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