| Does
your organization have clear objectives for its NPD improvement
efforts?
If
we went back a few years, this wouldn't be much of a question. Almost
everyone would reply with the same answer: “We want to improve speed-to-market.”
But speed, by itself, is not sufficient.
Top management and shareholders also want greater gains in
the market (read: strategic impact) and notably better
use of resources (read: efficiency).
Speed can beat competition and
yield better financial returns (strategic impact). Speed
can also increase the chances of success and improve resource utilization
(efficiency). But speed is not the sole driver of
either strategic impact or resource use efficiency.
In fact, speed, strategic impact and efficiency, when coupled
together, are drivers of a higher-level objective: New Product
Development Productivity.
 |
Perhaps
a better question to ask is:
Can your organization articulate how important speed-to-market,
strategic impact and resource use efficiency are in
its NPD Productivity improvement efforts?
Knowing
the answer to this question, and understanding the rationale
behind the answer, can give guidance to management when
investing in NPD improvement efforts. Which initiative is best to invest in? For example, is it better to install an enterprise, web-base system
or to design and implement a product line road-mapping process?
|
Pair-wise
Comparison
In a previous e-letter, I offered a list of investment options for
improving NPD Productivity. (See
some options) To judge these options, an organization needs
to determine its own relative importance of Speed, Strategic
Impact and Efficiency . Expected gains, costs and
timeframes of each option should then be evaluated against
of the drivers. Prioritizing NPD improvement options is then
a matter of allocating the budget (people and money) to maximize
the combined affect of Speed, Strategic Impact and Efficiency
on overall NPD Productivity. The key to the prioritization
is to anchor the relative importance of Speed,
Strategic Impact and Efficiency.
Anchoring
the relative importance of Speed, Strategic Impact and Efficiency
can be done quickly with a survey technique called "pair-wise
comparison", or as some know it, "Analytical Hierarchy Processing".
Pair-wise comparison is quick and simple. Respondents are
asked to make just six comparisons: three for the current state
(based on our current improvement investments), and three for the
desired state (how the improvement efforts should be focused). For
each case, the respondents give the relative importance of:
Adept Group conducts this method with a
pre-designed, online
survey. Respondents receive an email and click on a URL
to go to the survey. To create the comparisons, they simply
drag a set of bars to represent relative importance.
If
you wish to see the technique, send me a quick email
and we can set up a time to do this.
| On another topic...
People
have expressed tremendous praise for our NPD Portfolio charting
tool, PortViewTM. It scores very high
on four fronts:
-
Ease of use
-
Quality of Presentations
-
Power / Capabilities, and
-
Simple
integration with Excel and PowerPoint
Check
out the updated version of our online presentation about PortView
by clicking here
(Slide Show) .
Or simply click here
(DEMO) to email a request for a demo copy.
This is a fully functioning version of the software.
|
Click
below to see full size |
If
you wish further detail on the topic of improving NPD Productivity,
we'd be happy to set up an online web meeting with you and share with
you some of the knowledge and experience we've accrued. Simply send
an email and I'd be glad to set up a time to get together and meet
using our web-based meeting service.
As always, don't hesitate to call with questions, concerns or comments.
Best Regards,
Paul O'Connor
The
Adept Group Limited, Inc.
Tel: 904-273-5319
Fax: 904-285-3488
www.adept-plm.com
Focused on Productivity in New
Product Development
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