Tag Archives: #pmot

Great idea…but why won’t it sell ?

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stupidinventionThis is one of the most common questions in the world of New Product Development and is often asked after the developer has spent thousands of dollars in development costs.

Here are some possible answers:-

1) Who says your product is “great” ?  many  companies develop new products because they think it’s a great idea – unfortunately no one else does. It may seem obvious but New Products have to meet a market demand in order to sell. Just because your design engineer thinks its a great idea doesn’t mean anyone else does.

2) Does anyone know about your great new product ?  What is your Marketing and Advertising strategy. Unless your Innovation is publicised how will anybody find out about it ?

3) Is your product overpriced ?  What is the nearest competitor selling at ?

4)  Is it priced too low and perceived as cheap ? Ask yourself this question – When you buy a car do you buy the cheapest model available ?

5) What level of service and support do you offer with your product ? – Is the competition offering a better warranty or service.

All common sense but sense aint that common.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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The Brain Machine….

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brainmachineThere has been lots of recent talk from politicians, particularly The Conservative Party, about rejuvinating British Industry. Indeed James Dyson, the renowned inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner which bears his name, recently issued his  Ingenious Britain  report on the subject.

Such debate is welcome and well overdue. With manufacturing in the U.K shrinking to around 10% of GDP we urgently need a strategy which focuses on what we do best – Innovation.

There is no way we can compete with Far East manufacturers on cost (labor or Capital) but we can and do compete strongly when it comes to Innovative design and technology. This is partly due to our strong engineering history and professional project management skills. It is also down to our open and democratic culture which leads to a rigorous debate of ideas.

We have a wealth of scientific and engineering talent in the U.K which we can exploit to deliver new and innovative products to the worlds markets.

We need to rev up the Brain Machine.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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Are you a good project manager..?

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Training29According to the PMI definition :- ‘Project Manager – The person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objective’

So what makes a good project manager. According to PMI good project managers are:-

1) Task Focused

2) Able to manage deadlines

3) Politically aware

4) Able to compromise pragmatically

5) Good communicators

6) Able to inspire and motivate others.

We wouldn’t argue with any of the above but what do you think ?

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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Outsourcing trends point to further job losses…

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SPA032The outsourcing market is a large, diversified and complex model but it is still possible to discern some notable trends:-

1) The manufacturing industry in the West looks likely to continue to shrink, according to Electronics Times the U.S semiconductor industry lost 107,000 jobs between 2001 to 2009 and some predictions estimate a further loss of 146,000 jobs from 2008 – 2018 – Scary stuff.

2) The latest Labour Market Outllook report from CIPD suggests that 10% of all UK companies intend to outsource some work in 2010 with 41% of I.T companies planning to outsource key activities.

3) According to the Bangkok Post the Outsourcing market was worth $24.9 billion at the end of Q4 2009 up 8% on the previous year.

4) An interesting observation is that Chinese & Indian companies are looking at Outsourcing within their own National boundaries. This is perfectly understandable given both countries vast size and untapped resource. We may see a gradual migration of economic activity from coastal areas inwards.

All of the above highlights the need for Western companies to accellerate Innovation to stay ahead of the value curve.

It also suggests that Western governments need to look very carefully at their strategy for Manufacturing and Innovation if they want to preserve what remains of the High Technology sector to provide skilled employment in the future.

As per usual Cash is King.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

The car in front is…..$%#*$ !!!

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priusThe news today that Toyota plans on recalling several hundred Prius due to brake problems follows hot on the heels of rumours last week that 19 people had died due to faulty accellerator pedals on Toyota vehicles in the U.S.A alone.

What is going on ?  Toyota has always had a terrific and well deserved reputation for product quality and anyone involved in product design knows that quality has to be built in at the design stage where the product should be rigorously tested and key parameter should exceed a certain capability. This approach guarantees a high degree of reliability and integrity with product failures measured in a handful per million.

The enormity of the problems at Toyota indicate a much, much higher level of failure which is incompatible with a quality product.

Toyota are already discovering the high price of possible shoddy design procedures with sales down around 16% last month.

Sadly their reputation may never recover.

Quality is built in at the design stage.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

Project Managers don’t do the work – SHOCK!

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ProjectMgmntGirlProject Managers don’t do the work of the project; that is the function of the team members. That doesn’t mean that Project Managers don’t work !

The Project Managers role is to Manage and Deliver the Project. So why do we need Project Managers ?

