Project Challenges Survey Results
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Freedom from
Project Surprises Newsletter - Issue #40
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August 2008 |
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Interested
to know what project execution challenges New Product Development (NPD)
teams in the semiconductor industry are experiencing? Back in June I
sent out a survey to research semiconductor development project
execution and I will be sharing the results with you in this newsletter
issue. The response rate was a little over 11% on 140 requests. Thanks
to those who spent the time to respond. The survey is still open here
if you wish to participate with only 7-10 minutes of your time. Those
who complete the survey receive a link, allowing the monitoring of real
time results.
Please Note:
Some of our subscribers who do not normally receive our monthly
newsletter have received this single issue due to a broad interest in
the survey results.
Jeff Jorvig, NPD Process Consultant
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News of Interest
- I spent a week
in San
Jose this month speaking with various semiconductor companies about
their design projects. Thanks to all those that hosted a meeting
with me and participated in the discussions.
- Is
requirements closure a challenge for your organization? Check
out the Quality Function Deployment Institute
to learn about methodologies that will help formulate a requirements
strategy.
- Interested in learning about semiconductor industry NPD challenges?
Take
this 7-10 minute survey and view the results
when your finished. This newsletter issue will be reviewing the survey
results as of July 29, 2008.
- Check out this web
based
solution to managing your NPD/NPI process here.
- Check out our quick
start instant downloads for managing design
projects.
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The Survey Responses
This
survey targeted three specific areas for new product development
projects in the semiconductor industry. The information collected
related to project overruns, scope change and the positive or negative
sources of impact to project execution.
Note: Click on the images for a full
size view of the data.
Estimating
a figure for percentage of average overruns is not a simple task,
considering that projects will have different levels of difficulty and
risk. Given this complexity I was surprised to find a fairly consistent
response for schedule overruns to be in the 10-30% range. There were a
few outside the normal distribution, however the average was well
distributed in the high 20% range.
For cost overruns, I clearly
did not have enough resolution in the 20-50% range. Most of the
responses landed on the 20-50% figure, which should have been further
broken down into two or three ranges. The distribution was again fairly
consistent with a few inputs outside of the standard deviation.
Positive and
Negative Impact Sources
These
questions were ranking a list of 10 sources of impact to project
execution. The largest contributor to project impact was the overall
requirements. The surprise for me was the project impact due to
customer involvement. That was one of lowest contributors to project
performance, indicating the customers participation plays a minimal
role in project performance, relative to other factors.
Also
noteworthy was where tools came in on the list. The lower ranking
relative to other contributors confirms that improving tools will not
provide a significant benefit to design execution, relative to other
more dominant factors. According to the data individual
objectives/deliverables, overall requirements, planning and project
leadership play a more significant role in product development
execution than does the tool capabilities.
Scope Change
These
two questions intended to identify the level of feature creep that
occurs on projects. Feature growth appears to average around 20% and
feature shrinkage comes in at just under 10%. Again, this question was
probably difficult to pin a number on, however the data was
surprisingly consistent.
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Sources
of
Project Impact
I
want to expand upon what was found to be the major sources of project
impact since these items will play a substantial role in the overall
project execution success. A focus on these chief contributors should
provide a visible and positive impact to a projects execution flow
towards early revenue.
Requirements Closure
The
primary reason that requirements closure is an issue is because this
key step is likely not being managed to meet the teams expectations, it
just happens. This is a major milestone in a project and someone must
own it, identify expectations, track actions, track deliverables,
manage risks and drive it to the agreed closure or it will drag on for
months. This significant milestone is the source feeder for the entire
planning process and will therefore be your largest contributor to
project unpredictability. For information on a formalized process for
requirements closure please see the Quality Function Deployment
organization.
Individual Objectives
This one has to do with the crispness of individual's deliverable
expectations. Is a designer just delivering a schematic or are they delivering a design that
includes a package of specific deliverables, analysis activities, test
modes and verification steps to meet a specific set of requirements?
The team must agree to the detailed deliverables from all activities
and then manage towards meeting them. This includes deliverables to and
from product engineering, test, project management, marketing and the
business as well as each designer. You never want anyone guessing about
what they are delivering, where they are delivering it, who they are
delivering it to and when they will be delivering it. Ignore the
deliverable details and the team will be quietly reworking things to
make them right for themselves, further contributing to project
unpredictability.
Feature Control
Known
as scope expansion, scope control or feature creep; this is the
ever-evolving feature set of the project. Change is not necessarily
good or bad. However, changes must be visible, have any project impact
identified, have a benefit identified and be agreed upon by key
stakeholders. The source of a change can be both external and internal;
in either case the monitoring and approval must be the same. A change
is rarely ever free, although it may be appear that way through a
limited view of project impact scope. Be sure to have a process in
place to monitor and approve all changes to prevent them from quietly
stealing away your time to revenue.
Project Planning
Project
planning is not solely the tasks, dates, and resource definitions
rolled into a planning tool. A thorough plan must include the
deliverable expectations to improve upon the clarity of individual
objectives, another large contributor to project success or failure.
Design guides can provide an ideal source for this type of information
and can be a simple word document or an elaborate online system. Of
great importance is that something exists to manage the details of
individual deliverable requirements. An individuals deliverable
contributions must be part of the planning process and be completed
prior to commencement of significant project activity.
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| How we
can Help
"Providing solutions to the hidden, behind the scenes project
roadblocks that quietly steal early revenue opportunity"
- Do
you need to understand what's impacting your NPD teams planned level of
productivity? We have several approaches for uncovering productivity
barriers.
- Interested in learning your organizations take
on
product development execution roadblocks? We can customize, deploy and
analyze a custom survey to gather this important information for you.
- Design
process solutions for challenge areas such as scope control,
requirements closure, clarity of individual requirements, project
launch decisions, production release and design spin reductions to name
a few.
- NPD team workshop to improve planning,
execution and monitoring skills.
- Web based NPD workflow management.
- Ready made downloads: schedule, checklist, analog design guide.
- Increase design management bandwidth via Virtual Design Manager.
Contact us today via email, 480-895-0478 or
877-895-0478 |
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Feedback
To increase the value of this newsletter for you I would like
to hear your comments.
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newsletter?
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the future?
- How is the format?
- Ask a question and I will anonymously post and
answer it here in this section.
Please email me here with any questions,
comments or suggestions that will help me better serve my readers. I
would enjoy hearing from you.
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