为了快速有效的开发新产品，项目经理们必须注重本质问题并着眼于创新。
位于德国Wiehl-Bomig市的照明与建筑控制设备生产商Merten GmbH & Co. KG公司试图逆潮流而动：当他们把产品卖给建筑师和设计师而不是电气施工者时，他们意识到，他们需要流行的高端产品以适应市场需求。
英国伦敦的Grimshaw工业设计公司在美国纽约市设有分支机构，他们提供了完美的候选品：一种可编程的照明和温控玻璃开关，这种开关被涂成与四周墙壁协调的颜色。这两家公司合作将愿景变成了现实。“对于Merten公司来说，新产品的开发依赖于技术上的可行性，”项目管理总监艾克塞尔·科灵伯格说。“我作为项目总监的职责是设定基本的需求并与开发人员保持经常性的交流。作为一名筛选者，我要经常地检查那些创造性的设计方案，保证它们切实可行与实用，并且还需要考虑生产流程。”
这个工作描述比较理想，但实施起来非常困难。“这是因为一个优秀的业务经理不一定是一名优秀的项目经理。”帕米拉·T·米勒说，她担任总部设立在美国新泽西州内瓦克市的新泽西地平线蓝十字蓝盾公司（Horizon BCBSNJ）企业战略与质量部门的副总裁。这是她多年监管Horizon BCBSNJ公司处理过的广泛的项目所得出的结论，这些项目包括新的IT系统、改进业务流程和将健康险的新产品推向市场等，后者在现在糟糕的经济状况下被证明是异常费劲的。她认为，“你需要有一名接受过项目管理教育并掌握相关技能和方法的业务骨干。”
软件系统肯定会有所帮助。无论是开发一种新产品或新的IT系统，所有Horizon BCBSNJ公司正在实施的项目都由通过连接到Microsoft Project的组合项目管理系统所管理和监控，这套系统由美国加州旧金山市的Business Engine公司提供。“这是所有信息单一的存储中心：这里面有超过200个项目。”米勒说。“在公司的最高层，我们会监控那些对公司未来至关重要的35个项目。
那些针对新市场推出的新产品成为“最重要项目”列表的主要候选者，这些新项目提供了全新的受益、共同支付和可选附加服务的不同组合。然而，通过软件管理并不完整，Horizon BCBSNJ同时施行了一些有效而实际的准入规则，米勒说。“对于那些大型项目，我们起初并没有批准所有的预算，而只是其中的一部分，然后对他们说：‘请拿出一份完整归档的项目计划和可行性研究报告来。’然后，当他们完成这些文档之后，我们会拨给他们更多的预算。”
危险区域
尽管他们的产品不是那种可以在杂货店或五金店买得到的看得见摸得着的商品，Horizon BCBSNJ巧妙的避免了把新产品推向市场所要经历的考验和痛苦。没有创新的业务不会存活下来，但创新本身并不是全部内容。新产品必须被及时的推向市场以满足真正的市场需求，并且避免消耗过多的资源以免遏制其他新产品的开发。处理得当的话，你会开发出像Sony Walkman那样的产品；处理失误的话，你会制造出像福特埃兹尔（Ford Edsel）轿车那样的东西，这种1950年代的失败产品作为如何设计、建造和推出新车的反面教材已经在汽车史中消失。
“推出新产品的最佳实践的最基本原则是生产那些市场需要的东西，消费者要能够负担得起，并且有一个有说服力的理由去以特定的价格购买它们。”格林·拉德克利夫·布莱安说，他是英国吉尔福德的一名工程师，曾在诸多项目中工作过，包括协和式飞机和工业流程控制系统。
顺利地推出一种成功的新产品涉及到跨越某些特别棘手的危险区域。“当你研究那些成功的新品推出并把它们与那些失败的案例比较时，这两者对项目开始时的四个基本问题的回答会暴露出诸多不同点。”格雷格·基森斯说，他是美国俄亥俄州哥伦布市的Catalyst管理咨询公司的常务合伙人。“这四个基本问题是：为什么要做这个项目？哪些人要参与到此项目中？我们都需要做些什么事情？何时做这些事情？”
还有，仅仅给出这四个问题的答案还不够：提出问题的顺序也很重要。“优秀的项目团队以这种顺序回答这些问题：从最有效的问题开始，向后递减，以确定日期开始。”基森斯说。
3，2，1，发射？
当然，理论上，找出些推出新产品的动机并不困难。公司一直在推出新产品，市场人员和工程师总会想出些聪明的主意。把两者结合起来，这是很简单的事情，不是吗？错。你不能仅仅因为市场部门认为是该推出点新东西的时候了就开发一种出类拔萃的新产品。
“客户关注的本质是使新产品开发出来并被推向市场。”西蒙·布拉格认为。布拉格是英国桑迪市ARC咨询集团的研究主任，他强调说，客户关注不仅仅意味着在设计的时候为客户着想；它意味着主动与客户交谈，引导出他们的想法，并且请他们对正在进行的工作提出建议。
这些事情说起来比做起来要简单。“为了给开发部门提供最多的好处，根据产品的不同，开发历时的不同和产品服务于单个客户和多个客户的不同，我们要谨慎地组织客户介入。”路·爱尔兰警告说。爱尔兰是来自美国田纳西州克拉克斯维尔市的项目管理顾问。所以，组织由各种客户代表构成的小组，花时间考虑你要问他们的问题和为什么要问这些问题，这些都是些比较明智的策略。要小心失去太多控制：“不能让客户来驱动项目的商业因素，要让他们关注于产品开发的进展。”爱尔兰说。
