Why Should we Rework our NPD Process?
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Freedom from
Project Surprises Newsletter - Issue #38
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June 2008 |
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Are
you familiar with the expressions Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
and Business Process Improvement (BPI)? Both relate to creating
positive changes in the processes utilized in operating a business. BPR
starts from a clean slate and builds processes from the ground up while
BPI targets incremental changes in specific areas. These very same
successful business improvement activities are also appropriate for an
organizations New Product Development process, although rarely done in
the semiconductor industry. Why not? That's a great question and an
ideal subject for this month's newsletter.
Jeff Jorvig, NPD Process Consultant
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News of Interest
- Jeff is traveling and out of the office through
June 8th.
- Check out the PIEmatrix solution to managing
your design process here.
- Ever looked at Mind
Mapping for brainstorming ideas? It makes a great way to map out
concepts. Give one a try at http://www.mindmeister.com.
- Check out our quick
start instant downloads.
- Are your projects bleeding from unplanned
surprises? Take a quick read of your development
roadblocks by checking out our Quick Discovery Survey.
Leadership Quote of the month:
"Success seems to be
connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make
mistakes, but they don't quit."
--Conrad Hilton |
We are doing Okay - Why Should we
Rework our NPD Process?
Statements
such as "We are doing okay, so why should we need to rework our NPD
process?" are all too common across the semiconductor industry, yet
many organizations are challenged in completing projects as planned.
How can this be? In the majority of cases design teams will place the
reasons for project execution difficulties on design tools with
explanations such as they did not work right, had bugs causing delays,
did not have the necessary capabilities or failed completely. From a
designer's perspective, tools are commonly identified as the reason for
project slips.
There is no question as to the tremendous value
of design tools in the completion of a chip project; however, tagging
all the project execution issues on them leaves significant improvement
possibilities out of reach. A belief that project issues are
principally tool related minimizes a localized problem focus, purely
because they typically can't be fully resolved within an NPD
organization. Hence things stay as they are, project after project due
to a belief that the source of the problem is out of reach. An
unsubstantiated assumption that all issues stem from tools breeds a
belief that project execution is doing okay or "good enough", merely
because tools are out of the NPD teams jurisdiction.
If you
require real improvements, it's critical to look beyond the tools for
answers. Below are the major execution issues I have seen from working
with many design teams over the years:
- No scope change control in place - Feature
Creep runs
free to silently steal away your team's productivity.
- Unmanaged requirements closure - The process of
deciding what to do drags on and on, eating away development time.
- Deliverable
disconnects between deliverer and receiver for a given task - team
members are not getting what they need to be successful.
- Plans
that are based on imaginary resources/capabilities that did not
materialize - fictional expectations created surprises in the midst of
project execution.
- Sense of urgency that falsely justifies
corners to be cut and allows project launch without a proper roadmap
(the plan) to successful production. No risk/benefit analysis completed
to justify these decisions.
Tool
problems are not even on this list! Why not? Because tool issues would
be covered under plans that assume imaginary capabilities, item four of
the list. Why would a project be approved if the tools could not
produce the required results? There must be action around tools
expectations and validation as part of the project planning practices
and that's a really a process related issue, not a tool issue.
Now
back to the original question: Are things really okay or are there some
process related activities that will bring positive results? Heroic
efforts to make tools work mid-stream in a project will never match the
results that can be achieved through a well-developed process; one that
is communicated, includes tool/flow expectations, is easily followed,
is agreed upon and is believed in.
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Improving
or
Reengineering your NPD Process
Once
you have decided that your NPD execution will benefit from a focused
effort to modify or reengineer your process, there is rewarding work to
be done. I have several ideas to get you started. Engaging in a process
renewal effort must be broad in scope and include participation of the
entire development team. Engaging upon a NPD process renewal with a
limited scope of discipline participation is guaranteed to provide
limited success. Don't seek justification to limit participation, seek
a means to expand it.
Thoughts
on
Managing Change
The
most important concept to address when engaging change (new processes)
is that the team will be skeptical of this activity simply because it
will be different. Change will always create anxiety among the team
member's, an uneasiness that must not be written off or it will
definitely impair your plans. The most common reasons your team will be
uneasy about change are as follows:
- They may loose a capability that is important
to them.
- They do not understand why this process change
is necessary.
- They disagree with the risk/benefit of a
process change.
- They fear not having the relevant skills
necessary to work in the new process environment.
These
concerns must be mitigated to produce and enable a successfully
deployed process change. Address these items well and your team is
certain to be energized about the possibilities to improve his or her
productivity.
Start
with creating "As Is" NPD Process (What you are doing today)
Brown Paper
Session -
Hang a large sheet of paper on the wall and use post-it notes to define
each step in the process. Involve a cross broad section of your NPD
team in this process with the objective of mapping out the flow of a
project from concept to production release using the post-it notes
(tasks/activities) and arrows (flow). The completeness and
understanding of the existing process will become evident during this
exercise, a very enlightening experience.
Discovery -
This activity is essential to uncover the roadblocks (unknowns) that
may exist in the current NPD process. Individual team members know how
roadblocks are impacting their productivity, although they may not be
able to see that there is or could be a solution. Formal discovery is
best handled as one on one discussion using questions specifically
tailored to uncovering roadblocks and/or deliverable issues. Share the
discovery learning's with your team. More on Discovery
Project Post Mortems
- Use project post mortems as a forum to expand learning's
about any deficiencies in your process.
Finish
with
"To Be" NPD Process (Your updated or reengineered process)
Brown paper session -
Once you have gathered all your inputs about the existing process I
would suggest once again visiting the brown paper process that was
created during the development of your as is process. Again pull the
key team members together and plan out what your new process needs to
be. This is best concluded over a period of several days, making
liberal use of timeouts for members to reflect. Once this process is
completed capture your process in a tool such as Visio for final
documentation.
Process Containers -
The medium to be used for your new process is an extremely important
step for your successful deployment. It must be something that is
easily used by the team, all of the team. The worst thing you could do
with your new NPD process is capture it in a form that is not highly
accessible by the team, thus leaving your well developed process to
gather dust instead of providing the intended benefit. Process
containers that I have seen as fairly effective for this purpose
include design guides, design travelers, PIEmatrix and possibly
schedule templates, although that's a stretch due to limited
accessibility.
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How we
can Help
NPD process improvement or reengineering is our
specialty and we can deliver the results you need.
- Management of a process discovery to find your
development roadblocks.
- Host a brown paper process session for "as is"
and "to be" processes.
- Manage a thorough reengineering of your process.
- Develop process containers that your entire NPD
team can utilize.
Contact us today via email, 480-895-0478 or
877-895-0478 |
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