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In a recent post, we discussed who is on a new product development (NPD) team.  For example, a working NPD team must include representatives of project management, marketing, engineering, and finance.  Collectively, these functions can lay out the new product project for design, development, and commercialization. Of course, a working team cannot know the answers…

I believe that time is our most precious resource.  Once it is spent, it cannot ever be recovered or replaced.    minute of laziness and sloth-like behavior may cost 10 minutes of productivity, so time even has a multiplier effect.  Wasted time costs not only production but impacts those around us as well. Project Management Schedules…

Risk is kind of a negative word.  We usually associate risk with bad things happening.  We feel relieved if we have taken a risk and everything turns out okay.  Companies hire specialists in risk management to minimize physical hazards and financial exposures. The Project Management Institute (PMI) talks about risk more as an uncertainty.  There…

Culture is one of those words that we all know what it means, yet we struggle to identify and name it.  Team and organizational cultures are best characterized from those within the group.  They might describe the culture as open and risk-tolerant or as hierarchical and lacking trust.  New product development is a systematic approach…

New product development is typically a complex, but routine, endeavor for most mature companies.  Product development and product management begin with the innovation strategy.  In turn, the innovation strategy links to the corporate strategy via growth goals.  For instance, one company might seek to grow its retail outlets over wholesale for a specialty product.  Meanwhile,…

In any business endeavor, success depends on the right process as well as the right people.  In new product development (NPD), we follow processes (like WAGILE) to minimize investment risk and maximize value delivery (to both customer and company).  NPD projects are executed by cross-functional, multi-disciplinary teams. NPD teams are the sum of a core…

I am not a big fan of rules.  I suppose it’s because my mother had a lot of rules while I was growing up.  Some of them, in retrospect, were to help keep the house clean and running efficiently.  But some of her rules made no sense at all – even when I view them…

Loans among friends can quickly impact their friendship in a negative way.  I have learned that loaning a book to a friend really means giving them the book.  Not intentionally, people lose or damage the items they have borrowed so they cannot return them.  (Or are embarrassed to admit it.) My dad was a CPA,…