Software is Not a Cure-All

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One of the most frequent questions we hear from New Product Development (NPD) practitioners is “What software should I use?”  Like many questions in innovation, the answer is “It depends.”

While we will not recommend specific vendors or software packages in this paper, we will outline general concerns that each firm should consider as they investigate new tools to manage their NPD Processes.

Introduction

Portfolio Management (PM) faces a different set of challenges than traditional project management.  While many of the features of a project management toolkit are useful in a PM tool (such as cost/benefit analysis, resource allocation, and task scheduling), portfolio management is fundamentally a decision-making process to generate the most possible value, within a given tolerance for risk, for a defined set of new products.

Software tools for NPD must enable efficiencies in several key areas:

Unless otherwise noted, we will group all of these needs into a single generic term of “PM tool(s)” or “PM process(es)”.

Time-saving tools, like PM, will enhance communication and provide prompt and required information for the decision-making process.  Selecting a software tool to manage your PM processes should focus on the same items you examine to determine whether a new product idea is worthy to move forward in your NPD program:

  1. Process,
  2. People, and
  3. Capability.

Firms working in radical innovation financially outperform those that do not (1).  The evaluation / decision-making tools must be able to assess relative value within the context of your NPD system by articulating diversification, pacing, balance, and valuation of the portfolio (1). 

It is critical to understand the theory of success by doing the right projects, rather than just doing project right, before implementing a software solution (2).

Read more about PM Processes.

References

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© 2011 Global NP Solutions, LLC