Manage  

This page describes activities within project management, which determine what further work is needed and when to move to the next stage in your development process.

On this page:

Having read about the specific activities within Explore, Create and Evaluate, the starting point for concept generation is to look across these activities, review your current status and plan the next steps. The following questions help this activity:

• What have we got?
• What are we missing?
• What resources are available?
• What are the deadlines?
• What are the risks?
• What should we do next?

Reviewing and planning should continue throughout the project, monitoring the current:

• Understanding of the stakeholders, tasks and performance indicators identified through the Explore phase.
• Performance of the lead concept, provided by the Evaluate phase.

when these are good enough, move on to the next stage in your development process.

The product goals state the factors that will make the product different and better from others on the market. Determining and refining the goals of the product underpins the whole process of concept generation, as it provides focus and direction for all subsequent activities. The following questions can help this activity:

• What problem are we trying to solve?
• What are the big issues?
• What is the proposed solution and why is it different?

Reducing the problem statement and solution summaries down to one or two sentences helps to capture the real essence of what the product is aiming to achieve. These statements should be outlined at the beginning of the project, and updated and refined throughout concept development.

It is easy to get stuck in the detail and find it difficult to see the way forward. Such difficulties can often be resolved by referring back to, or clarifying the goals for the product.

While delivering the lead concept to market, the clear statement of product goals should be used to prevent subsequent decisions and compromises from eroding the concept's strength.

In a large corporate organisation, 'Build project case' is about getting the evidence together to justify the resources required to conduct further design activities. The evidence required to support this 'case' will depend on:

• The amount of it will cost the company to do the job.
• The potential return on investment.

Factors that could influence the return on investment include: the size of the market that the eventual product is aiming to target, and the potential profit margin. Other relevant factors include fit with the brand, technical feasibility, manufacturability, cost of customer support, the cost of doing nothing and differentiation against competitors.

'Build project case' is closely related to the activity of 'Estimate profit impacts' within Evaluate. However, the purpose of 'Build project case' is to justify future commitment of resources towards a design project, whereas the purpose of 'Estimate profit impacts' is to judge the relative merits of different concepts.

Communicating the vision is about having:

1. A shared vision of the product goals
2. Alignment with an agreed plan
3. A common terminology

The first two have already been covered. To address the third, it is important to seek out and resolve the communication difficulties that can easily occur due to the diverse range of backgrounds amongst different stakeholders.

Everyday words may appear to be understood but can easily be misinterpreted (e.g. user, client, customer, design, and test). A glossary of terms can provide a simple but valuable solution to these issues.