New Product Development Experience
 Improving Capability and
Capacity for New Product Development (NPD). A leading company in
the ready-to-assemble furniture industry needed to expand its capacity to develop and launch new items, and to do
it with more speed and agility. Catalyst sped up implementation of this strategic
initiative with the
following:
- Clarified core business issues affecting revenue growth. These
business issues included responding to imports and opportunity to capture
market share. Catalyst helped senior managers develop understanding and case for action.
- Facilitated dialogue between functional
stakeholders on the vision for NPD and the best way to achieve it. Our
consultant worked closely with both the core team and the steering committee. Prior to Catalyst's involvement,
these groups were bogged down in disagreements. As a result of the
facilitation, the teams became energized and were able to rapidly deploy
changes that resulted in more products, faster.
- Helped design and deploy a stages-and-gates process
- Coached gatekeepers in methods for making crisp portfolio
and pipeline management decisions, including prioritization.
- Introduced new techniques to clarify product
definition
and requirements, resulting in faster time to market, less rework, and better prioritization.
- Coached project managers by providing tools and
practices "just in time"
- Provided guidance in structuring R&D and developing a technical innovation
strategy.
- Helped the company clarify its product innovation
strategy. Catalyst accomplished this by interviewing individual
functional managers from marketing, manufacturing, finance, engineering,
etc. and documenting their concepts into a "capabilities and intent"
statement. Then, Catalyst facilitated a series of discussions to help
the company develop an integrated approach to product innovation. This
process
assured that it invested its development capital in
strategically-aligned and profitable products.
- Devised metrics to measure baseline process
capability and improvement The company culture became much more
embracing of "fact based management"
- Piloted several new teams to improve feature
definition and cross functional project delivery that eliminated waste and
improved time to market
- Trained middle managers (functional
managers) to help them understand roles and responsibilities in supporting
fast-to-market project teams
Improved
Execution of New Product Development Projects and R&D. For the past
9
years, Catalyst Management Consulting has been providing services to a global
manufacturer of consumer products. Highlights of Catalyst's work include:
- Supported development of Rapid Project Development
capability through a series of workshops with NPD staff. Identified
speed bumps and facilitated development of improvement program.
- Developing a consistent approach for performing risk
management with global project teams (primarily US and French).
Deployed through tailoring of Risk Management workshop.
- Leading risk clinic sessions to address product and
process risk management
- Facilitating co-development strategic planning for a new product
platform involving three partners of a joint venture. This product
launch
was very successful and was a platform for ongoing innovation for years to
follow.
- Concept analysis for separating competing product
concepts
- Mentoring of project managers and of NPD process owner
- Supporting in identifying best practices and
benchmarking
- Facilitating a "requirements walkthrough" to assure
that market and technical objectives were in alignment
- Providing skills-training to members of Enterprise
Resource Planning software project to assure successful planning and
execution
- Assessing member's of the NPD department attitude
towards current performance and expected growth plans
- Leading Project Acceleration Workshops for new product
development launches
- Training over 180 members of organization and
subsidiaries in Basic PM as well as the company's NPD stage-gate
process
- Training over 75 members of organization and subsidiaries
in risk analysis techniques
- Training over 30 members of organization in techniques
for capturing and specifying requirements
- Introducing the organization to the rudiments of Rolling
Wave Project Management and other rapid project delivery techniques
Catalyst has worked with members of all functional groups: R&D,
manufacturing, quality assurance, product engineering, process engineering,
information technology, marketing, and re-engineering. We fostered a
better appreciation of the international perspective.
Agile Product Development
Capability. Catalyst facilitated a several one-day meetings over a
multi-year period for a manufacturer of high-end scientific instruments designed to
help it improve speed and flexibility in product development. As a result, the
client has a improved its ability for time to market and agility.
Developing an Improvement Map.
For a drug development organization, Catalyst facilitated the identification
of opportunities to improve the clinical planning function. We conducted
series of interviews with stakeholders across the organization, and worked with
a group manager to develop a vision and roadmap for improvement.
Speeding Account
Responsiveness - Global. Catalyst helped a global provider of
telecommunication services improve its project delivery by providing an
assessment and coaching on how to capture and write customer requirements.
Product Development Process
Improvement. Catalyst facilitated a one-day session designed to improve the project development
process for a technology venture organization, with a particular focus on
enablers of successful project delivery. The group went through a process
of identifying the "as is" and developed significant elements of the "to be"
vision. The client developed a steering committee who went about
developing buy in for the vision and developed an effective process that allowed
for fast and flexible product development.
Generating Novel Product
Concepts. Catalyst facilitated a
product ideation session for a large manufacturer of automotive
components. The session identified a number of product concepts that were
potentially patentable.
NPD Portfolio Management. Facilitated
planning of the project portfolio for a high-technology firm.
Catalyst's work
included working closely with company president and technical managers. The frameworks and knowledge transfer provided by Catalyst have since been
incorporated as part of the company's structured development process for
initiating and managing projects. Specific details include the following:
- We took the proposed list of projects for the calendar year and classified them
according to project complexity and strategic intent.
- We then facilitated resource sizing and timing of
each project in the portfolio.
- We also assisted in detailed project
planning, including work breakdown structure, risk analysis, resource
estimating, and schedule. We put the planning data into a computer
tool, and provided to the client for roll up of projects into a NPD program
and NPD portfolio.
- Made recommendations on improving the fuzzy front end of
the company's NPD process
Improving Development Speed. Catalyst worked
with a high-tech electronics firm to reduce its time-to-market. Our
work has included assessments of opportunities for improve, and transferring
knowledge on project risk management, organizational integration, portfolio
management, and senior manager leadership. During a merger with
another company, we facilitated definition of organizational mission and
responsibilities for its Program Management department.
Better Product Definition. Catalyst
helped a developer of high-end scientific testing
equipment improve its time-to-market improvement by improving requirements
capture. A tailored Capturing Requirements workshop served to help cross-functionally align marketing,
hardware, and software competencies. The client declared that Catalyst's
involvement,
"Has led to a major review of our product
specification documentation and an overall improvement in the quality of
specifications received by the design organization."
Restructuring and Improving
Project Execution. Provided project management consulting and
mentoring services to a Fortune 50 company's high tech manufacturing division.
Assisted with the implementation of reengineered processes using
project management models and methods as key enablers. Served as consultant
to key senior executives and project mangers in three major business units
within this division. Worked with cross-functional teams to apply project
management tools and techniques to improve time to market and profitability.
Consulted on the use of metrics for project management implementation.
Basics of Project Management. A
large consumer products company was experiencing frustrations in launching
innovative new products. Catalyst provided a workshop on Project and
Program Management Basics to key members of the firm, including vice presidents.
The organization's consistency improved because people had a common language and common approach
to developing innovative products.
Coached project team
leaders preparing
large proposals for technical management programs for engineering and
remediation of environmentally contaminated sites. Systematic approach
included advanced techniques of storyboarding and core teams to
organize response, lower costs, improve schedule, and improve scoring.
Developed project management plans/budgets.
Helped
a high-tech startup firm develop and implement a new product introduction
process. Our deliverable was a requirements document that the process
owner then deployed.
Helped project leads for a
international pharmaceutical company identify strategies for making drug development
faster and more flexible.
This is not a complete listing of Catalyst Management Consulting's
experience. Please check out the other experience described for Assessment and Strategic
Business Initiatives.
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