American Shogun

GETTING STARTED

It was in late May 2002 when Jan Vesely, sales manager for Southeast Asia and the Pacific region at International Instruments, Inc., received a call from RisingSun, one of its key accounts in Japan. "They told us that they were interested in our 1001 series monitors if we were able to provide audio capability a feature that our competitor already had implemented in their product, " Jan said. " Additionally, RisingSun wanted us to deliver the product in 11 months, which was an aggressive time - to - market goal. Since RisingSun was one of our most important customers, we jumped into action. " International Instruments, Inc. was a global market leader in the field of monitoring systems, and the 1001 series was their main product line of monitors addressing the biggest segment of the overall market.

The audio capability for the 1001 series monitors was previously discussed because, as mentioned, a major competitor had already brought a monitor with audio capability to the market. But Manuel Scriba, the segment manager for the 1001 product line, found the market too small to justify adding the audio feature, but the telephone call from RisingSun changed everything. As recalled by Manuel, "Suddenly the program, named Shogun, would help us to meet our financial, market share, customer relationship, and competitive business goals, " he said. " First and foremost," he commented, "a new program had to fulfill our business goals. That's what it is all about the business goals. "

As for the financial goal, the order was large enough to cover the development and research cost associated with the program and make the desired contribution to the company bottom line. But it was more than that. International Instruments, Inc. was focused on market share and customer relationship as key strategic goals. It was clear that Shogun would support the achievement of these strategic goals. " We had excellent customer relationships before this program, and if an important customer wanted to have the new feature and the program was financially viable what else could we do but satisfy them? " asked Manuel. "On top of that," Manuel added, "Shogun would also provide gain in market share for this monitor product line. Not only could we increase our market share, but we could attain our competitive goal, which was to preempt our competitor from gaining more market share in Japan. "

Manuel proposed the new program to Robin Weiland, vice - president of International Instruments, Inc. "We had the chance to increase our market share," recalled Robin. "It was tough, but feasible. So the question was no longer, does it make sense? , but rather, Can we get this done in only 11 months? " The next steps were to assign a program manager and set up the program as soon as possible.

THE FOCAL POINT FOR BUSINESS RESULTS

Melanie Lehr came from a strategic marketing position and was new to program management. As she remembered, "I was new to the company and new to program management, but I knew the company pretty well from my former jobs. This program was about to become a great challenge for me and the company. But I was glad to have the support from the program management office. "

The program management office, a knowledge base for the program management activities throughout the company, provided not only standardized but flexible processes and tools for each of the programs. "We don't expect naturally born program managers," said Bob Mitchell, head of the program management office. "Program managers are made; they are trained on the job and in classrooms. Through the years, we developed a skill set map for program managers. A program manager's task is strategic the focal point for business success. They must have strategic skills. They lead all kinds of people some easy to lead, some difficult. Therefore, they need leadership skills. They face tough times, requiring tough character. Hence, we expect them to have a special set of intrapersonal skills. Programs cost a lot of money and require many resources, so program managers need to have financial skills. Since we develop highly technical products, program managers should have a working level of technical skills. Finally, the customer must be understood inside and out, requiring program managers to have customer skills. In summary, we require six sets of skills from our program managers. "

Like every program manager, Melanie was held accountable for business results. Therefore, her job was one of the most critical in the company. "She did not have all of the skills we require," said Bob. She was, however, an experienced engineer with an MBA, eight years of experience in design engineering and strategic marketing, and was involved with many programs as a member of extended teams and as a project manager. She had all of the required skills except for the program management set. "We planned to promote Melanie to program manager in the long term," Bob added. "But when Shogun was added to the product roadmap, we did not have a seasoned person available, so we assigned the program to her. New program managers need as much help as possible. Mentoring from others who have had the same challenges is the best way to teach them. We solicited the help of an excellent mentor, which provided the program management skill set Melanie was missing. Standardized processes and tools also helped her master the challenge. This example demonstrates that you do not need to reinvent the wheel. And Melanie did a great job. "

"What helped me most," Melanie recalled, "was the mentoring part. Marcel Greenhill was a program manager for 20 - plus years and did all kinds of programs. His mentoring and support taught me all of the small tricks and tips that helped during the start - up phase, which was the toughest for me. Setting up a program required tremendous effort because it involved multiple projects and disciplines in the company, such as engineering, marketing, finance, production, and sales. Cross - discipline development was really important for achieving the business goals. "

INTERDEPENDENT PROJECTS

Preparations were undertaken to assemble the program team. A program requires a lot of different people with different backgrounds, making it difficult to coordinate them within one team. The usual program management approach at International Instruments, Inc. was to define two layers a program core team and several extended teams. The program core team for Shogun consisted of 12 members. They represented the functions that had major involvement, such as marketing, mechanical engineering, manufacturing, purchasing, and finance. Additional required functions for the program were also represented like systems, engineering hardware and software, quality control, promotion for the new product, and introduction support. Each member of the program core team led his or her extended team.

