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