Racing on the Fastlane!!
The Pressure of time
With globalisation, media proliferation and the hitherto unimaginable reach offered by the internet for information and commerce, every customer now has the opportunity to experience the latest trends that emerge globally. And as customer tastes wax and wane with these mercurial trends, products become obsolete faster. This means that product lifecycle are shrinking across all categories. Also, there is very little time to understand this change in the tastes of customer and react to it. Therefore there is an overwhelming need to deliver new products, irrespective of whether it is a technology product or not, into the market at a much faster pace than ever before.
Also, there is a pressure to launch a product “On time”, which is experienced differently in different business segments due to the varied nature of their businesses. For a Consumer durable or an automotive, it might be the pressure to launch a product before its peak season to capitalise on the increased buying sentiment. Similarly, if we take the pharmaceutical industry, the pressure might be to show more products filed for patents within the financial year end to boost its credibility in the stock market. In the case of a software product, the pressure is usually to gain the first mover advantage in the market against its competitors through its latest release.
Every company is thus literally in a race with its competition to launch their products faster to gain the consumers’ mindshare. But this unprecedented need for not only a large number of new products but also for their well-timed release into the market, poses an enormous challenge for New Product Development departments within these companies. Any mistake can prove to be costly.
The New Product Development environment is just like a racetrack- very demanding and unforgiving!
In most NPD departments, there are multiple teams working on different products. But they all use the same shared resources for activities like design, purchase, testing etc. So inside these product development teams, there is another kind of race which is always on….. if products have to be developed and launched in time, they first have to compete for these common resources with the other teams within their company!
The Control Conundrum
To drive timely completions of NPD projects, the top management has one control mechanism in place — the assigned “Due Date” for completion. These dates are considered to be holy cows in NPD and all projects and project teams are measured on adherence to these dates. But, what is important here is to ponder on whether “due dates” really hold the sanctity that they command. So to delve a little bit deeper, let us study how due dates are arrived at, what happens to these dates during the course of execution and what impact chasing these due dates has on the execution of projects.
Setting due dates and milestones
While organisations try to arrive at a due date considering the various market needs like beginning of the season, a dependent marketing activity, competitors actions etc. as mentioned earlier, the “dictated due dates”, i.e. those that are communicated to project teams are usually different from the dates on which they are really required. This is generally because it is strongly held in belief by most that if we “Aim for the skies, we can at least reach the celling”. So the top management tends to demand a product earlier so that they can be sure that the product is launched when intended, even if there are any surprises/hiccups during the course of development.
When there are a lot of NPD projects running in the organisation, the bandwidth of senior management is not enough to monitor all the projects continuously. Hence projects are reviewed from time to time based on various milestones. Now, this “time pressure” to deliver a project on time trickles down the hierarchy from one level to another in the form of these milestones for different events- viz. prototype development, parts finalisation, requirements gathering, freezing formulation, market study, product validation etc. While the pressure on the dictated due date is intact, (it might only become tighter) an equal amount of pressure is developed in these pockets, namely the milestones. This is because of the inherent belief in every organisation that the failure to achieve a particular milestone puts the product launch in jeopardy. It is always perceived that for the project to complete on time each task must also complete on time.
As mentioned earlier there are resources which are common across all the NPD projects in the company. When the Project due dates are converted into milestones, there is a milestone date approaching every week or fortnight for these common teams. So while they work towards achieving these milestones, if due to some reason, the mile stone of one project is missed, there is a high probability of a ripple of delay in all the approaching milestones! And higher the variability in the development process of these products, higher is the probability that these milestones will be missed.
The Inevitable skip
The hallmark of any new product development is innovation; innovation in technology used, in terms of ease of use, look and feel packaging etc. Such innovative development is underscored by uncertainty –i.e. the time it takes to cross a particular stage/ clear a milestone in development, is well, anybody’s guess. Iterations and failures are normal and the time taken for completion of design /development is best known only in hindsight.