令客户失望
不要陷入一个过于紧迫的最后期限。专家们同意这是一件艰难的事情，但他们也一致认为管理本身就是做艰难的事情。
美国内华达州史巴克市Sierra Nevada公司的国防合同高级项目经理康妮·露娜认为，当最后期限变得非常紧迫的时候，同客户和高层管理的和谐关系将对缓和问题大有帮助。她说：“如果有一种比较和谐的关系，我们可以跟他们说我们无法在12个月内完成，但可以在13个月内做到。”尽管如此，她还是承认：“改变最后期限是个艰难的决定。”
至于人员因素，要让项目得到那些能够对产品的成功推出做出最大贡献的人，诀窍在于新技术能够多大程度的将人们从单一地点的束缚中解脱出来，艾力克·巴夫耶认为。他是美国德克萨斯州休斯顿市Welcom公司项目管理软件部门的全球市场副总裁。“许多年以前，让人们在一个地点工作很容易，因为这样比较易于管理和沟通。现在他们可以在任何地方工作。”他说。
然而，英明的项目经理总是能够感知远处的危险。帕特里克·卡路西欧说，他是位于加拿大安大略省康考德市的质谱仪生产商MDS Sciex公司的项目经理。他说：“避免组织支离破碎的团队很重要，因为这样会防止大量的技术和经验孤立分散。如果没有这样做，将会导致缺少跨职能部门的重要沟通，造成进度延误和费用超支。”
更多并不一定更好
不要忽视项目范围蔓延的危险性：在把新产品开发方法变得敏捷和灵活的努力过程中，公司要承担项目管理工作变得草率的风险。“‘敏捷’和‘灵活’是严密的方法论，它不能使新产品开发方法变得混乱无章。”爱尔兰说。
在Sierra Nevada公司，有一种很重要的工具来确保上述情况不会发生：配置控制委员会，这是一个在国防工业比较常见的监督团队。露娜说：“它为我们和客户设立了期望值，同时它也是我们管理范围蔓延的手段。如果客户要我们进行产品变更，它会使客户意图变得明确。”
换句话说，如果考虑得当，尽管在项目后期进行变更有利于创造出类拔萃的新产品，但在开始时做变更要比以后做更容易，风险也更小。问题在于：你能否通过“敏捷”和“灵活”把福特埃兹尔变成Sony Walkman？
原文：
Play to win
By Malcolm Wheatley
To develop new products quickly and efficiently, project managers must focus on the essentials with an eye toward innovation.
When lighting and building controls equipment manufacturer Merten GmbH & Co. KG of Wiehl-Boming, Germany, wanted to move upstream and sell its products to architects and designers rather than electrical installers, it realized that it needed a high-end, stylish product that would appeal to that market.
London, U.K.-based Grimshaw Industrial Design with offices in New York, N.Y., USA, provided the perfect candidate: a programmable glass switch for lighting and temperature controls, colored to match the surrounding wall. Together, the tow companies worked to turn the vision into reality. For Merten, new product development relies on technical feasibility,” says Axel Klingberg, director of project management. “My responsibility as project director is to set the basic requirements and stay in constant dialogue with the developers. I act as a filter, constantly checking the creative design, ensuring it remains practical, functional and takes into account the production processes.”