Melanie commented, "It was not like running 12 different projects and assembling them at various stages throughout the process. We had to break down the whole program into multiple interdependent projects. Each project manager managed a project within his or her own function or discipline. I, on the other hand, managed across projects, coordinating them to make sure that functional objectives were in tune with the business objectives. Essentially, my job was cross - project and cross - disciplinary. "

The projects on the Shogun program were all interrelated and dependent on each other. For instance, if marketing could not finalize the required specifications with the customer, engineering could not start to develop required features, quality could not be controlled, and manufacturing would be delayed.

Managing the interdependencies between the projects was a real challenge for Melanie. "I knew that I would not be able to manage all of the projects in detail and take a close look at everything, " she said. " So I needed to make sure that each project could function individually. At the same time, everybody needed to be aware of the consequences of their actions for the other project teams. Projects have delays, no matter how well you plan ahead. The only question is whether or not the team has enough of a chance to 'extinguish' the fire before it affects the other projects and finally the whole program. Transparency is important. "

BUSINESS GOALS

Shogun was started with a specific set of goals profitability index, market share, development and product cost, product performance, and time. Development cost was estimated at $5.1 million, while the performance was set by the customer's requirements. Product cost required more detailed input for the exact configuration of features. The timeframe was a tough constraint because the product needed to be delivered in 11 months

COORDINATED PLANNING

Jumping into action, Melanie worked out a rough plan with the program core team. Each project was addressed with initial budget and timeline identified. Cross - project interdependencies were identified in a very rough manner.

These outlines were then given to the program core team members, who, because they represented their functional projects, had the best insights. Each of the projects was then broken down into detail by the responsible project managers. They added their insights on scheduling and resources, and their experience of how to complete a program of this scope.

" I was given the outline for the broader marketing function, " remembered Christian Foyer, who was the marketing project manager. " I had to address steps like customer validation and continuous screening for market requirements. The way to achieve these goals was up to me and my extended team. Melanie only needed to know our results, deliverables, and risks. I sat down with my team and we developed our project work breakdown structure (WBS) to deliver our part of the program. My extended team could thus focus on the marketing jobs, while I supervised the work and ensured alignment with the other projects. "

After the project managers had created the detailed WBS for their individual projects, the program core team, under the guidance of Melanie, assembled a complete WBS for the program. The WBS outlined the specific tasks for each of the functions in respect to other projects, or more precisely, cross - project dependencies. Only those work packages that had an impact on other projects were considered important on the program level. More detailed outlines and scheduling were the responsibility of the program core team members.

"This was not always easy," Christian commented. "I had created the WBS for my team and, although it was a tough timeframe, we managed to get all of the parts completed in time at least on the outline. But when we sat down in the program core team meeting and worked through the WBS, Melanie required some changes. These were mostly earlier deadlines because there were other projects that needed my input sooner. So we accelerated some tasks and left others with more time. But it made sense not for the marketing function, but for the overall program. This understanding became crucial. We constantly reassessed the program progress in the program core team meetings and adjusted for problems. "

The program core team then agreed on important milestones that were tracked. Tools like the program strike zone and the program dashboard enabled Melanie to effectively track the progress of Shogun and all of its projects. The dashboard provided an overview of the current status, and the program strike zone showed whenever a program - level milestone was significantly delayed. "Communication is the key for everything, " Melanie stated. " But you always have a mentality of 'bad news never travels up. ' Tools like the program strike zone and program dashboard helped us to have an objective measurement and information system that everybody could agree on. "

COORDINATED MANAGEMENT

The program involved nearly every function within the company, and tight interdependency between all of the projects was a given. Communications became a must - do on a regular basis. "We had regularly scheduled meetings and communication patterns, as well as more informal and driven - by - demand communication, " recalled Melanie. " If there was a problem, there needed to be communication. Nothing else mattered.

" The program core team met once a week to discuss program progress and issues. If changes were needed, the whole team had to agree on them. Alignment of the project teams was important, especially with the short timeframe. " The whole process is not always straightforward, but it helps a lot if the members know each other very well and communicate across the functions to solve smaller problems on their own, " commented Melanie.

