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Gate Jumping: Zero Risk Accelerated New Product Development
By robbeachy | April 1, 2008
There is a zero risk way to accelerate product development and it improves productivity saving time and resources and it’s free! Most New Product Development processes have stages or gates but the best processes have a secret to accelerating new product development by permitting any project to ENTER the process at the stage or the gate where they MEET all the requirements of that stage.
Simply, if you have a five gate/stage process and your project meets all the requirements for stage 3, you start at stage 3, not one, saving documentation time, management review, and meetings often as much as 1,000 hours in larger projects.
Not every project can do this, but some projects have been better researched and more well thought out and have all the details and basis to enter the process at the development gate/stage. Other cases that merit acceleration to a downstream gate are when you have a product or service similar to an existing one, or the project is simple, such as color or minor attribute changes or updates, so there is no need to waste time and resources starting from scratch.
It is zero risk, but there are three key issues with Gate Jumping, the first, and most obvious is making sure that every requirement is met.
The second is an issue with all projects in product development and that is finding the resources to do the project.
The third issue, and often as difficult as finding resources, is objectively reprioritizing the projects to make way for this project if warranted. Most companies do not have the luxury of unlimited resources in personnel and money and you either reprioritize other projects in the pipeline or wait until there are resources.
Best practice is to reprioritization based on changing market and business needs. In most cases, all projects should be subject to being “bumped” based on sound, objective business analysis.
There are a few exceptions to “bumping” projects, and these business issues are “project momentum” and “project discontinuity,” because often, when you stop certain projects, there may be good reasons, especially with certain technologies or software development, to continue project work to a more productive point to stop development, and that is an important consideration in reprioritization of any project.
One of the core reasons that gate jumping works is that best processes utilize “build documents,” such as business plan formats from the concept stage where, at each phase of the development process, the business plan takes shape as the project progresses and at each phase/gate review the Plan advances, becoming more complete until that stage or gate where the Business Plan is required to be finalized.
“Build Documents” and effective Gate/Phase Requirements, makes it easy to enter the process because it dictates exactly what is required to proceed to the next phase or gate.
Gate jumping also requires what all projects need, an effective Gate Review Meeting. Gate/Phase requirements can be incomplete or informal and that is a mistake, because management review, approval and gauging risk is dependent upon sound metrics, market, technical and financial information.
Gate/Phase reviews are tools to manage risk, ensure project success, and provide management with timely updates, including reviews of project progress, team successes and opportunities, market acceptance and product/market support demonstrations.
Gate reviews too can be “accelerated” and the first rule of effective gate reviews is pre-sold outcomes. Pre-selling applies to projects that meet the requirements to proceed and to projects that do not meet the requirements, but require management review and discussion to move forward, add additional resources, stop, or be reprioritized based on other issues and opportunities.
Before entering any Gate Review meeting, whether gate jumping or not, all team members have already communicated, with their various management attendees, the issues and opportunities and general agenda of the meeting, and pre-sold their position, as effective team members.
The key to these meetings is being prepared with all the information and anticipating all issues with documented answers or having the people required to answer any difficult questions or deal with key issues present.
This preparation, along with pre-selling equates to no surprises, and good gate review management.
The best teams, in the best companies, know the outcome of gate reviews before the meeting starts, and the meeting becomes an informative review providing management to look forward to the next stage and voice their opinions, raising the key issues that will be their priorities at the next gate. This should never be a wasted opportunity to present key members to management and showcase key achievements and achievers and provide management with updates as to issues the management team will find of interest and of risk.
Accelerating New Product Development by allowing all projects to enter the process at the phase where they meet all requirements is essential to faster and more productive product development and in most cases will save thousands of hours of wasted times in meeting and in no way offer more risk.
Topics: New Product Development Best Practices |