Just how quick is your development lifecycle?

 “Speed to market” – The advantage every company deserves.

 Return on investment relies heavily on speed / or velocity;  a 5% return per annum is vastly different to 5% return month-on-month.

 In an ever-changing market with shorter “product lifecycles” and even-more-demanding end customer, the importance and pressure to reduce ‘speed to market’ is ever-increasing – particularly if companies want to maintain their competitive edge.

 In the fast-moving world of technology, an ever-changing market place demands shorter product lifecycles and a faster speed to market. The faster things happen, the greater chance of success. Getting your new products to market quicker means you can expect revenue sooner, improving the return on your investment.

 Look at the recent launch of the iPad Mini:

 The first iPad was released in April , 2010; the most recent iPads - the iPad4 and iPad Mini - have just started to arrive in November.

The first iPhone was released in June, 2007; the most recent iPhone - the sixth-generation iPhone5 - was released in September 2012

With the early enthusiasts queuing as we speak to be the first to get the latest model, Apple understands just how important speed to market is - and just how important it is to have a streamlined development process.

Just how fast is your development cycle? Have you ever considered the question? You may not need to be as quick as Apple, but surely you appreciate speed is the key to success?

Innovation is a hot subject at the moment; there’s a less stringent application processes and greater tax relief is being offered on R&D. The Government and local enterprise bodies are both pushing the growth agenda.

Why is it than that a Warwick Business School survey shows that more than 50% of SMEs have done no product or process development in the last three years?

The key to getting some velocity into the development cycle is about having a thorough understanding of not only the design process but also manufacturing processes and technologies,  your customers and your market place. At GSPK Design we've been developing and manufacturing clients electronics for over 10 years so we have a fairly good idea about product development. 

It doesn’t take a genius or a fancy project plan to know that, if everything happened at the same time and you had the ability to run all activities concurrently, then things would happen quicker. In reality though, we all know this can’t happen

However, I believe that there are five key areas to help make the product development process smoother and more efficient.

 

1         Communication: Communication is the key to success; if all departments are co-located, it’s  the ideal scenario. Again, it’s not always practical because, sometimes, you need to outsource certain skill sets - but good communication and a clear understanding of the end goals can shed weeks - if not months - off a development project, saving considerable cost.

2         Knowledge: Not only knowledge of a particular part of the process, but the breadth of knowledge which comes with a wealth of experience. It’s vital that there is an understanding of how individuals and departments actions interact with the rest of the development cycle. There is nothing worse than projects getting handed around from department to department because issues were not considered early in the development cycle.  This takes me back to communication.

3         Specification: Far too often, clearly defined specifications are not fully considered from the start. Time well spent at this stage will pay for itself tenfold at a later date. The specification can never be thrashed out too much and, once it’s finalised, companies which do well will get all stakeholders together and thrash it out again.

 

4         Flexibility: This is the ability to bend and move as the development cycle progresses. Product design is like a living thing; once a project is started, it can generate a life of its own. Without the ability to accept things change, expensive mistakes can be made. More time and money is thrown away through pride than anything else. Sometimes, things need to change. If you’ve heard the saying: “If it looks like and duck…” need I say anymore?

5         Decision Making: Design and decision by committee just doesn’t work. Hours and days can be spent trying to get sign-off from various members with each not wanting to commit. Pick a decision-maker and stick with them for better or for worse. That way, decisions can be made quickly, without any procrastination.

Finally, I would always urge innovators to keep at it; keep creating those new and exciting products and processes to meet ever-changing customer demands. The more you do it, the quicker the process becomes. After all, look at how long it took Apple to get where it is today - and how many failures there probably were before the “i” revolution.