tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-127953842007-08-02T20:10:04.871-07:00Get out of the wayJohn Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-11255530234099334942007-04-09T17:41:00.000-07:002007-04-09T17:42:26.828-07:00Metrics of Success in Development - Part 3Today we’ll finish the list of ten questions that can give you a quick measure of your development group or department. The purpose is two-fold: to let you see how you measure up compared to other similar departments, and to suggest ways in which you can think about the stresses in your department.
Let’s launch into the final four questions, then we can total them up.
7. Viewed from other John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-61710133930135954122007-03-19T15:30:00.000-07:002007-03-19T16:03:26.751-07:00Metrics of success in development - Part 2Last week we listed the first three questions of a self-assessment questionnaire for Development managers. Those first three related to project completion, staff turnover, and how well the initial functional or feature list was met. If you are having problems delivering products, most likely you will experience problems in one or more of these initial three areas.
There is a less tangible John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-89100873418915716172007-03-12T11:45:00.000-07:002007-03-19T15:30:33.652-07:00Metrics of success in development - Part 1How do you find out if your development organization is functioning well? Naturally, if you are getting products out on time, consistently, and the world around you is happy with the results, you have nothing to worry about.
But what if there ARE complaints? Can you determine whether you're hearing gripes that have little to do with you? Or whether there really is room for improvement?
I'm John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-25025790047365325882007-02-26T15:48:00.000-08:002007-02-26T16:22:16.784-08:00Constant Reinvention = SurvivalNothing lasts forever. Even the best-conceived business strategies eventually become constraints on growth.
Consider Dell. "Dell succumbed to complacency in the belief that its business model would always keep it far ahead of the pack." But the competitors got better while Dell failed "to invest in new business lines, talent, or innovation that could provide another competitive edge." * [see John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1172016087378393512007-02-20T15:45:00.000-08:002007-02-20T16:03:15.056-08:00Technologist or Manager?Who is helping you to become a better manager?
If you're lucky enough to be employed at a larger company with a long-term view, like IBM and HP, you may actually be getting training and coaching that helps you grow in your job as a manager. But most of the rest of us -- particularly technical people who have come up through the ranks -- are learning on the job, mostly by making mistakes.
In John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1161632406066366432006-10-23T12:16:00.000-07:002006-10-23T12:40:06.126-07:00Loss LeaderMy colleague Joel Harrison is good at encapsulating learnings from his experience. A few weeks ago, while I was visiting him at his startup company, Abrevity, he said, "You can't justify a new product based on a cost analysis of the first-generation product. You have to have a vision."
Joel and I had experienced the frustration of trying to create new products at a company that was in a John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1158012813059273062006-09-11T15:02:00.000-07:002006-09-11T15:24:22.826-07:00Shifting the focus to longer termStartup organizations are typically unsustainable and barely stable, because:
1. The pressures to develop and market a first product require taking some expedient shortcuts, such as hiring the most capable, but not necessarily the most team-oriented individuals; placing all priority on getting a workable product out the door, rather than building the product for maintainability and growth; John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1156800618313830652006-08-28T12:56:00.000-07:002006-08-28T15:35:14.680-07:00Is your software on fire?The spectacle of Dell laptops on fire due to Sony battery problems has prodded me to think about product failures. There is nothing so attention-getting as a fire in a conference room. Few people who see this sort of failure will forget what they have seen.
Software failures may not be so spectacular, but they can be just as memorable to the people who witness them.
Examples from large-scale John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1151692198700830622006-06-30T11:25:00.000-07:002006-06-30T11:29:58.726-07:00Development Process StabilityAfter shipping a first product, successful companies face a number of challenging problems in product development, including lack of development process stability as development work scales up. Here are some responses that have worked well in the computer, software, storage and consumer electronics industries.
Why process selection matters now
As Product Development scales up to involve John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1150837086194669882006-06-20T13:50:00.000-07:002006-06-20T14:00:25.536-07:00What is Product Marketing's role in development?A colleague asked, "Do you believe Product Marketing could be the bridge between the Engineering and R&D organizations? It seems to me that market requirements are the other piece to incorporate there and Product Marketing could add that to R&D’s specs before working with Engineering to determine what’s feasible and on what time schedule… What do you think?"
It works at the front end to have John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1148079979305790542006-05-19T15:43:00.000-07:002006-05-24T17:11:27.543-07:00A + B + C ≠ D (The game changes at the fourth round of financing)When a startup company reaches a certain size, a number of changes have to occur to allow it to survive. Here are some of them:
1. The founders have to choose new roles for themselves. Having been key idea-people or leaders of a particular part of the business process, they may have trouble envisioning themselves in a role that meshes with a larger company. This is OK -- particularly if theyJohn Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1147201467366593422006-05-09T11:43:00.000-07:002006-05-09T12:06:39.456-07:00Why is Engineering the last to call for help?Engineering and the product development organization are critical to a company's survival. In successful companies, they deal daily with a vast array of problems, from technology shifts to people loss. One of the key talents of successful technical managers is to deal with changing priorities and resource availability. They manage these dynamically whether by PERT charts or just John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1138646615400403792006-01-30T10:29:00.000-08:002006-01-30T10:43:37.396-08:00Death by MismanagementI had breakfast recently with an old colleague who is a top-notch ASIC designer. Among the many stories he told me, the lessons of this one stand out:
One year when he had been a key player in designing a new interface that doubled the speed of the devices we made, he was nominated for "Inventor of the Year." But he didn't find out about this nomination from his boss. Instead, he was invited John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1137086624079400382006-01-12T09:09:00.000-08:002006-01-12T09:25:08.823-08:00Trust and initiativeA client put his finger on the problem: The CEO doesn't trust the people working for him.
This CEO is an excellent salesman, financier and manager of his Board of Directors. But when it comes to everyone else, he gets his way or ... he gets his way. The client put it this way: Since he doesn't trust people to do things the right way, he judges their performance on one criterion only: Are John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1136419666730827382006-01-04T15:56:00.000-08:002006-01-12T09:09:11.333-08:00Managing and listeningWhat makes management difficult for people who are technical experts? In a way, it's like the reputation that medical doctors have when they are managing their investments -- they are so accustomed to being the ones who "know" they have trouble taking advice from financial advisors. As a result, docs are reputed to be have the worst record as self-managed investors.
I can sympathize. As a John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1116891654607980732005-05-23T16:33:00.000-07:002005-05-23T16:40:54.610-07:00How do you see competition?Do you respect your competition? Not that it matters to them, but if you are worried about competition, you may want to change your attitude to one of "respectfully curious." Why? Because competitors can be your best friends -- if you are in the product development chain.
Competitors are looking at the same market data, trade magazines, professional society publications, and employment data John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12795384.post-1115746824825080092005-05-10T10:31:00.000-07:002005-05-10T10:40:24.830-07:00Marketing takes over EngineeringWhat happens when Marketing takes over the Engineering function? One of my current clients has a very strong VP/founder who knows a lot about engineering things.
As a startup, the company successfully introduced novel products because everyone worked on everything -- the usual startup mode for a technology company. As products are turned (they are on their 8th product now), Engineering needs John Levyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03623894139681058165noreply@blogger.com