So, here we all are then. You, me, and 1,319,872,107 others. This blog is a venue for me to organise my thoughts as I work towards my PhD thesis – hopefully doing so in a (slightly) public forum will encourage me to be a bit more rigorous about it than I might have otherwise.
I have no expectations that this’ll develop any following worth the name – and that’s not the point – but if you’re here, welcome, I hope you find something interesting and plausible, and if you feel like weighing in with your 2c worth, go for it.
Dave Howell
My Thesis
I’ve worked for 20-odd years in new product development, as both an engineer and a manager. Through no particular plan, every time I’ve changed jobs, its been to a smaller company, and to one doing more innovative products. And something that’s become obvious to me during this journey has been that the smaller the company and the more novelty you’re working with, the harder it is to make the NPD process even look like its being well managed. At least in part, I think that’s because the tools don’t work. The bulk of “best practice” NPD management tools, such as PMI or DOD-style project management techniques or Stage-Gate, were developed by huge organisations, to control extremely complicated but relatively repeatable processes. They don’t scale effectively to small companies or to the flux that is high-tech NPD.
My core thinking on this comes from my home ground of mechatronic products (not like in robots, but stuff that involves metal and plastic bits, electronic hardware, and embedded software – everything from an electric fence to an iPod). But I expect the argument holds throughout the more broadly defined tech sector, from ICT to biotech. Each specialty within this has their own ways of coping, but I’d be surprised if they cover all the bases – for example in ICT there seems to me to be a fair chunk of the spectrum where neither Agile nor plan-driven approaches are really comfortable.
So I’m back at Auckland University, doing a PhD to try and see if there’s a better way, and whether the various hi-tech disciplines have things to teach each other. My (provisonal) thesis title is “Product Development Management Methodologies for Technology Intensive SMEs”.
Distraxi
Distraxi is the “1st person perfect” form (I xxx-ed) of the latin verb distraho, distraheri, meaning pull or tear apart, separate, or, the Romans being practical people, sell retail (at least according to my Collins Gem). It comes from the roots traho, trahere, meaning pull or drag, and dis- meaning apart or away. From it we get the English words destroy and distract, both of which also have some relevance here.
Thus veni, vidi, distraxi: I came, I saw, I pulled apart. Because, after all, I’m an engineer, and we can’t help ourselves.