In addition to the program core team meetings, some of the functions needed to work together more closely and more often. As an example, the engineering function required input from marketing for prioritizing the features. Prioritization of features drove prioritization of work for the design team.

The program core team members met with their project teams as required. The engineering project manager, Gregory Wolfe, recalled his approach. " I had the largest project team comprised of eight engineers, " he said. " To keep them updated, we met every week directly after the program core team meeting. In doing that, I ensured that they had the most recent information and that they felt more involved with the program. Of course, I did not need to deliver all of the information. Other than the business view of the program, my project was focused solely on the technical work to get the product engineered in time and in the desired cost range. But there was also a motivational aspect to keep everybody focused on the program vision and strategy. "

Communication in the program did not only flow from the top down. In International Instruments, Inc., programs are critical to the company's business strategy and the achievement of strategic business goals. This importance was reflected in the program reviews for senior management which were held on a monthly basis. Several vice - presidents attended, headed by Robin Weiland, and spent the whole day listening to program managers ' reports, dissecting issues, and removing obstacles occasionally killing programs that were not accomplishing their strategic goals. The program managers' reports were based on the information contained in the program strike zone and dashboard.

Melanie commented, "What senior management did for the program was what I did for each of the projects. In the end, management is responsible for the program. So they need to know what's going on not every single step, but the major milestones. So I kept them updated just like the program core team and the functional representatives kept me updated. It was just on a broader scale. The closer the program came to its desired launch date, the more often there were management reviews. Management wanted to increase control. That was tough on one hand, because it sometimes took time that I could have spent on other things. On the other hand, it ensured their support. "

ALIGNING EXECUTION WITH STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

Since the program was initiated by RisingSun's demand for an additional feature, customer focus was very strong. Christian stated, "Besides the strict validation processes in the beginning of the program, we ensured that each major step and each feature we planned to implement was validated and approved by the customer."

But RisingSun was not the only customer in that sense. "The 1001 series monitors had additional capabilities in event logging and the like," Christian said. "This was partially demanded by RisingSun, but also determined within my department to be a major value - add to customers in general. So we looked at both RisingSun's specifications and the overall market demand. We wanted to have a competitive product for the whole market. "

At the midpoint of the program, Gregory realized there was a problem for the hardware project team. "In order to implement all of the desired features, we weren't going to be able to meet our deadline," he said. "We pushed hard, but final feature requests from marketing were too late, and the additional quality testing required would take us too long. At that point we needed to make a decision. " Gregory deferred the question to Christian, who commented, "This was a tough problem for us. RisingSun wanted to have a portability feature in the 1001 series, but we needed to eliminate it in order to meet the schedule deadline. For us, it was either the portability feature or the deadline, and it was hard to determine. "

Christian faced a decision. "To find a solution, we examined the marketplace and called some customers to ask if they would need the portability feature," he said. "In the end, it was determined that the market didn't really need the feature, so we talked to RisingSun who agreed it was desired but not essential."

FLEXIBILITY

Flexibility was really important for the program. " It was a complex program with an aggressive schedule, " Melanie commented. " You can't just develop a plan and wait for the results. We tried to plan as well as we could, but there were a considerable number of changes that occurred. We sat together in the program core team meeting and asked, 'What can we do? What does it take to implement a change, and how much would it cost? ' We were flexible because we needed to be. Having a team that worked so well together was really the key for everything. " Midway through the program it became obvious that the team would need more people and more resources to accomplish the program in the desired timeframe. Thus, management decided to support the program by having engineers from the company's Japanese engineering group work on Shogun. "There were problems in the beginning," Melanie remembered. "One of the engineers was very junior and didn't speak English. We had a politically sensitive issue, but senior management helped us by moving the engineer to a program with a less aggressive schedule. "

FINISHING WITH FLYING COLORS

Bringing the product to launch was still a challenge due to considerable pressure from upper management. The team had an opportunity to prove whether or not the communication and, more importantly, the informal networks were working. "The end was brutal," recalled Melanie. "We needed to get everything out as quickly as possible, and although I did as much as I could, I couldn't have managed on my own. The project teams worked well together, and everybody headed in the same direction. We wanted to meet our goals. The program was finished within the 11 - month target, with higher product performance, and within the given development budget. That was the easier, more tactical part of the goals. We had to wait an additional nine months after the product launch to see if we had achieved what we strategically planned in the business case: increase profits, achieve gains in market share, and preempt a competitor. We did. "

Discussion items

1. What are the lessons learned in this case?

2. What are the things we have usually observed in well-managed programs?

3. What are important skills that every good program manager should possess?