“Helping You Accelerate Your High-Tech Development Projects”

Welcome to the ANGOTTI PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT email newsletter!

The goal of this newsletter is to help you accelerate your development projects by sharing some of the many tips, techniques and strategies we’ve honed during our two decades of providing high-tech consulting services.

This issue discusses the part that early investigation of high risk areas plays in determining the successful outcome of a high technology development project.

RISKY BUSINESS

Have you ever had something go wrong with a project that could have easily been foreseen if you had only thought about its possibility earlier? Almost all projects have numerous risks – circumstances that can create significant time delays or large, unnecessary, expenses as the project progresses. To the extent possible, these possibilities should be planned for early in the project. This approach is often referred to as “risk management”.

NOT JUST ANY OLD RISK

There are many possible risks that could be taken into account. How does one determine those worth planning for? This is a critical question. One solution involves those areas that are based upon the Project Manager’s real world experience. These are places that have had high risk and impact in the past, on similar projects.

Another solution involves using a formal approach to risk management. This approach can be used to enhance the “experiential” method, or it can be used on projects that are not well known to the Project Manager or company.

THE STRUCTURED APPROACH

The structured approach involves formally listing as many of the potential risks as the project team can generate, evaluating their potential (probability) to occur, then attaching a potential impact (dollars or time) on the outcome. From these, focus is placed on those with higher probability as opposed to lower probability AND also higher impact. Then a plan is made to lower the probability or the impact of a particular risk.

David Greenstein and myself have written a paper located on my website about the evaluation and lowering of schedule risk. It is entitled “Lowering your Project Schedule Risk” (see link below). It goes into much more detail describing the methods used to evaluate, remediate and mitigate risk. It also describes some real world risks and how to mitigate them. I invite you to look at these examples.

SOME “REAL WORLD” EXAMPLES OF RISK

  1. Identify the Unknown or Undeveloped Areas of a Project Identify the unknown or undeveloped approaches, techniques, circuits, firmware, ICs, compilers, software, etc involved in the successful completion of the project. These can then be broken out into a special project or projects by themselves, or at least partially developed and tested, before even beginning the formal project.
  2. Consider Developing a “Plan B” Approach One important factor to be reviewed during planning is to be sure to consider having an alternate “Plan B” approach. This can be used to replace the initial “Plan A” if a high risk element fails to work. The plans could include pursuing, at a higher cost, an alternative, “just in case” approach. As another alternate, a lesser technology could be substituted. Sometimes having the latest technology everywhere in a product or design is not as critical as having a working product in the hands of users.
  3. Consider Problems with Vendor Parts or Software These are often delivered later than vendors estimate. They can also be delivered at, or on, time, and not be fully functional (vaporware, “bugladen” parts, etc). These can have severe consequences to the project completion or initial product delivery. Plan to order and test these items early. In the alternate, ask the question what can be done to substitute for the item if the vendor is late, or it doesn’t work? Then think about an alternative potential plan.

HOW TO OBTAIN MORE INFORMATION ON RISK MANAGEMENT

For more detailed information on risk management see the paper presented by myself and David Greenstien on Risk Management.

If you would like help with assessing risk, please contact me at mailto:carl@angotti.com or by telephone at (408) 462-2189, and I can discuss your situation with you.