| Introduction | | | | - Capturing, nurturing and selecting your |
| | | | ideas for development |
| Your growth hinges on how well you get new | | | | |
| ideas, products and services to market, and | | | | - Executing development projects |
| manage them through their lifecycle. | | | | |
| | | | - Integrating new products and services into |
| These processes are the crux of customer | | | | the business and your channels to market |
| experience and competitive advantage. They | | | | |
| are also the most complex cost intensive, | | | | - Managing products and service though their |
| risk laden organizational processes. | | | | lifecycle |
| | | | |
| Does it take too long for your new products | | | | The challenge is to ensure your hidden |
| or services to reach the the volumes you | | | | barriers to performance are revealed, and |
| planned? Do your people struggle to juggle | | | | that root causes are fixed in the right |
| the trade offs, organizational disconnects | | | | order, and do this while running the day to |
| and effective use of critical resources? Is | | | | day business. |
| execution is a series of mini crises? Do you | | | | |
| have complex, uncertain work practices and | | | | Revealing the Hidden Problems |
| processes with inefficient project methods? | | | | |
| | | | We facilitate workshops with people in the |
| As your organization has grown, it has | | | | value chain to quickly surface perceived |
| probably accumulated work practices, | | | | problems, and build buy in to fix them. |
| processes and behaviors that no longer fit | | | | |
| current organizational structures. Has it has | | | | People need to identify the activities where |
| become harder to get the organization to | | | | they experience or witness these problems and |
| coordinate effectively to meet the everyday | | | | identify their upstream causes. They need to |
| challenge of getting better products and | | | | easily 'see' or confidently describe how the |
| services in the hands of more delighted | | | | organization creates and delivers value and |
| customers? | | | | understand the downstream effect of the work |
| | | | that they do. |
| This paper discusses the challenges you might | | | | |
| face when overhauling and improving your | | | | A clearly understandable operational |
| product-to-market or idea to cash | | | | blueprint or map, that describes how the |
| performance. Getting this right will have a | | | | organization performs the activities and uses |
| high impact on your market performance and | | | | information to create and deliver new value, |
| reduce the sources of organizational | | | | enables people to become very objective about |
| conflict, operational stress and the costs of | | | | cause and effect. This helps change vague or |
| DOME (Duplication, Omission, and Misguided | | | | uncertain problems into objective and |
| Endeavor). | | | | tangible 'problem statements'. |
| | | | |
| Concepts to Crises | | | | The next step is to define root causes and |
| | | | the high impact interventions that eliminate |
| Changes to products and services often reveal | | | | multiple problems and have most impact on the |
| failings in organizational processes, | | | | business goals. |
| systems, project methods and structures. The | | | | |
| challenges shown in the panel trigger a | | | | We frequently find that this exposes any |
| crisis management response which deals with | | | | misalignment between strategy and operational |
| the symptom, rarely the cause. Crisis | | | | plans. Differences of interpretation of |
| milestone management may be the 'stuff of | | | | strategy and/or the execution plan, lack of |
| life' for many but often turn into the | | | | agreement on what drives customer value and |
| 'millstones' that delay customer take-up. | | | | value to the business, confused |
| | | | accountabilities, conflicting goals, all |
| These crises will often trigger 'mindshare' | | | | extend the time to design and introduce new |
| around well intentioned improvement | | | | services, and erode their potential customer |
| initiatives. They may create a quick win, but | | | | value. |
| not a BIG WIN. Initiatives are either too | | | | |
| functionally focussed and fail to bridge | | | | We suggest you get a facilitator to resolve |
| hidden organizational barriers and process | | | | these leadership gaps or disconnects. This is |
| constraints in other functions, or they | | | | critical to ensure the plans for new products |
| merely create new problems elsewhere in the | | | | and services are not built on quicksand. |
| value stream. | | | | |
| | | | Summary |
| An overhaul requires you to take an end to | | | | |
| end view of the process to convert and idea | | | | Most organizations have huge opportunities to |
| to cash and ensure the improvements are | | | | change the performance of their business by |
| properly phased and sequenced. | | | | improving their 'concept to cash' or 'product |
| | | | to market' practices. |
| Prioritizing Interventions | | | | |
| | | | A well designed project to overhaul 'idea to |
| The scope, complexity and interconnected | | | | market', 'product development', 'product |
| nature of your processes and practices could | | | | change and management' work practices will |
| make prioritisation difficult. Problems | | | | identify the right targeted interventions to |
| reside amongst the processes for: | | | | fix problem root causes and transform market |
| | | | performance. |