This job description is hard to beat – but tantalizingly difficult to deliver in practice. “Just because someone is a great business manager, that doesn’t make them a great project manager,” says Pamela T. Miller, vice president of enterprise strategy and quality at Newark, N.J., USA-based Horizon Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon BCBSNJ). It’s a conclusion that she’s come to after years of watching Horizon BCBSNJ tackle projects as far-ranging as new IT systems, improved regulatory compliance and bringing new managed healthcare products to market – the latter proving especially taxing in today’s troubled economy. “You need to have a cadre of business people who have been steeped in project management skills, education and methodologies,” she says.
Software systems certainly help. Every single project underway at Horizon BCBSNJ, whether for a new product or a new IT system, is managed and monitored though a project- and portfolio-management system from Business Engine Inc. of San Francisco, Calif., USA, which links to Microsoft Project. “It’s a single repository for everything: We have more than 200 projects in there right now,” Miller says. “Right at the very top of the organization, we’ll track the most important of those – the 35 or so that are most critical to our future.”
New products, intended for new markets – and offering new and different mixes of benefits, co-payments and optional extras – are prime candidates for that “most important” list. But management-through-software isn’t the complete answer: Horizon BCBSNJ also imposes some hard-noted gating rules, Miller says. “With large projects, we don’t give people the whole budget, but just a fraction of it, and say: ‘Go out and develop a fully-documented project plan and feasibility study.’ Then, when we have that, we give them some more.”
Rough Waters
Although its products aren’t physical ones that you can pick up at the grocery or hardware store, Horizon BCBSNJ neatly encapsulates many of the trials and tribulations of bringing a new product to market. Business that don’t innovate don’t survive. But innovation on its own isn’t the whole story. New products must be brought to market in a timely manner, meet a genuine marketplace need and avoid being resource-hogs that stifle development elsewhere. Get it right, and you’ve got a Sony Walkman on your hands, Get it wrong, and you’ve got a Ford Edsel – a 1950s vehicular turkey that has gone down in automobile history as an example of how not to design, build and launch a new car.
“The most basic piece of best practice is to build something that the market wants and needs, can afford and can find a compelling reason to buy at a specific price point,” says Glyn Radcliffe-Brine, a Guildford U.K.-based engineer who has worked on projects as diverse as the Concorde airliner and industrial process control systems.
Successfully developing a winning new product involves navigating around some particularly troublesome danger spots. “When you look at successful product launches and compare them to unsuccessful product lunches, a lot of the difference between the two boils down to answering four basic questions right at the start,” says Greg Githens, managing partner of Catalyst Management Consulting of Columbus, Ohio, USA. “Why are we doing this project? Who are the right people to have involved in it? What exactly are we going to do? And when are we going to do it?
What’s more, just figuring out the answers isn’t enough: The sequence in which the questions are addressed matters, too. “The best project teams will answer these questions in this order,” Githens says. “The least effective ones tend to start in the reverse order, beginning with fixed dates.”
3, 2, 1, Launch?
In theory, of course, working out the motivation for new products shouldn’t be too difficult. Companies are always launching new items, and marketers and engineers are always coming up with smart ideas. Combine the two, and it’s a no-brainer, right? Wrong, You’re not going to develop a world-beater just because marketing says it’s time to launch something new.
“Customer focus is essential to getting a new product developed and delivered,” says Simon Bragg, research director at ARC Advisory Group of Sandy, England. Bragg stresses that customer focus doesn’t just mean thinking generically about customers while drawing up designs; it means actively talking to customers, bouncing ideas off them and inviting them to critique work in progress.
That’s easier said than done. “Depending on the product, the duration of time required to develop the product, and whether the product is for single or multiple customers, customer involvement will need to be carefully structured in order to provide maximum benefits for the development team,” warn Law Ireland, a project management consultant from Clarksville, Tenn., USA. So getting a representative mix of customers and putting time into thinking about what you’re going to ask them – and why – are smart strategies. Be cautious about ceding too much control: “Don’t let the customer drive the business parameters of the project, but instead have him or her focus on the product’s progress,” he says.
