limiting factors.

In Scrum, the project schedule is not usually illustrated as a whole.  A product roadmap shows major feature releases for the product, often in conjunction with other products, services, and applications.  Task level planning is done by the team using the prioritized feature list.  Team members score the difficulty (and duration) of tasks needed to complete a specific feature.  A technique called “planning poker” helps the team reach consensus on the “size” of these tasks (e.g. relative sizing of small, medium, or large).

For operational work of the NPD team, a Kanban board (sometimes called a Scrum board) shows tasks assigned to the sprint.  As work is completed during a Sprint, a symbol of the task (usually a short description written on a sticky note) is moved from columns on the Kanban board indicating workto-do, work-in-progress, testing, and completed.

At a higher level, all of the “story points” or scores of the relative estimates for product design are added.  As each feature is completed, its score is subtracted from the total.  Thus the “burndown” chart shows an estimate of work remaining in each Sprint.  The burndown chart may be used in conjunction with the Kanban chart or these tools can be deployed separately.

Adjusting the Project Plan

Of course, no project plan is accurate or perfect.  The minute we put pencil to paper, the schedule is apt to change.  In traditional project management, a Change Control Board reviews major project changes according to the advice of the project manager.  In Scrum (Agile), changes to the project scope are expected, resulting in the iterative nature of the system.  Tasks not completed in one sprint are added to the “backlog” of the next sprint.  This is reflected in a lower-than-planned burndown rate as well as increased work-in-progress on the Kanban board.  NPD teams must be concerned if this backlog is too high.

Planning Projects

Innovation projects, construction projects, and engineering projects all require planning.  We must anticipate the requirements, the schedule, and the cost.  These estimates help decision-makers and project leaders determine investments and to assess tolerable risk levels.  Project plans indicate whether a project can achieve benefits that outweigh costs.

Consider the following elements as you plan your next innovation project:

  • Scope of work,
  • Number and complexity of features,
  • Necessary tasks and activities to do the work,
  • Resources available and skilled to do the work,
  • Realistic project schedules indicating duration (not just effort) of each task,
  • How to assess changes, and
  • Risk management.

Learn More

Project planning is foundational to effective project selection and should be directly linked to Product Portfolio Management for innovation work.  Please join me starting 7 February 2002 for a once-per-year unique opportunity to apply 100 Days to Effective PPM in your teams.  Register here.

If you’re interested in learning more about hybrid project planning (traditional waterfall blended with Agile/Scrum), please join me for WAGILE Product Development on 15 and 17 February 2022.  Register here.