Breaking Down the Barriers to Product Innovation

Proactive NPDI Project Management

CHALLENGE: Project Management Separated From Product Record

Introducing new products to market requires the completion of many different tasks by people throughout the internal organization and many partners with the end goal of meeting the product requirements. Delivering the product on time and on budget requires that these tasks be completed in a specific sequence at specific points in time. One of the greatest difficulties in keeping NPDI on schedule is that the project management tools used to track task completion and scheduling are usually separated from the product record and often available only to a limited number of managers within the organization.

Additionally, teams typically capture and track requirements in disparate formats. Traditional project management is focused on a manager creating a schedule, sharing it with the team, updating the schedule based on the team’s feedback, sharing the file back out to the team, collecting the inevitable comments for updates and adjustments, and then continuing the sharing process again. This approach requires considerable time and effort on the part of the entire team in communicating task status and updating the project management tool. It is particularly prone to difficulties when changes occur. A more modern, yet still challenging, project management method includes shared Google, Box, or Dropbox spreadsheets. While these are more accessible and sharable, these files tend to be disconnected from the NPDI product deliverables surrounding BOMs, requirements, and quality issues, so shared spreadsheets are prone to get out of sync with related product and quality records.