+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Many a true word....:-)
Being British myself, I just had to post this (from the Scott Adams / Dilbert) website+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Visual Management for Development
Visual Management is one of the foundations of a lean approach to business. Essentially the idea is that there are a limited number of factors that hold the key to business process performance, and that if we make these factors visible to everyone in graphical format, then we can see the effects of our actions (or lack of action) and therefore quickly respond to get back on track. These types of indicators are very widespread on the shop floor, where 'Lean' has been established for some tme. However, in my travels through development labs, design offices and marketing departments, I rarely see visual indicators focussed on new product development.
(more)+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Change is a Requirement
I often read articles and product development website blurb about how important it is to get good, frozen requirements as early as possible in a project. Then when I talk to product developers about how stable their requirements are, I always get the same reaction - laughter. It doesn't matter who the client is, whether they are pre-emptively designing and developing their own products, or whether they are in the design/engineer-to-order business, it seems that requirements change is a given. Why should this be so - why can't the 'customer' decide what they want?It takes me back to my MBA studies when we talked about the nature of laws of supply and demand. These laws are formulated using the concept of 'perfect markets' or 'perfect knowledge', however we are all aware that this state of perfection never exists. (more)
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Read the Small Print!
If you are anything like me, when you install new software, you skip right by the End User License Agreement, pausing just long enough to tick the box marked "I have read and understood......" Maybe we should be more careful next time. Did you know that when you install AutoCAD for example, you are apparently authorising them to have access to search your home for illegal copies and charge you for the costs incurred? There are other strings attached you might also be worried about. Ralph Grabowski points them out in his entertaining weblog.
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶"Fortune favours the prepared mind" - Louis Pasteur
I like to relate this quotation to the topic of innovation. I guess that "Eureka" moments can happen spontaneously - an idea just pops out of nowhere. However what happens next? The key to good ideas is to recognise how to pick them up and run with them. This is what turns creativity into innovation. Companies that are truly and consistently innovative have the support 'systems' in place to quickly assess the value of the idea and turn it into something worthwhile and valuable. They are also able to recognise just as quickly that the idea may not in fact be going anywhere (yet).
(more)+ 2 - 0 | § ¶The launchpad to intelligent discussion on the topic of NPD methods, technologies and tools
Well - we all have to start somewhere. Now that many more people are aware of what this blog thing is all about we felt it was about time that there was a dedicated blog discussing the ins and outs of effective new product development.
We know of many excellent sites with gems of wisdom on the topics of Project Management, Knowledge Management and Innovation Management (see the 'Blogs we read' section). With this blog we want to try to bring these threads together in one place to see if we can combine the wisdom from each of these 'disciplines' into a coherent and integrated set of practices that can re-inforce each other. We were also surprised to find very few (if any) serious blogs discussing the application of PLM technologes (Product Lifecycle Management to the uninitiated) to new product development. We would like to bring discussion of this rapidly developing area into the fold also.
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