Jorvig Consulting, Inc.
Roadmap to Superior Design Team Execution
Freedom from Surprises Newsletter
 December 2007
In This Issue
News
Process Improvement Overview
Current Process Assessment
Process Improvement Phase
How we can Help
Quick Links
Engineering Professional,
 
giftEnjoy your time with family and friends during this holiday season. This is a great opportunity to strengthen the connection with those outside of the working world that are an important part of our lives.

Most of us are aware of Business Process Improvement (BPI) or Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and some may have participated in this process. In essence a process such as this is taking a serious and sometimes painful look at how things are being done and identifying changes to the business process to improve quality, cycle time, productivity and predictability. That same business process renewal is applicable to a product design team and we will be discussing an implementation that you can utilize for your team. Follow this process and design team excellence is sure to flourish.

Jeff Jorvig, IC Design Process Visionary
JCI News
Design Process Improvement Overview
Both the Business Process Improvement and the Business Process Reengineering tend to focus on the business and it's interfaces into the other sub-processes, rarely getting into much detail on the design team processes and their interfaces. For significant improvements to be identified and realized within design, a focused effort must be completed specifically for product design that includes the interfaces into and out of product design.

There are two phases to design process improvements. The first is the assessment phase to learn, discover, understand and align the team to the current process. The second phase activities are to identify required process changes to meet the end objectives, as defined during the assessment phase. Depending on the magnitude of objectives the process is either targeting incremental improvements or a full reengineering effort, which clears the slate and starts from scratch. The diagram below represents the flow for both phases of design process renewal. Design Process Improvement (DPI) provides incremental improvements while Design Process Reengineering (DPR) is a major overhaul of how the design team operates.

Process Improvement Flow Diagram
Current Process Assessment Phase
Assessment begins by establishing the objectives of the renewal process. Why are you going through this, what is expected to change and how will you be measuring progress? The objectives must be generated and agreed upon by a broad cross section of the business and as an example might include cycle time, predictability, first time success etc. As you are setting the objectives be sure to identify the measurement criteria for each. Establish goals and reach consensus prior to moving forward in the assessment. Note that an unbiased 3rd party facilitator from outside the organization will provide the most effective path through the assessment phase.

The next step is to educate the team on the overall process to be utilized. The team needs to understand the sequence of events, their level of participation in each and the expected results of each activity. Emphasis must be placed on fact finding not on faultfinding. The team must feel at ease in order to allow buried, unknown issues to bubble up and be recognized. I would also suggest instruction on design process best practices to provide the team with a properly framed perspective on an idealized design process.

Scope of Unknown SearchThe final segment of this phase is the process discovery to find out where the areas for improvement are; the "unknowns" that are silently stealing away precious development bandwidth. This activity is the core of any renewal and must be broad, thorough, frank and honest. The required scope of NPD participation in this activity can be seen in the diagram to the left. The span of design activities for discovery must include all the sub-process identified in the design process improvement flow diagram in the previous section. Tools for proper discovery of all the unknown roadblocks include surveys, interviews, lessons learned and formal process mapping. The completion of the discovery segment represents the conclusion of the process assessment. Deliverables from this phase must minimally include a map of the existing process and a listing of the roadblocks, both newly discovered and well known.

Knowledge Resources:
For more information about finding roadblocks here are responses to an thought provoking LinkedIn question : How do you find what you don't know about roadblocks in your development process?

Article on Discovery: Enable Predictable Design Execution by Looking Beyond Tools and Flows

Discovery Newsletter: Getting to Know What you Don't Know
Process Improvement or Reengineering Phase
During this phase changes are identified to mitigate the impact of any of the roadblocks identified during assessment. In the case of reengineering the existing process map is wiped clean and it's rebuilt from scratch. For incremental improvements the process map is annotated or altered to capture any changes to the existing process. The participation scope of this phase again must include representation from all disciplines within the new product development group.

The objective is to go through each one of the roadblocks captured during the assessment phase and identify changes to the process that will mitigate the impact of the risk. This must be operated as a brainstorming activity to generate a wide variety of uninhibited possibilities for each of the roadblocks. The solutions for each roadblock can be further refined and agreed upon by the NPD team, after they have all been identified.

Once the final solutions are acknowledged and the process map is updated to indicate the agreed changes the process containers need to be revised to capture the changes. In the case of a full reengineering new process containers may need to be created where none has existed. Some examples of process containers include any documents that are used to guide your process such as travelers/checklists, design guides, web flows, process specifications, flow diagrams and knowledge management systems.

Freedom from SuprisesSuccess will come out of an environment that breeds candor, is non-threatening to members and displays a true desire to learn and not blame. Someone outside the organization will have the best opportunity to establish and maintain such an atmosphere. Completion of this process should provide insight into the design organization dynamics as well as solutions to where undesirable dynamics are creating roadblocks to optimal performance. Thorough completion of this activity is sure to bring your organization freedom from design project surprises.
How we can Help
If you would like assistance in a Design Process Improvement or Design Process Reengineering activity we can provide the following:
  • Coaching of another individual in completing the process.
  • Facilitation of the entire process.
  • Roadblock discovery via surveys and interviews.
  • Process mapping.
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Email here with any questions or for more information. We can also be reached at 480-895-0478 or 877-895-0478.