Case Study: Assisting a Global 1000 Electronics Manufacturer Improve Product Development
Performance within Their Public Sector Business

Description:
• A large consumer electronics company lacked a well integrated process for product development resulting in product delays, poor rationalization for research and development investment, and constant miscommunication between senior management, product marketing and the engineering group
  
• The management team was constantly in a “war room” mentality with vast disagreement around prioritization of needs. Engineering group of over 300 was constantly jockeyed between product/project priorities making the entire group less efficient
  
• Weekly meetings became a political forum with different product heads pleading their case for investment. Lack of quantitative analysis led to questionable decision making

Approach:
• A formal methodology was introduced to manage the entire product development process. Special attention was paid to ensure senior management buy-in. A pilot program was introduced around several key product development initiatives to test the new methodology
  
• The weekly meeting was shortened and presenters were given a formal template to follow, which stressed quantitative analysis over subjective analysis or opinion

Results:
• After implementation of the formal product development process the following improvements were realized:
  
  • Over 15 projects were eliminated, freeing up engineering and project management resources to assist on high priority development initiatives
    
  • Weekly meetings were shortened to 90 minutes, subjective analysis was largely eliminated resulting in attendance improvement of over 125%
    
  • Group profits increased by over 26% through the elimination of hiring requisitions, repurposing of product marketing and engineering staff and a streamlined product portfolio