Shortening the Product Development Cycle

OVERVIEW: As techniques like cross-functional development teams and concurrent engineering become widespread, these approaches to shortening development cycles lose their competitive edge. Decisive advantage is likely to come from the techniques competitors are not using. The authors explain that there are other untapped sources of cycle time reduction for R&D managers to exploit. These include opportunities to accelerate the “fuzzy front end,” in which half of a typical development cycle vanishes before the team even starts work. The authors caution against structuring a development process around a company’s largest projects because this can excessively delay smaller ones. They also question the use of phased development systems, which often cause delays in their attempts to standardize control of projects.