Any Product that has to be launched in the market for the masses usually goes through 4 common stages namely Concept Validation, Product Validation, Process Validation and Production Validation which may be termed differently in different industries / companies as the case may be. Each phase has its own relevance and significance. When there is immense pressure of time, product design teams are more prone to committing mistakes. When we add the effect of typical uncertainties in this environment to this, all initial plans made for development go for a toss. Consequently, various teams feel compelled to make some compromises towards end of each milestone. So, very often milestones are met on record, but not in spirit. This means that some part of the scope to be met for that milestone is incomplete and is carried forward in the hope of meeting it within the next milestone.
But this “Scope Skipping” that happens without taking the necessary decisions proves to be costly as the project progresses further.
Some mature organisations have a gating/review mechanism to detect violations pertaining to the “Scope Skipping”. But sadly, in the race to finish, these gates are never hard enough to stop as they are deemed to be and serve as mere pit stops — a formality. So such skipping of scope often goes unchecked.
As the Project progresses further it can be seen that the pressure on a subsequent stage is now greater as it carries the additional burden of the previous stage along with the deliverables for the current stage. Therefore, there is higher chance for “Scope Skipping” to repeat in the subsequent milestones. This practice cascades downstream without causing significant pain till the last stage of the project. Then the due date arrives and it becomes visible that there is much more to be done!
At this point the management has no choice but to make a call between time and quality- does the company want to launch the product in time or does it want to compromise on scope? In spite of aggressive due dates, the company is now either forced to launch a product which is different from that which was originally envisaged or reconsider these dates.The top management now expedites a lot to complete by the revised date . Often, the revised date is further revised multiple times.
What sanctity does a Due date hold if it is subject to revision again and again and also does not ensure timely completion of projects?
Destress to Deliver
What we have observed so far is that while trying to manage individual projects in isolation, the organisation enters a vicious loop of milestones and delays which cascade into delays for other projects too!
Hence, it is apparent that the due dates which are often construed as a reference for monitoring projects and ensuring timely completion end up as a deterrent for the same. So, it makes more sense to De-stress the NPD teams by taking them out of the realm of these Due Dates. But, the pertinent question that pops in our mind now is that if not for due dates, how would one manage a project.
Actually as an organisation, one must be focusing on maximising the rate of completion of projects rather than on time delivery, albeit ensuring the requisite quality and cost. Because, there is no secret formula to know in foresight whether a Product will be successful or not. But by ensuring that more projects are completed for a given span of time, they stand a chance to increase the instances of launching successful products in the market.
As the Project flows between different entities in the organisation, the only way to achieve an increased rate of completion is by trying to improve the flow of Projects in the organisation. To achieve this we must:
1. Take up lesser number of Projects for execution as the Focus is better and the projects can be monitored continuously.
2. Have a clear sequential priority across projects which means that milestone or project due dates cannot dictate the priority and keep completing tasks in the order of priority- rather than trying to complete every task across every project as per a predefined milestone
3. Identify the areas(teams/departments) where the flow is congested and try to resolve these impediments to flow rather than trying to expedite every project as per its due date.
4. Control the elapsed time of tasks under progress by monitoring them on a daily basis and resolve the underlying issues if the elapse time is more than what is required.
5. Stage gates must not be violated as flow-backs are a big impediment to the flow of the Project. Ensure hardening of gates to check violation, which means gates are adhered to and are not just a formality.
At the end of the day every team must feel de-stressed so that it can work as fast it can, just like a racer on the circuit, who tries his best to drive as fast as possible. Moreover, delivering a product in the way it was envisioned will ensure a higher chance of success in the market. Otherwise the organisation will end up carpet bombing the market with several products which are damp squibs. For those who make their living in the Fast lane, “Life is a race”, but even the Formula One Legend Juan Manuel Fangio had once said:
“To finish first, you must first finish!”
