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About Planning Tools

Use of MS Project is unfortunately seen as synonymous with project planning. Ignoring that annoying reality and looking at what can be done to make MSP more useful, lets talk about how to get real benefit in a typical NPD project by using MSP2007 to help plan it.

Sometimes the first thing I do is to use a mindmapping tool such as Mind Manager to organize my thoughts about a job (see example below). I’ll be thinking about scope, parties involved, goals, risks, cool ideas that might be woven in, team, relevant patents competitors and products. I find mindmaps great for exploring and clarifying a brief. People like mindmaps and are alienated even by 50 line MSP plans - it pays to use the right tool for the job at hand.

Use of mindmapping in job planning

With a reasonably clear scope in hand, now its time to rough out a project plan to estimate the job. Remember – 80% of planning effectiveness is about process. So use templates. I use the same basic template to plan all my NPD jobs, based on the taxonomy of stages detailed in my earlier posting in this series. Templates help ensure quality and consistency as well as partially automate the drudgery of proposal generation.

Here’s what I do: I load my template project plan for product inno jobs, do a Save As to create a new file, and use the Show Outlining icon to hide all the lower level detail by showing only Level 1 and 2 tasks (see below). That allows me to play with the names of top-level Stages and the title and start date of the project. I can also adjust the linkages between Stages – sequential or parallel – as appropriate and I can delete Stages that are not appropriate.

Level 1, 2 tasks view for getting the basic plan achitecture right

Notice the emphasis my template has on flagging up late tasks and on auto-calculation of financials. That is because I am a consultant and generally have a number of these things running live at the same time. I need to be able to review my portfolio of projects swiftly and I am paid for my time. Money is the vocabulary of my clients, so I need a convenient way of translating proposed consulting activity into cash. I find that MSP2007 is a better environment to play with such numbers than Excel. I also need to monitor my projects carefully for signs of impending departure from plan. Tracking earned value is one way to do this – so I monetize activity as far as possible. The template has some simple programming to alert me to tasks which run late, provided I use Baselines and update Task Completion regularly. This is good for helping the team stay focused and I generally share this with clients at review meetings. I also highlight tasks where client participation is required, as a courtesy.

I now turn on the next level of tasks (Level 3) using Show Outlining (see next pic). That brings up all the Sub-Stages of the project which are the meat and potatoes from my point of view as a planner. Again, the task is to trim the superfluous and rename blocks of work in language that makes sense to the client as far a possible. Also to adjust the logical connections.

Level 1, 2 and 3 tasks shown

Next, I move to Level 4 which deals with ‘jobs to be done’. These are all technical procedures which my colleagues and I understand very well. They are skilled pieces of creative work or administration which have important deliverables, like specification-writing, building a QFD or FMEA or performing a tolerance analysis. At this level I do not normally discuss methodology with clients unless the activity involves client participation. Once again, I am adding and subtracting ‘jobs’ from the plan according to the requirements of the project.

There is a final Level 5, which deals with tasks at man-hour level. Adjusting time allocation at this level comes next. Then, I turn on my Resource Sheet and add/subtract team members, key suppliers and hourly billing rates. Holidays, Christmas and Chinese New Year shutdowns are all coded in the Calendars in the template.

With the basics now done, it is time to run through the plan line by line, adding materials and other fixed costs of performing tasks to the Fixed Costs column. Task Work is adjusted to suit my judgement of what is appropriate. Note that I almost never change MSP2007’s Task Duration fields. I prefer to use the Task Form to tweak Work contributions from the team members assigned to each task. MSP2007 will do the rest. (see pic below) I also don’t generally prescribe dates for tasks - this really fouls up project levelling and defeats much of the benefit of the planning process by forcing the plan to fit time constraints which are usually arbitrary. I have rarely seen a client project that was not time constrained. Finally, I carefully look for opportunities to trim overall project duration at minimum risk, by introducing additional overlap between Sub-Stages.

Editing the plan at the ‘jobs to do’ level

Now it is time to get ones colleagues to buy in to your plan. If you are a true team, and understand one another’s professions this is relatively straightforward. But actually doing it, including checking holiday bookings and forward workload is critical.

Now it is time to review the outputs of all this slog. First, I look at the calculated total time and fees required to deliver the project. I then do a rough calculation of how many man-months of work I think the project ‘ought’ to take, based on gut feel, and reconcile this with the numbers MSP is giving me. This is usually painful – MSP is remorseless at highlighting the economies that are needed to fit a project into a client’s budget. When that is about right, it is time to extract some reports for the project proposal or to discuss the project budget with the client

MSP2007 has a Visual Reports data-out function which (in combination with Excel’s Pivot Tables) allows semi-automated production of goodies like monthly cash ‘burn-rate’, earned value and resource utilization charts. (see pics below)

Project-related Capex & Revenue per month

Who, When plot for key project resources

Hopefully there will be at least one or two aspects of this process-heavy approach to NPD project planning which will stimulate better planning in people who read this. Equally, if others have ideas to add I’d love to hear them…

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Recently we were asked what our experience was of helping SME’s plan product development projects. Our experience has been ‘bipolar’. Some clients have been hugely impressed by the front-end planning work we do at the project proposal stage (recently we were awarded a gratuity by a prospect who did not commission our proposal – purely for the value of the planning work we did). It can happen that clients perceive our planning work as an attack on their leadership – fortunately this is very rare.

