Flexible Product Development: Building Agility for Changing Markets

304 Pages·2007·6.55 MB·English

by  Preston G. Smith

Flexible Product
Development
Building Agility for Changing
Markets
Preston G. Smith

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Flexible Product Development

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ffffiirrss..iinndddd iiii 77//2233//0077 33::2277::4411 PPMM
Flexible Product
Development
Building Agility for Changing
Markets
Preston G. Smith

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
ffffiirrss..iinndddd iiiiii 77//2233//0077 33::2277::4411 PPMM
Copyright © 2007 by Preston G. Smith. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Preston G., 1941-
Flexible product development : building agility for changing markets/
Preston G. Smith. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Jossey-Bass business and management series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7879-9584-3 (cloth)
1. Product management. 2. New products. I. Title.
HF5415.15.S63 2007
658.5'75 — dc22
2007013368

Printed in the United States of America
first edition
HB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction xi
1. Understanding Flexibility 1
Dealing with Change 2
How Much Flexibility? 7
The Roots: Agile Software Development 12
Moving from Software to Other Products 25
A Note of Caution 26
The Project Analyzer 27
Summary 29
2. Customers and Product Requirements 31
The Fallacy of Frozen Requirements 31
The Value of Customer Feedback 34
Specify at a Higher Level 40
Antici pate Customer Needs 47
Pitfalls of Customer Feedback 52
Summary 54
3. Modular Product Architectures 57
Modular versus Integral Architectures 58
Examples of Architectural Choices 64
Architectural Approaches 72
Four Steps in Designing an Architecture 75
Architectural Decisions 78
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vi CONTENTS
Architecture at the Design Level 81
Shifting the Hardware-Software Boundary 83
Summary 83
4. Experimentation 85
Kinds of Experiments 86
The Value of Failure 87
Exploration as Experimentation 90
Front-Loaded Prototyping 94
Testing 104
Summary 106
5. Set-Based Design 107
What Is Set-Based Design? 108
Benefi ts of Set-Based Design 114
Managing Set-Based Design 115
Delaying Decisions 118
The Diffi culties 122
Summary 124
6. Development Teams and People Factors 125
Teams and Flexibility 127
Having the Right People 128
Desirable People Qualities 132
Team Qualities 137
Summary 152
7. Decision Making 153
Improving Decision-Making Flexibility 154
People and Decisions 158
Uncertainty and Decisions 161
Decision Trees 162
Real Options Thinking 173
Summary 175
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CONTENTS vii
8. Project Management 177
Flexible versus Mainstream Project Management 178
The Role of a Flexible Project Manager 182
Project Planning 185
Timeboxing 190
Project Risk Management 191
Project Metrics 195
Project Retrospectives 200
Summary 203
9. Product Development Processes 205
Emergent Processes 205
The Essentials of Flexible Processes 209
Balancing Structure with Flexibility 215
Bottlenecks and Queues 221
Useful Concepts from Agile Software Development 226
Summary 230
10. Implementing Flexibility 231
Five Paradoxes 233
Transitions Are the Crux 237
Top-Down Change 239
Bottom-Up Change 244
Summary 248
Closing 248
Notes 251
Bibliography 267
Customer Council 273
The Author 275
Index 277
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