Last week there was a discussion on usefulness of Project Management in product development in this blog. Krishna Shivaramakrishnan added a detailed comment on the topic. I thought it deserves to be highlighted as a separate guest blog. Here goes…
Project management:
Objectives:
1.Delivering Value (to all stakeholders)
2.Reducing the time to market
3.Early returns for the customers and vendors
4.Producing Scalable products
5.Reducing the wastes(including costs and defects)
6.Allowing for Co-creation and
7.Customer collaboration
I would think these are all common to both Service and Product companies.
There are some attributes for achieving the above list:
(Many SMOs stop with these attributes for project management – unfortunately)
Attributes : Managing and controlling,
Requirements
Design,
Architecture
Source Code
Test Suites,
Delivery etc.
Project Management is managing objectives like Cost, Quality and Schedule more than the attributes.
This lack of overall vision amongst the project managers in service industries reflect in their project delays, increased cost, attrition, etc. That’s why more process are required in service industries and they go for CMMI, ISO. This is not to demean standards like ISO, CMMI etc.
On the contrary, if a company truly adheres to the principle of CMMI / ISO and apply those in philosophy and spirit, it can easily move towards TQM organization. But these cases are very rare.
For Product companies :
Agreed.. Product companies over a period of time will have some advantage as their own BA team and Sr.Management team play significant role in product evolution(of course with the participation from user domains).
But to get to there they have to believe, trust in the firm professional ethos, pump bountiful energy, create innovations, sacrifice temptations for quick earnings and above all ability to be patient after all the efforts put before they roll out THE PRODUCT. After establishing their product reasonably well in the market, they can plan and carry out their future versions in controlled manner
For service companies :
They seem to have advantages like quick returns on investment and 100% customization, and wide range of services etc. However they need to have their extra edge all the time to be remarkable when compared to their competitors. Hence they need solid processes both on understanding the objectives and controlling the attributes.
One final thought …….Standardization (process) and Innovation are two sides of the same coin. Be it product or service attune to this.
Thanks Krishna.
Related posts:
- Project Management in Product Companies Vs. Service Companies – Harikumar R
- Project Management in Product development – Umasree Raghunath
- Innovation is free – 1
- Project Management in Valmiki Ramayana – 3
- Project management in Valmiki Ramayana – 6
