Maximizing Product Development Value: Realizing Value from New Products and Portfolios highlights key insights on realizing value from new products based on discussions with product development leaders. Analyzes a new approach to portfolio management that focuses on achieving the economic value available from new products. Please enjoy the free Executive Summary below, or click the report title above to download the full PDF (free of charge, no registration required).
Table of Contents
- Executive Overview
- For Better Portfolios—Focus on the Value
- Visualize Where Project Value is Earned
- Managing for Value
- Asking the Real Portfolio Questions – Where to Invest
- Asking the Real Portfolio Questions – How Much to Invest
- Beyond the Bubbles – A New Breed of Portfolio Software
- Conclusion
- About the Author
Executive Overview
It’s the typical scenario again. The project that started with such high expectations has gradually slipped into the same category as the others—mediocre at best. The team begins second-guessing. Was this the right project to pursue in the first place? Why didn’t we see the unexpected problems earlier? Could we have avoided the problems if we focused on them earlier? Could we have avoided investing so much time and money on this project? What other projects did we pass over for this—and was one of them the real gem? How can we have failed when we overcame the most challenging hurdles with flying colors—did we focus on the wrong problems? Management begins second-guessing as well. Where did the project value go? Were the initial projections merely hype? Was there real potential value that managed to slip away? Everybody wants to know why there are so many questions—but so few answers. Many companies today are turning to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) for help.
PLM processes and software tools offer significant improvements to the development and introduction of new products. Updated design technology has collapsed development times, reduced product costs and improved product quality. New collaboration platforms have improved design processes, streamlined the handoff to manufacturing and increased project efficiency. Another category of PLM tools—Product Portfolio Management—has begun to streamline portfolio management and new product development processes. The use of these portfolio and project management tools has resulted in more efficient and effective introduction of product innovations to the market. In most cases, however, they have not delivered breakthrough improvements in portfolio value. Recent discussions with leading product development leaders point to a new, emerging approach to Portfolio Management. The new approach overlays strong decision support and project management tools with a critical element that is missing from many implementations—a focus on maximizing the value realized from new products and portfolios.
Clearly, value is the key element in any portfolio decision. Unfortunately, value is frequently the hardest thing to quantify when evaluating portfolios. Even harder than quantifying the value—and equally critical to developing high value product portfolios— is understanding the underlying factors that influence value. The true value of a project can only be evaluated properly if it is taken into context with the uncertainty and risk inherent in any development project. Creating high value portfolios is much simpler when the factors that create and destroy value for a project are clearly identified, quantified, and managed over the life of the project. Focusing on portfolio and project value throughout the product lifecycle—and particularly in new product development—promises to unlock the hidden potential missing in many portfolio management processes.