Disappointing the Customer
Don’t get railroaded into a project deadline that is too tight. Experts agree that this is a tough call – but are just as unanimous that management is about making tough calls.
Connie Luna, senior program controls manager with defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corp., Sparks, Nev., USA, says that when dates look too tight, a good relationship with customers (and top management) can go a long way to sugaring the pill. “With a good relationship in place, it is possible to have a dialogue that says, we can’t make it in 12 months but we can in 13,” she says. Even so, she concedes, “changing the time frame is a tough decision.”
When considering the people dimension – getting the project staffed by the people who will make the greatest contribution to a successful product launch – the trick is to recognize the extent to which new technology has freed people from being tied to a single place, says Eric Pavyer, vice president of global marketing at project management software firm Welcom Inc. of Houston, Texas, USA. “In years gone by, it was easier to have people in one place, because it make them easy to manage, and easier to communicate with,” he says. “Now, they can work anywhere.”
However, the smart project manager will always be cognizant of the dangers of distance, says Patrick Carluccio, PMP, a project manager at MDS Sciex, a Concord, Ontario, Canada-based manufacturer of mass spectrometers. “It’s important to avoid structuring a disjointed team where pockets of technical expertise work in isolation,” he says. “This can lead to a lack of critical cross-functional communications, resulting in schedule and cost overruns.”
More Isn’t Always Better
Don’t overlook the dangers of scope creep, either: In the drive to become flexible and agile in their approach to new product development, companies can run the risk of slipshod project management practices. “’Agile’ and ‘flexible’ are methodologies that have rigor and should not be considered loose approaches to new product development,” Ireland says.
At Sierra Nevada Corp., a vital tool in ensuring that doesn’t happen often is the “configuration control board,” an oversight group that is common to the defense industry, Luna says. “It sets the expectations for us and the customer and is how we manage our scope creep,” she says. “If a customer wants us to make changes, it makes the implications very evident.”
In other words, change at the beginning of the project is easier and less risky than change toward the end – although change at the end can help create that world-beater, if it’s thought through correctly. The question is , could any amount of agility and flexibility have turned the Ford Edsel into a Sony Walkman?[@more@]
位于德国Wiehl-Bomig市的照明与建筑控制设备生产商Merten GmbH & Co. KG公司试图逆潮流而动：当他们把产品卖给建筑师和设计师而不是电气施工者时，他们意识到，他们需要流行的高端产品以适应市场需求。
英国伦敦的Grimshaw工业设计公司在美国纽约市设有分支机构，他们提供了完美的候选品：一种可编程的照明和温控玻璃开关，这种开关被涂成与四周墙壁协调的颜色。这两家公司合作将愿景变成了现实。“对于Merten公司来说，新产品的开发依赖于技术上的可行性，”项目管理总监艾克塞尔·科灵伯格说。“我作为项目总监的职责是设定基本的需求并与开发人员保持经常性的交流。作为一名筛选者，我要经常地检查那些创造性的设计方案，保证它们切实可行与实用，并且还需要考虑生产流程。”
