Customer Reviews

Developing Products in Half the Time: New Rules, New Tools, 2nd Edition

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a treatise on management techniques, not process improvement. The first two chapters detail the decision of which projects to speed up, implying that a manager can only speed up a project by overstaffing it and clearing its path of the usual bureaucracy. Therefore, there is no permanent process gain to be had. But it is a great guide for decision makers looking to cut some time off any (or every) project. The fundamental tenets are these:

1) Make the decision to develop a new product idea quickly.

2) Staff all functions to the project immediately and keep them on throughout (no ramp-up, no handoffs)

3) Specify it simply and quickly and do not change the spec (3 days, 3 pages).

4) Spend a little time on the product architecture, designing for modularity and quick development.

5) User overlapping development techniques (work on multiple modules simultaneously)

6) Make a successful transition to manufacturing to complete the project.

You can halve the development time of most projects just by changing the way you manage your projects, without doing a lot of overtime or increasing the cost of development. Many of the answers are in this book. Again, this is a must read book for all development managers.

I found that this book was packed full of common sense, which is rare in a development management book. Although it has a lot of examples of manufacturing of phsyical goods, I found it great as a software manager. There aren't many spare words in this book, either -- it's terse and well edited, so you get the raw facts and the necessary stories to back them up, but not a lot (or any, really) fluff.

I am putting it on my bookshelf for software engineers, right next to Writing Solid Code and Debugging the Development Process, two classics for software engineers and team leads, respectively.

While the first edition was a bit dry to read in the first four chapters, the second edition is more fun. The value of the content has not been reduced with rev 2.0, on the contrary.

The book is full of sound business theory which is well explained and put into real life context to help the non-MBA to transfer the message to their respective challenges.

Also invaluable are the hints towards common pitfalls. They show that the authors have really applied the theory and are aware of the human factor in change processes.

I read rev 1.0 and 2.0 and will probably buy 3.0 as well.

Keep going!

Absolutely the best book there is on the subject of new product development. Of particular import is the discussion on market and pricing dynamics, which may be new to technical-types. Choosing the right product to develop is critical to avoid "The Innovators Dilemma". The book however needs to add more to the discussion of the importance (and risk) of rapid return of (partial) information to the team during the development cycle, as well as human (team) dynamics. I would therefore recommend "The Team Handbook" as a necessary adjunct.

Over 14 years of software experience confirmed alot of what this book offered. It's well written, chalked full of great facts and gives you a perspective on the possibilities for software development. Let's face-it, software development has almost zero manufacturing issues. So, if your looking for the real reason to implement processes and methodolgies into your development processes, this book will take you there.

This book explains some of the critical terms if you are going to work on the rapid prototyping line, and it does it in such a clear way that it was a breeze to read it. It also had very interesting explanations and angles about the calls that had to be made very early in the new product meetings. I am very happy i have chosen this book.

"Developing products in half the time" is a collection of tools and practices that can be used to speed up the release of your new products. The book provides a well-balanced view on how to cut the development time and especially what the trade-off is that you will probably make. Many of the tools and practice are only touched upon and would require a book on its own.

Preston Smith and Donald Reinertsen start the book by tackling some important misconceptions about fast development. Their opinion is that it's not per definition good and you really need to have a good reason to speed up the development. They continue this theme in their second chapter which gives a basic financial model that they will use during the rest of the book. It explains what trade-off will be made when saving time in a particular way. The rest of the book provides practices to save development time: starting with "the fuzzy front end". In power of incremental innovation they argue that most products can probably be developed incrementally, which reduces development time and risk a lot.

Chapter 7 and 8 are key to the book, they provide motivation for using cross-functional development teams. How to create these, how do they fit within the organization and where should you locate them. This concept is repeated probably most throughout the book.

Developing in half time is an excellent read. It's full of small ideas which can help your development process to deliver faster and explains the trade-offs well. The only criticism to this book would be that all topics are discussed only shortly. Recommended reading.

This book giver clear insights about product development in general. What amazed me when I read the first edition is that agile software development methodologies are clearly aligned with these book findings. Preston Smith and Reinertsen did an excellent job and succeded to create a better book in this new edition!

Keep an eye open specially to the tools listed below(number is the corresponding chapter) and watch the link with agile processes:

2. Putting a Price Tag on Time --> how to convince upper management to do small releases and work in an iterative and incremental mindset.

4. The Power and Pitfalls of Incremental Innovation --> Why to be agile and how to mitigate risks described in the disadvantages section.

5. Capturing Customer Needs --> Why to work jointly with all stakeholders and stay focused in minimal and iterative specifications.

6. Using System Design to Compress Schedules --> Why software architecture is an important activity and why projects must be planned based on architecture.

8. Organizing for Communication --> Why Co-location brings benefits most of the times.

10. Controlling the Process --> why insitute essential metrics and which are these. Aligned with information radiators practice of agile software development teams.

11. Preventing Overloads --> One of the best in the set. With great empirical evidence the authors explain why most managers do the wrong thing and try to mantain 100% people allocation. In this chapter he gives light to why is not a good thing to split people between various projects and what to do: control the project list religiously! The agile methodologies also say: Control the feature list of each project religiously :-) !


Read this book, if you want to understand why agile and iterative development processes are the way to build most software products out there!

A comprehensive approach to Product development and lot of advices that can be used also in a Service Environment like my own; the best book on the subject of speed to market. I still continue to suggest it as a reading to my collegues and to the students in my teachings. I also strongly recommend the Reinertsen book "The Design Factory" and I am waiting for a sequel on Lean Product Development.

Using this text to teach MBA students about new product development.

Probably the worst text I've encountered for a course, never mind lacking useful information for guiding managers in this field.

Incrediably lightweight with passing comments about rigorous engineering tools, and of little use to anyone to actually do anything relating to creativity, innovation or technology commercialization. Pick up something like Ulrich/Eppingers's "Product Design and Development" for a much more thorough and useful approach.