Overcoming the Crunch in Resources for New Product Development

Most new product development efforts suffer from serious resource deficiencies across all business functions, and many of the symptoms that beset NPD can be traced directly to this resource crunch. The underlying causes of this crunch are a preoccupation with short-term financial performance, reluctance to kill projects (and the resulting lack of focus), and a desire for excessive speed to market. Strategic solutions to this problem include matching resources to the goals of the business, recognizing that all businesses should not be measured with the same yardstick nor resourced the same way, and “ring-fencing” NPD resources. How these resources are allocated is a problem in most businesses, and thus another solution is to implement an effective portfolio management system. Portfolio management provides greater focus (fewer but higher-value projects) and also relies on strategic buckets to achieve the right balance of projects and spending. Finally, tactical solutions include tracking the deployment of existing resources via resource capacity analysis and mapping project resource requirements more precisely as part of the gate deliverables.