这个工作描述比较理想，但实施起来非常困难。“这是因为一个优秀的业务经理不一定是一名优秀的项目经理。”帕米拉·T·米勒说，她担任总部设立在美国新泽西州内瓦克市的新泽西地平线蓝十字蓝盾公司（Horizon BCBSNJ）企业战略与质量部门的副总裁。这是她多年监管Horizon BCBSNJ公司处理过的广泛的项目所得出的结论，这些项目包括新的IT系统、改进业务流程和将健康险的新产品推向市场等，后者在现在糟糕的经济状况下被证明是异常费劲的。她认为，“你需要有一名接受过项目管理教育并掌握相关技能和方法的业务骨干。”
软件系统肯定会有所帮助。无论是开发一种新产品或新的IT系统，所有Horizon BCBSNJ公司正在实施的项目都由通过连接到Microsoft Project的组合项目管理系统所管理和监控，这套系统由美国加州旧金山市的Business Engine公司提供。“这是所有信息单一的存储中心：这里面有超过200个项目。”米勒说。“在公司的最高层，我们会监控那些对公司未来至关重要的35个项目。
那些针对新市场推出的新产品成为“最重要项目”列表的主要候选者，这些新项目提供了全新的受益、共同支付和可选附加服务的不同组合。然而，通过软件管理并不完整，Horizon BCBSNJ同时施行了一些有效而实际的准入规则，米勒说。“对于那些大型项目，我们起初并没有批准所有的预算，而只是其中的一部分，然后对他们说：‘请拿出一份完整归档的项目计划和可行性研究报告来。’然后，当他们完成这些文档之后，我们会拨给他们更多的预算。”
危险区域
尽管他们的产品不是那种可以在杂货店或五金店买得到的看得见摸得着的商品，Horizon BCBSNJ巧妙的避免了把新产品推向市场所要经历的考验和痛苦。没有创新的业务不会存活下来，但创新本身并不是全部内容。新产品必须被及时的推向市场以满足真正的市场需求，并且避免消耗过多的资源以免遏制其他新产品的开发。处理得当的话，你会开发出像Sony Walkman那样的产品；处理失误的话，你会制造出像福特埃兹尔（Ford Edsel）轿车那样的东西，这种1950年代的失败产品作为如何设计、建造和推出新车的反面教材已经在汽车史中消失。
“推出新产品的最佳实践的最基本原则是生产那些市场需要的东西，消费者要能够负担得起，并且有一个有说服力的理由去以特定的价格购买它们。”格林·拉德克利夫·布莱安说，他是英国吉尔福德的一名工程师，曾在诸多项目中工作过，包括协和式飞机和工业流程控制系统。
顺利地推出一种成功的新产品涉及到跨越某些特别棘手的危险区域。“当你研究那些成功的新品推出并把它们与那些失败的案例比较时，这两者对项目开始时的四个基本问题的回答会暴露出诸多不同点。”格雷格·基森斯说，他是美国俄亥俄州哥伦布市的Catalyst管理咨询公司的常务合伙人。“这四个基本问题是：为什么要做这个项目？哪些人要参与到此项目中？我们都需要做些什么事情？何时做这些事情？”
还有，仅仅给出这四个问题的答案还不够：提出问题的顺序也很重要。“优秀的项目团队以这种顺序回答这些问题：从最有效的问题开始，向后递减，以确定日期开始。”基森斯说。
3，2，1，发射？
当然，理论上，找出些推出新产品的动机并不困难。公司一直在推出新产品，市场人员和工程师总会想出些聪明的主意。把两者结合起来，这是很简单的事情，不是吗？错。你不能仅仅因为市场部门认为是该推出点新东西的时候了就开发一种出类拔萃的新产品。
“客户关注的本质是使新产品开发出来并被推向市场。”西蒙·布拉格认为。布拉格是英国桑迪市ARC咨询集团的研究主任，他强调说，客户关注不仅仅意味着在设计的时候为客户着想；它意味着主动与客户交谈，引导出他们的想法，并且请他们对正在进行的工作提出建议。
这些事情说起来比做起来要简单。“为了给开发部门提供最多的好处，根据产品的不同，开发历时的不同和产品服务于单个客户和多个客户的不同，我们要谨慎地组织客户介入。”路·爱尔兰警告说。爱尔兰是来自美国田纳西州克拉克斯维尔市的项目管理顾问。所以，组织由各种客户代表构成的小组，花时间考虑你要问他们的问题和为什么要问这些问题，这些都是些比较明智的策略。要小心失去太多控制：“不能让客户来驱动项目的商业因素，要让他们关注于产品开发的进展。”爱尔兰说。
令客户失望
不要陷入一个过于紧迫的最后期限。专家们同意这是一件艰难的事情，但他们也一致认为管理本身就是做艰难的事情。
美国内华达州史巴克市Sierra Nevada公司的国防合同高级项目经理康妮·露娜认为，当最后期限变得非常紧迫的时候，同客户和高层管理的和谐关系将对缓和问题大有帮助。她说：“如果有一种比较和谐的关系，我们可以跟他们说我们无法在12个月内完成，但可以在13个月内做到。”尽管如此，她还是承认：“改变最后期限是个艰难的决定。”
至于人员因素，要让项目得到那些能够对产品的成功推出做出最大贡献的人，诀窍在于新技术能够多大程度的将人们从单一地点的束缚中解脱出来，艾力克·巴夫耶认为。他是美国德克萨斯州休斯顿市Welcom公司项目管理软件部门的全球市场副总裁。“许多年以前，让人们在一个地点工作很容易，因为这样比较易于管理和沟通。现在他们可以在任何地方工作。”他说。
然而，英明的项目经理总是能够感知远处的危险。帕特里克·卡路西欧说，他是位于加拿大安大略省康考德市的质谱仪生产商MDS Sciex公司的项目经理。他说：“避免组织支离破碎的团队很重要，因为这样会防止大量的技术和经验孤立分散。如果没有这样做，将会导致缺少跨职能部门的重要沟通，造成进度延误和费用超支。”
更多并不一定更好
不要忽视项目范围蔓延的危险性：在把新产品开发方法变得敏捷和灵活的努力过程中，公司要承担项目管理工作变得草率的风险。“‘敏捷’和‘灵活’是严密的方法论，它不能使新产品开发方法变得混乱无章。”爱尔兰说。
在Sierra Nevada公司，有一种很重要的工具来确保上述情况不会发生：配置控制委员会，这是一个在国防工业比较常见的监督团队。露娜说：“它为我们和客户设立了期望值，同时它也是我们管理范围蔓延的手段。如果客户要我们进行产品变更，它会使客户意图变得明确。”
换句话说，如果考虑得当，尽管在项目后期进行变更有利于创造出类拔萃的新产品，但在开始时做变更要比以后做更容易，风险也更小。问题在于：你能否通过“敏捷”和“灵活”把福特埃兹尔变成Sony Walkman？
原文：
Play to win
By Malcolm Wheatley
To develop new products quickly and efficiently, project managers must focus on the essentials with an eye toward innovation.
When lighting and building controls equipment manufacturer Merten GmbH & Co. KG of Wiehl-Boming, Germany, wanted to move upstream and sell its products to architects and designers rather than electrical installers, it realized that it needed a high-end, stylish product that would appeal to that market.
