Case study: A new product development process reaps big rewards
An Internet startup stretches cash and gets new products on the market faster with improved development process
Problem: High product development costs and unpredictable delivery dates, along with decreasing employee morale
A 125-person biotech internet startup company who regularly introduced new software products and updates had an often-unwieldy and unpredictable development process. This resulted in uncertain product launches and inconsistent delivery dates. In addition, development costs were very high. As the market tightened, the leadership team looked for ways to stretch their venture funding in order to ride out uncertain times. They realized the need to make their product development process simpler, easier to use and more consistent, as well as being more focused on features that customers really needed, rather than all the features they could, technically, accomplish. That way, they could get new products launched faster, better, at lower cost, providing products that customers wanted – and fewer they did not, or did not yet want.
Solution: Determine strengths and weaknesses in existing product development process, then remove problems to simplify process and increase efficiency
We created a strategic vision of the product development process designed and implemented for optimum ease and effectiveness. Then we created an action plan to implement the improvements. The company had just completed its most rigorous and complicated product development process so far. They had delivered the new product by the “drop dead due date,” as they always did. But it had cost them in other ways, like late hours, overtime pay and tension between individuals and departments. There were many errors caught just before products went out the door. Such a high toll on employees negatively impacted family life, with a fairly high percentage of divorces among staff. Some employees became less willing to sacrifice their personal lives. Yet, the constant lure of, “Wait until the IPO comes in…” was like a golden carrot dangled in their faces to try to keep them motivated.
Many employees within the department I was hired to work for had PhD’s in various science disciplines, but they also had little or no business experience to help focus their collective efforts. The team needed a high energy, creative process and the right tools to engage their highly intelligent, yet skeptical minds. It was also important that our final results be easy to understand. Other departments involved in the cross-functional product development process needed to be able to respond to the changes, and to make their own process improvements, if desired.
I designed a systematic process that led the team over the course of a few weeks through a series of focused two-hour workshops, using structured exercises and wall-sized graphic templates. These exercises used both creative and analytical tools to bring the wealth of individual ideas and information into our process improvement work. Among the activities we completed were creating a shared vision of the process and the work environment when the simplified, consistent process was working very well. We then identified strengths and weaknesses of the just-completed product development cycle. Small groups worked separately to determine root causes of various process weaknesses.
As a full team, we brainstormed ideas to remove the root causes and to prevent the development process problems from occurring in the future. We also identified criteria the team would use to prioritize and select improvement ideas they would implement from among the many good ideas we had gathered. Finally, we created an action plan with accountabilities, deliverables and due dates so the team could make clear and steady progress as they implemented the improvements.
An important aspect of our work included teaching the process improvement mindset and practices during these workshops. This helped the group to increase their effectiveness over the long-term by seeing and addressing problems earlier, and preventing them in the future. For the duration of this series of workshops, we created small teams of people who did not normally work together. We wanted individuals to break out of the comfort zone of their work “cliques” in order to regain fresh energy, input, and diversity. Doing so created strong relationships between wider ranges of people. Our intent was to break boundaries by creating new communication paths, thereby generating more ideas and increasing the quality and experience of future teamwork.
Results: Streamlined process reduced product development time and cost while increasing team confidence and control over process outcomes
The disparate group of individuals began to work succinctly as a full team. People felt a greater sense of accomplishment about not only meeting the product release deadlines, but also about having greater control and confidence about the process of doing so. The next product development cycle was significantly smoother, faster, and the process continued to improve. Team members who were used to working independently learned the power and personal benefits of process quality, simplicity and consistency. They also learned that higher quality communications are critical to an effective business process. The improved team communications produced consistency with less stress, while increasing the predictability of achieving excellence.
Other departments within the company took notice of the improved confidence and new attitude that surrounded the test team’s product development work. They wanted the same confidence and increased control over the product development process, as it affected their own work. As confirmation of our successful changes, the engineering manager requested my help with a post-mortem and improvement of his team’s process, so they, too, could reap the rewards of a well-designed and well-managed product development process.