Imagine being part of a team tasked with developing the next generation battery for a smart phone. What would some key performance indicators for such a project be?

You could be asked for:

1. The battery life to be longer than the previous generation

2. The battery to weigh less than/take up less space than the previous generation

3. The project to be completed within a certain time frame

4. The project to be completed within a certain budget

Items 1 and 2 define the scope of your project. Item 3 relates to the schedule of your project. Item 4 relates to the resources of your project. Scope, Schedule, and Resources. No matter your context, the key metrics evaluating the success of a project will fall under these titles and managing them requires making careful tradeoffs.

Everyone wants a better product, at less cost, faster! But pushing a team on all three fronts is a recipe for disaster. When you put a more powerful battery in a smaller space without putting in the necessary resources and R&D effort to develop the appropriate technology, you are likely to end up with fires. The news is rife with cell phone batteries, laptop batteries, or car batteries/engines catching fire.

We can't have it all. If we want better technology, we need to invest more resources or take more time to develop them with fewer resources. The equation become more complex when we take into account the role played by team morale, competitive pressures, or the dynamics between partners.

After Firestone employees went on strike, they were asked to make up for the lost time and deliver the product at the previously planned schedule at lower cost. Delays would mean loss of market share to competitors. The result was skipped steps in the process, use of sub-par materials and, unfortunately, a sub-par product that, coupled with design flaws in vehicles, led to the death of hundreds of drivers. We must not give in to competitive pressures and always keep team morale in mind. There is no win-win-win outcome across scope schedule and resources. Managers must make the appropriate tradeoffs.

Partnerships can sour over similar outcomes. The batteries Sony developed for Dell were catching fire in 2006. The result was finger pointing on both sides. Dell thought the batteries were catching because the batteries themseleves were flawed. Sony thought the problem was with the configuration of Dell laptops. Unfortunately, such approaches hinder the discovery of the root causes of the problems hindering the ability of project teams to meet targets on Scope, Resources, or Schedule -- let alone a tradeoff.

Project management and quality outcomes are intricately linked. While we focused on two examples across two industries, examples can easily be expanded to other sectors such as Samsung's batteries, Boeing's 737 Max, or Tata's Nano (the world's smallest car). In each case, a desire to minimize resources or timelines led to failure in the delivery of the scope. In fact, researches have repeatedly shown that fewer than 20% of all projects finish on time and on budget, while also meeting their scope targets. A fundamental understanding of these key tradeoffs along with teams that are enabled to react to unfolding uncertain outcomes through an Agile Project Management is necessary for better new product development outcomes.

The above findings are robust across sectors but the specific circumstances of a given firm or sector will warrant specific analysis. For insights curated to your unique circumstances, to make use of predictive models, for collaboration opportunities, and speaking arrangements, please reach out through the contact form.