London, U.K.-based Grimshaw Industrial Design with offices in New York, N.Y., USA, provided the perfect candidate: a programmable glass switch for lighting and temperature controls, colored to match the surrounding wall. Together, the tow companies worked to turn the vision into reality. For Merten, new product development relies on technical feasibility,” says Axel Klingberg, director of project management. “My responsibility as project director is to set the basic requirements and stay in constant dialogue with the developers. I act as a filter, constantly checking the creative design, ensuring it remains practical, functional and takes into account the production processes.”
This job description is hard to beat – but tantalizingly difficult to deliver in practice. “Just because someone is a great business manager, that doesn’t make them a great project manager,” says Pamela T. Miller, vice president of enterprise strategy and quality at Newark, N.J., USA-based Horizon Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon BCBSNJ). It’s a conclusion that she’s come to after years of watching Horizon BCBSNJ tackle projects as far-ranging as new IT systems, improved regulatory compliance and bringing new managed healthcare products to market – the latter proving especially taxing in today’s troubled economy. “You need to have a cadre of business people who have been steeped in project management skills, education and methodologies,” she says.
Software systems certainly help. Every single project underway at Horizon BCBSNJ, whether for a new product or a new IT system, is managed and monitored though a project- and portfolio-management system from Business Engine Inc. of San Francisco, Calif., USA, which links to Microsoft Project. “It’s a single repository for everything: We have more than 200 projects in there right now,” Miller says. “Right at the very top of the organization, we’ll track the most important of those – the 35 or so that are most critical to our future.”
New products, intended for new markets – and offering new and different mixes of benefits, co-payments and optional extras – are prime candidates for that “most important” list. But management-through-software isn’t the complete answer: Horizon BCBSNJ also imposes some hard-noted gating rules, Miller says. “With large projects, we don’t give people the whole budget, but just a fraction of it, and say: ‘Go out and develop a fully-documented project plan and feasibility study.’ Then, when we have that, we give them some more.”
Rough Waters
Although its products aren’t physical ones that you can pick up at the grocery or hardware store, Horizon BCBSNJ neatly encapsulates many of the trials and tribulations of bringing a new product to market. Business that don’t innovate don’t survive. But innovation on its own isn’t the whole story. New products must be brought to market in a timely manner, meet a genuine marketplace need and avoid being resource-hogs that stifle development elsewhere. Get it right, and you’ve got a Sony Walkman on your hands, Get it wrong, and you’ve got a Ford Edsel – a 1950s vehicular turkey that has gone down in automobile history as an example of how not to design, build and launch a new car.
