Project Management in Product Development

Leadership Skills and Management Techniques to Deliver Great Products

George Ellis

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780128023228
• eBook ISBN: 9780128025598
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Operations
• Index: Business

Project Management in Product Development: Leadership Skills and Management Techniques to Deliver Great Products is written for new and aspiring project managers in product development. Although texts on project management are common, the material presented here is unique, instead focusing on product development, a challenging segment of project management because of the high level of uncertainty, the need for a robust set of problem-solving techniques, and a demand for broad cross-functional teams.The book also focuses on more than just project management techniques, including a thorough treatment of transformational and transactional leadership. Other topics covered include problem-solving techniques, development, and continuous improvement of processes required in product development, risk recognition and management, and proper communication with mangers and other stakeholders.Finally, project management techniques used in product development are presented, including the critical path method, scrum and XP, and Kanban/lean project development, along with the strengths and weaknesses of each.- Provides ways to successfully manage product development projects by teaching traditional and advanced project management techniques like Gantt, CPM, Agile, Lean, and others- Covers transformational and transactional leadership, how to create a vision and engage the team, as well as tactics on how to manage a complex set of tasks- Uses a practical, common sense approach to the day-to-day activities of a project manager, including project planning, project process development, problem-solving, project portfolio management, reporting, and more- Presents a thorough comparison of popular project management tools- Includes many examples, cases, and side-bars that are included throughout the book

Part I

The Fundamentals

Outline

Introduction

Chapter 1. An Introduction to Project Management for Product Development

Chapter 2. The Critical Path Method: Planning Phase

Chapter 3. The Critical Path Method: Execution Phase

Introduction

Part I will present the fundamentals of project management. This part is designed to get the you off to a quick start: presenting the why’s and how’s of project management as it applies to product development, and then quickly jumping into the planning and execution of a simple project.

Chapter 1 Introduction

Describes the reasons projects are used to develop product and the make-up of a typical project team. Discusses how projects for product development are different from other project types. Discusses reasons to be a project manager (PM) and what makes a person a good fit to the role.

Chapter 2 The Critical Path Method: Planning Phase

Presents a step-by-step planning process appropriate for a basic new-product development project. Discusses each step in detail, giving the largest coverage to schedule development.

Chapter 3 The Critical Path Method: Execution Phase

Provides details at multiple levels on how to execute the project planned in Chapter 2.

Chapter 1

An Introduction to Project Management for Product Development

Abstract

This chapter introduces the project structure and why it has become so popular across so many industries. It presents the “Iron Triangle,” the balancing of project cost, schedule, and deliverables that is central to all projects. It discusses the project stakeholders: the project manager, the project team, the sponsor, and other internal and external contributors to and beneficiaries of the project. It then describes the four main differences between product development projects and other types of projects. The role of the project manager is presented: why companies need them, what skills they should process, and why someone would want to learn this skill set. It ends with a discussion of certification for project managers.

Keywords

Certification; Iron triangle; Product development projects; Project manager; Project sponsor; Project structure; Stakeholders

1.1. The Project: Flexibility, Communication, and Accountability

A project is a sequence of activities undertaken to accomplish a specified outcome at a defined time using a defined set of resources. The project team is made up of the people who work on the various tasks of the project including the project manager (PM) who leads the team and the project sponsor, typically a member of the senior staff, who provides oversight and approvals.

The project structure rests on a complex chain of commitments made among the project team members and between the organization and the project team. The most basic of all those commitments is the “Iron Triangle” shown in Figure 1.1[1]. In product development, the triangle represents that the team will be given time and resources (people, expenses, and support) in exchange for delivering a product that meets the specification. The PM can breech that commitment by missing all or part of a deliverable, delaying the completion date, or exceeding the budget. The project sponsor can also breech the commitment by expanding the deliverables (scope creep), pulling committed resources from the team, or shortening the schedule. These are breeches whether the sponsor or PM takes the actions directly or fails to prevent others from doing so. This triangle is deceptively simple—in a single project, it may take on a 100 forms, each of which may need to be negotiated, documented, and ultimately executed. It may be said that all of project management—the techniques, processes, and tools—rests on this most basic principle.

Figure 1.1 The Iron Triangle of project management.

Modern business has come to rely on projects because of their flexibility—they can be right-sized for almost any activity from planning an offsite meeting to building a product platform to completing a business acquisition. The team size can vary from two to hundreds. They can be focused on a single function, like having a team of three programmers develop a firmware upgrade for an existing product. Or they can be the most international, cross-functional group in the organization; for example, creating a new product platform can require people from marketing, multiple disciplines of design engineers, manufacturing engineers, process engineers, and members from sourcing, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, finance, and other departments. The project can last weeks, months, or years. Team members can drop off when the bulk of their contribution is finished; new members can be added as new functions receive more focus.

The supreme flexibility of the project is one reason why today’s businesses have come to rely on them so heavily. Another is their ability to break down the silos that exist in most companies as shown in Figure 1.2. Attempting to manage a cross-functional activity with the thick walls created by functional organizations usually results in disappointment. The teams don’t work to a common goal because the different functional departments have different objectives. When a quality problem appears on the factory floor, fingers can start pointing. The manufacturing engineer may think poor manufacturability demands product redesign while the design engineer may think the assembly process needs to be improved. Both may be right and the silo organization incentivizes each to blame the other—“if I can get her to solve this, I can work on what my boss really wants.” When problems like this come up from time to time, organizations can manage their way through them. But this type of conflict can arise daily when a cross-functional team works on a complex project—without the thin walls and constant communication fostered by the project structure, progress can grind to a halt.

Figure 1.2 Project teams break down the silos formed by functional structures. (a) The silo structure of functional structures. (b) Projects connect people across functions.

Figure 1.3 The chain of accountability created by the project structure.

Another reason the project structure is so effective is the transparency it creates for accountability. The PM has responsibility to the sponsor for progress and reporting. In addition, projects have a series of tasks called the work breakdown structure, each with a clear owner who is responsible for that task. At the same time, the sponsor has duties to the PM such as timely approvals and guarding project resources. The PM also has responsibilities to the team such as organizing project work, keeping prioritization clear, and making decisions. So a chain of accountability is created from the sponsor through the PM to the team as shown in Figure 1.3.

Without the project structure, accountability is unclear. Consider this simple case: your boss asks you and a coworker to do something today. The agreement is that you will get things started and your coworker will take it from there. Suppose you do your part and give it to your coworker, but progress stops there. Is it your responsibility t...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Endorsements for Project Management in Product Development
• Dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I. The Fundamentals
• Part II. Leadership Skills and Management Methods
• Part III. Advanced Topics
• Appendix A. Certifying Agencies for Project Managers
• Appendix B. Sorting Problems People Express with Their Jobs
• Glossary
• Index