Customer Reviews

Time-to-Profit Project Management: A Primer for Project Managers in Commercial Product Development

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Time-to-Profit Project Management: A Primer for Project Managers in Commercial Product Development

Reviewed by David S. Jacob, Principal, Doren Associates, President PMI-Orange County Chapter

To borrow a thought from the CEO of Microsoft soon-to-be published latest book, Bill Gates' New Rules, "If the 1980s were about quality and the 1990s were about re-engineering, then the 2000s will be about velocity." - then Edward Fern's new book, "Time-to-Profit Project Management", is a "must-read" for project managers who aspire to lead and rapidly deliver successful product development projects in the next millennium.

Mr. Fern has placed a new perspective on the word "profit", by infusing it with a non-traditional meaning. As he points out, "profit is the total benefit that a company receives from its customers in exchange for the value it delivers to them. In this context "profit" is not merely the traditional measure of the difference between revenue and expense. Rather, when juxtaposed with "time", ... "it empowers a company to build relationships with customers that transcend the incidental purchase of a product".

The first two chapters define what is "time-to-profit" and stresses the validity and importance of its use. The author provides a rich collection of anecdotal situations - both follies and successes -to support and validate the need for the time-to-profit process. To attest to the universality of "time-to-profit", these anecdotes range over a wide array of industries, such as the demise of McDonnell Douglas as an independent aircraft manufacturer, the fierce competition amongst several drug companies in their rush to market "quit- smoking" products, and Chrysler's initial and continued dominance in the mini-van automobile market.

Chapter 3 introduces the reader to the novel concept of the Ten-P ParadigmTM for new product development, including:

1. Positioning - identifying and distinguishing your new product from your competitors.

2. Planning - organizing your product development activities into development stages.

3. Partnering - identifying and enlisting strategic partners.

4. Producing - identifying and securing capabilities to successfully penetrate the market. 5. Processing - identifying and developing ancillary processes to achieve success.

6. Packaging - determining the extent and nature of bundling, appropriate for the market.

7. Pricing - determining the pricing structure to maximize revenues and profits.

8. Promoting - identifying and implementing the appropriate means of heightening market awareness of the product.

9. Placing - identifying, enlisting and training appropriate marketing channels.

10. Pleasing - identifying and supporting customer service requirements.

Each of the these Ten-P ParadigmTM elements are viewed as "sources of value" within what the author defines as the four distinct stages of the time-to-profit "race":

1. Incubation stage- subgrouped into idea capture and incubation, product conceptualization, preliminary and detailed investigations and preliminary development.

2. Elaboration stage - subgrouped into Alpha product development, alpha production, testing & validation and test marketing.

3. Adaptation stage - subgrouped into design modification, beta development, production, testing & validation and marketing.

4. Contention stage - subgrouped into delivery & support, product discontinuation and project closeout.

Chapter 4 comprehensively develops a stage, phase and gate methodology in the form of a matrix, relating the Ten-P ParadigmTM elements to the four time-to-profit stages. The matrix demonstrates what impact each of the Ten-P ParadigmTM sources of value has on each of the development subgroups, by establishing whether it is mandatory, elective or prohibited. This chapter is replete with illustrations and a well-written narrative to articulate the methodology.

As with all emerging project management concepts worth their salt, Chapter 5 demonstrates how "time-to-profit" seamlessly integrates within the Project Management Institute's, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, encompassing integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communications, risk and procurement.

The book concludes with an excellent discussion in Chapter 6 on an array of proposed techniques - including a triple loop learning technique - to improve any company's product development systems and processes.

But that's not all! There is an superb set of appendixes, starting with Appendix A, which provides a set of checklist questions for each of the Ten-P ParadigmTM sources of value, to preclude overlooking key elements in a project plan. Appendix B provides a rich bibliography, including a series of related websites.

Overall the writing style is easy to read from cover-to-cover, and can be readily used as a desk reference or as a textbook.

Ever wonder how a company can spend something close to the national budget of Belize developing and bringing a product to market, only for us the consumer; after purchasing it and using it, to discover it's a piece of junk.

I myself have a drawer full of track balls, mice, ergonomic and semi-ergonomic keyboards, and other such devices that were each, at one time in someone's mind, or group of minds, going to be the product that revolutionized an industry. They were cleverly designed, packaged and hyped; shrunk wrapped, bubble packed, bundled, and ballyhooed. Yet they all sank to the bottom of the new product ocean faster then an armor plated Edsil.

Or worse yet, maybe you have been a development team member or even a project manager responsible for bringing a new product to market, only to find that once in the marketplace the product developed all the interest and had the life cycle of a fruit fly. You, if lucky enough to have kept your job, could not show your face at the water cooler again.

In Time-to Profit Mr. Fern posits that it is not just getting an idea to market; but rather, it is the perfection, and proper management of all the activities that are a new product that make an idea work, and thus a profitable product. In Time-to-Profit, he gives us a set of tools based on his trademarked Ten-P Paradigm, ™ that while not guaranteeing success, can go a long way to eliminating failures.

While reading Time-to-Profit I found it easy to visualize the Ten-P Paradigm™ and its sources of value being used as a powerful overlay template for a product development project. This overlay would allow the project manager and members of the project team to sharpen the fuzzy edges generated as a new product morphs from a creative concept to a finished good or service. I visualized the Ten-P Paradigm™ doing this by means of helping identify and compartmentalize all activities that are the new product. In turn, this compartmentalization would help focus the development team away from several common emotional issues I have found hamper new product development. For example: The personality of a strong project champion; or the highly leveraged political power of a marketing division; or even the fact that the new product concept was developed by the boss's son or daughter who was interning on their fifteenth summer vacation from the local two year community college. Instead, the Time-to-Profit approach would, I believe, tend to keep the team focused on the product development process and its perfection.

Additional tools are provided in the Time-to-Profit methodology that matrix with the Ten-P Paradigm™, and serve to extract all the power that its sources of value have to offer. In particular the stage, phase, and gate methodology is very strong. By segmenting the product development into four stages: Incubation, elaboration, adaptation and contention, then breaking each stage into phases, the Ten-P Paradigm sources of value are juxtaposed in an X Y axis against them. This is far too complex to review here, but thankfully Mr. Fern has the ability to think visually and presents very clear and simple to understand charts, along with a concise narrative that makes understanding the logical concept simple.

Also, as one doing work with start up and turnaround ventures, I have been required to developed countless Gantt charts and PERT networks. I found the Design Structure Matrix for information dependencies covered in chapter five very valuable as an approach to identify the dependencies and interdependencies required to start developing those type documents.

Specifically, it is not just the charts, methodologies, or Ten-P Paradigm by themselves that I found as the real strength of this book. It is the integration of all these plus other elements taken from organizational behavior and system learning, into a tight system that gives Time-to-Profit its punch.

In general, I especially liked the "Real World" examples and analysis of some famous product successes and failures used to substantiate the need for the Time-to-Profit Ten-P Paradigm™ approach. I also enjoyed Mr. Fern's clear and non-superfluous writing style, a refreshing change from some other authors in the business category. Additionally, the appendices and bibliographies will keep you reevaluating, researching, and web surfing for quite some time.

In conclusion, I can recommend Time-to-Profit to not only project managers, team members and new product developers, but also to anyone who may have even a subsidiary involvement or stake in bringing new products through their development cycle. This includes CEO's Finance people, Engineers, and Production Managers. Time-to-Profit provides a comprehensive and tightly packaged toolkit. It is certainly a set of tools worth checking out.