“The most basic piece of best practice is to build something that the market wants and needs, can afford and can find a compelling reason to buy at a specific price point,” says Glyn Radcliffe-Brine, a Guildford U.K.-based engineer who has worked on projects as diverse as the Concorde airliner and industrial process control systems.
Successfully developing a winning new product involves navigating around some particularly troublesome danger spots. “When you look at successful product launches and compare them to unsuccessful product lunches, a lot of the difference between the two boils down to answering four basic questions right at the start,” says Greg Githens, managing partner of Catalyst Management Consulting of Columbus, Ohio, USA. “Why are we doing this project? Who are the right people to have involved in it? What exactly are we going to do? And when are we going to do it?
What’s more, just figuring out the answers isn’t enough: The sequence in which the questions are addressed matters, too. “The best project teams will answer these questions in this order,” Githens says. “The least effective ones tend to start in the reverse order, beginning with fixed dates.”
3, 2, 1, Launch?
In theory, of course, working out the motivation for new products shouldn’t be too difficult. Companies are always launching new items, and marketers and engineers are always coming up with smart ideas. Combine the two, and it’s a no-brainer, right? Wrong, You’re not going to develop a world-beater just because marketing says it’s time to launch something new.
“Customer focus is essential to getting a new product developed and delivered,” says Simon Bragg, research director at ARC Advisory Group of Sandy, England. Bragg stresses that customer focus doesn’t just mean thinking generically about customers while drawing up designs; it means actively talking to customers, bouncing ideas off them and inviting them to critique work in progress.
That’s easier said than done. “Depending on the product, the duration of time required to develop the product, and whether the product is for single or multiple customers, customer involvement will need to be carefully structured in order to provide maximum benefits for the development team,” warn Law Ireland, a project management consultant from Clarksville, Tenn., USA. So getting a representative mix of customers and putting time into thinking about what you’re going to ask them – and why – are smart strategies. Be cautious about ceding too much control: “Don’t let the customer drive the business parameters of the project, but instead have him or her focus on the product’s progress,” he says.
Disappointing the Customer
Don’t get railroaded into a project deadline that is too tight. Experts agree that this is a tough call – but are just as unanimous that management is about making tough calls.
Connie Luna, senior program controls manager with defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corp., Sparks, Nev., USA, says that when dates look too tight, a good relationship with customers (and top management) can go a long way to sugaring the pill. “With a good relationship in place, it is possible to have a dialogue that says, we can’t make it in 12 months but we can in 13,” she says. Even so, she concedes, “changing the time frame is a tough decision.”
When considering the people dimension – getting the project staffed by the people who will make the greatest contribution to a successful product launch – the trick is to recognize the extent to which new technology has freed people from being tied to a single place, says Eric Pavyer, vice president of global marketing at project management software firm Welcom Inc. of Houston, Texas, USA. “In years gone by, it was easier to have people in one place, because it make them easy to manage, and easier to communicate with,” he says. “Now, they can work anywhere.”
However, the smart project manager will always be cognizant of the dangers of distance, says Patrick Carluccio, PMP, a project manager at MDS Sciex, a Concord, Ontario, Canada-based manufacturer of mass spectrometers. “It’s important to avoid structuring a disjointed team where pockets of technical expertise work in isolation,” he says. “This can lead to a lack of critical cross-functional communications, resulting in schedule and cost overruns.”
More Isn’t Always Better
Don’t overlook the dangers of scope creep, either: In the drive to become flexible and agile in their approach to new product development, companies can run the risk of slipshod project management practices. “’Agile’ and ‘flexible’ are methodologies that have rigor and should not be considered loose approaches to new product development,” Ireland says.
At Sierra Nevada Corp., a vital tool in ensuring that doesn’t happen often is the “configuration control board,” an oversight group that is common to the defense industry, Luna says. “It sets the expectations for us and the customer and is how we manage our scope creep,” she says. “If a customer wants us to make changes, it makes the implications very evident.”
In other words, change at the beginning of the project is easier and less risky than change toward the end – although change at the end can help create that world-beater, if it’s thought through correctly. The question is , could any amount of agility and flexibility have turned the Ford Edsel into a Sony Walkman?[@more@]
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转载于:http://blog.itpub.net/7839396/viewspace-955617/
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