Process

Like most things in life, from rearing kids to public speaking, having a decent process and some experience of using it is a big help. I believe that >70% of planning effectiveness has to do with process. It doesn’t really matter how big a project is, the process I use (see Lifecycle) is essentially the same. What varies is the overall volume of work and the split of effort between the stages.

NPD Lifecycle

I leave bits out according to the capabilities of my clients. For example, if they are strong on market research (rare!) I do some desk research up front to get my team immersed, but get the client to do the later stages of research on concepts, designs and prototypes (in that sequence) and share findings with my team.

The nature of the clients business is also a factor. My process is suited to highly-regulated industries like pharma equipment and medical devices, and the ‘spine’ of activities that runs through it is designed to satisfy the requirements of the US’s FDA (GAMP4) and the EU’s Medical Devices Directive. Not everyone needs all this. If it is not a medical sector job, I don’t push for Design Validation stage at the back end. No point – the result is not actionable. Sometimes too I omit the POP modeling stage for ‘simple’ jobs (but it’s funny how often it seems to creep back in anyway!)

I find it helpful to try and get a common language going with clients about projects. For inexperienced or chaotic clients this needs to be very simple, e.g.:

• Phase 1 – Discovery & Definition
• Phase 2 – Design, Models and Risk Reduction
• Phase 3 – Prototypes, Test and Regulatory Engineering
• Phase 4 – Process Development for Small Batch Manufacture
• Phase 5 – Pilot Build & Test
• Phase 6 – Process Development for High Volume Manufacture

It is not my aim to try and make my clients product development experts, or even to engender respect for product innovation. Fortunately the majority are fairly comfortable with the approach and the taxonomy I use, and reassured that there is a process.

What we do

The general sequence in my ‘project life-cycle’ (i.e., flavour of StageGate) is:

1. Get informed about the market and relevant technology. Understand the competitive and patent landscape. Understand the client’s business model and the pricing economics that this leads to. We use elements of our Market Research and Tech Research services to do this.
2. Clarify client objectives for the project as far as possible, making these specific, quantitative and couched in international Standards when possible. That leads to a User Requirements Specification (URS) so everyone involved has a common goal.
3. Generate lots of useful ideas about the product, the layers of service that go with it, the path to market, branding, packaging, logistics and support.
4. Aggregate these together into about 3-5 strong and distinct concepts
5. Review these ‘objectively’ with the client against the criteria in the URS and pick the strongest concept if possible. Cherry pick the best bits from the others and amalgamate them too.
6. Develop the lead concept/s through stages of industrial design, user interaction and engineering, usually with heavy overlap. Lots of dialog with suppliers, lead users and regulators.
7. Physically model questionable bits of the concept as simply as possible and test them. (Proof Of Principle models)
8. Then (and only then) get heavily involved in 3D CAD work. This is where my less experienced clients get it wrong. The main value we bring them is actually in the preceding stages of intangible knowledge and judgement, not in CAD jockeying.
9. Virtual models are checked for function using computer-aided simulation technology. That can cover vibration response, drop test behaviour, strength and fatigue, mechanism behaviour and fluid dynamics. Models are refined to achieve compliance with the URS.
10. Prototypes (products that look like, work like but are not made like the ‘real thing’) are usually coming together around this time and life test rigs are being designed and programmed.
11. There is generally enough information now available to allow a formal submission of the product to a test house for testing and regulatory approval. Consultation with the test house back at Stage 7 or so has usually happened to smooth the overall process of obtaining approvals.
12. It’s all very well having a product. A stable manufacturing process is needed too. Even when outsourcing manufacture, unless the product is trivial, it generally makes sense to take charge of process development. Where we do this, it happens in lockstep with the product development stages, either with a set of suppliers or with a chosen manufacturing partner.
13. While testing is ongoing, either small batch or volume manufacturing arrangements are usually ongoing. A global e-tender process for part manufacture is often arranged. Mould tooling design concepts for plastic parts need to be conceived and agreed with the chosen moulder. Control drawings are produced. Tooling is sampled and acceptance tested.
14. Pilot production parts are procured, kitted for a small manufacturing campaign using jigs and fixtures and the pilot batch of product is built and tested to shake down the plans, processes, product and people.
15. The product and process designs are checked for compliance with the URS (verified) and documentation completed.

There is an additional validation stage at the end of this for medical device products, plus a stage of field trials. Also, we often try and insert a stage of research between each of the stages mentioned to gather feedback from users, influencers and the market. Every time we do this it brings powerful insights which sharpen the focus of the product. Yet most of our clients have trouble seeing the benefits and initially resent commissioning market research.

Problem areas

In our experience, Stages 1 and 2 are the most dangerous for clients. This front-end work is often done badly or left undone – we sometimes have to deal with large and sensitive ego’s as best we can to get this work (re)done thoroughly and objectively. People don’t miss what they don’t know about. Recently we reviewed a client’s competitors and quickly discovered an Italian company had been ripping off his product and marketing it in the US and EU for a number of years. Our research strongly suggested that this company was well aware of the fact that our client held a PCT patent
in most EU states. The business benefits of this discovery as a negotiating lever will be substantial.

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