Anyone who has ever tried to manage a project will understand that, whatever its nature, a project never delivers itself.

Without effective leadership, control and monitoring any project will tend to meander and stray off path. As Parkinson stated “the work will expand to fill the time available”

The most effective Project Management is often underappreciated if the Project is delivered on time, on cost and on quality as the assumption is made that this would have happened anyway regardless of the effectiveness of the Project Manager.

Most Project Managers are a modest bunch and take this in their stride; they get their satsfaction from a job well done.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

The act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods.

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manuprocessRecent statistics show that manufacturing in the UK is now as low as 11% of GDP and employment in manufacturing has fallen by a massive 9% since Sept 2008.

Staggering figures – so what’s the solution, if in fact one is needed.

As manufacturing jobs are generally well paid compared to the rest of the economy and as each manufacturing role supports a number of others in the supply chain it would seem logical that an increase in the number of manufacturing jobs will lead to a more diversified and robust economy.

So, how do we go about generating more manufacturing jobs. Do we introduce tariffs on Chinese goods ?  Impose extra duties on imports ? – we could do this but in the end we may do more damage to British business than good.

Many companies have survived by outsourcing activities to China, the Far East and elsewhere and whereas some would argue this has cost British jobs the counter argument is, that without outsourcing, these companies would have gone bust and cost even more jobs.

Capitalism is a dynamic competitive environment and, like its biological counterpart, the most able to adapt will survive.

Wherever a company or organization exists, in order to compete, survive and thrive it needs to Innovate.

It needs to develop new products and services and bring them to market.

In the current climate this is even more critical.

Innovation enables the most able to adapt to survive.

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Dissapointing your customers…..

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projectsSometimes, despite best efforts at Risk Management, we drift off plan. In the worst case this means we won’t be able to meet our customer commitments.

So what do we do:-

a) Wait until the last minute, hoping for a miracle, then tell the customer they are going to be dissapointed – this is probably the worst thing you could do; no one likes to be let down at the last moment, particularly customers, it also offers them no options and could be extremely costly if they have prepared an expensive advertising campaign to launch their product.

b) Tell the customer as soon as you are aware of the problem – probably better than a) but this will still cause a lot of consternation to the customer and doesn’t offer them any solutions; in effect it puts the responsibility back on the customer which is what they are paying you for !

c) Explore all the possibilities to get the plan back on track; get the whole team involved and seek advice from Senior Mangement once you have explored all the possibilities.

Develop a contingency plan. Find out what you could deliver on time and what you could deliver at a later date. Come up with 3 or 4 alternatives.

Arrange a face to face meeting with the customer, apologise profusely and present them with the contingency plan.

You should have absolute confidence in your contingency as you want to make sure you do not let the customer down again.

Most customers are realistic and pragmatic and the contingency approach will generally maintain your reputation as an effective project manager.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

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would you let your team visit the customer ?

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customersAs Project Manager you will have primary contact with the customer but should you take team members with you on customer visits ?

Here are some good reasons why you should:-

a) The customer will appreciate the opportunity to meet the team, especially if it allows technical experts from both sides to meet and discuss hot issues. It is often the case that engineers can take up polar positions with their customer counterparts and a face to face meeting is the very best way to minimize possibilities of stand offs regarding technical issues.

b) Your team members will really appreciate the opportunity to discuss issues direct with the customer making them feel valued and appreciated.

c) The PM will benefit from effectively delegating responsibility to the appropriate team member. The team member will take more ownership having being directly involved in the decision making process.

d) Involving team members in early customer visits will generate rapid agreement and clarification of project objectives and product specs.

If you can think of some more reasons for involving team members in customer visits, or even reasons against, we would like to hear them.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk






Now we’re Insourcing……………………

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reengineeringFriday’s News that Automotive component supplier Bosch is closing its plant in South Wales and moving manufacturing to Hungary was grim news for employees.

However, this action is actually bucking the latest trend.

A recent survey by manufacturing group EEF revealed that one in seven companies had moved manufacturing back to the U.K in the last 2 years.

Nearly seven in ten agreed that the U.K was now a competitive place for manufacturing.

The falling price of sterling, increased cost of freight, repeated quality concerns and time to market issues have combined to make the U.K increasingly attractive.

The biggest issue is in obtaining personnel with the knowledge and skills required to establish successful manufacturing lines.

This is being addressed by hiring interims with the experience to deliver results by ‘hitting the ground running’

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk