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16th August 2022

9 Reasons Why Product Development Projects Get Stuck (and How to Rescue Them)

Product development is a journey. Your story can be a huge success where all your hard work pays off, or it can have a painful ending.

Sometimes it can feel like your project has got stuck and there’s no escaping unpredictable things going wrong outside of your control. The good news is there are lots of ways to stay in control and predict the future.

Here are 9 reasons why product development projects get stuck and importantly how you can get out of these scenarios.

1) Limited In-house Expertise

People and their skillsets are the core of successful businesses.

It’s something we strongly believe in here at Ignys. However,Skills Gap Why Projects Get Stuck engineering jobs and the required knowledge needed can vary significantly. You can acquire lucrative projects that require complexity or domain experience which is outside your team’s expertise. For example, due to the PCB design issues that can appear at different stages throughout a project it may not be possible at the start to identify the need for additional expertise.

It can be hard to accept your in-house experts need some support and understandably you will be reluctant to add an unplanned expense to your project. However, the consequences of delaying your project as a result means delays not to mention you will be missing out on great results. In the worst case scenarios it will be too late to salvage your planned launch date.

There is also little to lose by starting a conversation.

Most good design consultancies are booked up in advance and it can take a few weeks at least to discuss your plans and get things moving. Hesitating can be costly.

Get Support Early

Often, a good design consultancy will work with your people not against them. They can even validate your team’s opinions sometimes, for example if a software engineer thinks the code needs an overhaul an outside design review will help you prove if that is the case.

If it does turn out your internal team is lacking skillsets you can plan whether to use your chosen consultants for this one-off complex project, use them as extra resource as you need or structure your team so each member is bringing the most to the business not drowning in something they can’t do. Domain experience is an important factor too, for example if the project requires FPGA design this needs additional expertise.

Discovery calls with consultancies are a great way to ask questions, this can be done virtually to save time and bounce ideas around.

Book a discovery call

2) The Snail-Pace Expert

Why Projects Get Stuck Snail Pace

You hire a contractor on your project. They sell you the dream, you pay them some fees and they go away with your project and a lot of promises. 6 months tick by with the occasional update, you chase and chase but find development to be dragging out and slow. You accept that development can take a while, but you start to panic as time creeps by and your team grow frustrated with the progress.

Trust Your Instinct

The sooner you act on that nagging feeling the sooner you can get your project looked at through a second pair of eyes, sometimes your gut feel is the right one. Whilst smaller teams or individuals can give you great customer service, if the reality is that your expert lacks the time or the get go on a project it may be time to consider your options carefully and avoid a single point of failure.

Choosing the right electronics design partner is an important decision that can boost your image or make you look foolish. Here are some top tips to help you choose wisely:

How to choose the best electronics design partner

3) Too Many Cooks Spoil the Project

We strongly believe in close collaboration but there does come a time when too many people get involved, and of course the more people involved the more costly a project becomes from a resource point of view.

If it takes 8 people to make a decision and everyone wants to add 5 features each this leads to scope creep and slow progress.

Create a Core Team

Create a solid team of people who need to be involved in a project, occasionally bring in outsiders for a valuable second opinion but know when people giving their 2 cents is helpful and when it is just a barrier.

4) You Insist on Making All the Mistakes Yourself

Product development is exciting. You want to experience the pride of knowing you built a great product from scratch and can hang your hat on all that hard work where no-one can question your core role in that project. But no project manager is an island.

Whenever you do a task that is new to you, you are wasting valuable time learning how to do it. In some cases this makes sense, but in others you are just slowing down a project, potentially adding flaws and doing detriment to your amazing idea.

Get the Right Expertise Early On

Surround yourself with a network of great people, be that design consultancies, display specialists or product design experts. Get their expertise early on, ideally at the concept stage. Remember you are the expert of your project, no-one can take that away from you, but by teaming up with others you will be so much stronger and faster.

5) You Don’t Test

Time to market can be a very important factor. It’s beyond tempting to plough through the different stages of product development to beat your competitors, start making profits quicker and reach that launch date. But speed can be your enemy.

However, with software you can build up technical debt with bad code. With hardware design you can cause all kinds of problems by not testing your design correctly. You can create projects that fail in the heat, have a faulty part on the PCBA that leads to product recalls or important design flaws getting missed.

Make a Test Plan

Make a test plan, speak to us if you need support with this. Consider all the things you’ll need to test. The earlier you test the further you can plan ahead for pitfalls and in the long term the sooner you can get to market with a reliable product.

How to Choose a Test Jig CTA

6) You Are Not as Far Along as You Think You Are

At Ignys we are all about being open and honest. Sometimes that honesty means telling great innovators that they have a few more hoops to jump through before they reach their end goal. This could be compliance or the fact their A prototype needs more than a few tweaks to scale up to production.

Let the Truth Set You Free

The truth hurts but it can set you free. Not being aware of all the challenges ahead just hinders your progress later. Soak in the opinions of the experts you are speaking with. Listening can’t hurt. You could save tens of thousands of pounds by getting the right compliance support or investing in the suggested design changes to bring your great idea to life.

Here’s how we helped one customer with cost improvements. ‘The savings achievable were considerable, depending upon the options taken these ranged from 12% to 57% in material costs alone.

Experience our tactful honesty in a discovery call, here’s a few questions that can help us understand where you are in your project and the best ways to help you. Sometimes this means putting you in touch with our great partners.

Identify your project needs

7) Chip Shortages Get In The Way

Product developers have had an interesting time of it lately. From tackling the pandemic to walking straight into a global chip shortage. Unfortunately, you can’t plan product development the way you used to. It’s not feasible any more to design your product, make a start and then seek out the parts. The lead times are too long and the costs are too high.

Download our eBook on chip shortages full of top tips from engineers.

Embrace Design for Availability

You need to use forecasting and where possible buy your parts in bulk before you start the development work. This is obviously risky as you don’t want to order the wrong parts, speaking to experts can help you plan what parts you’ll need and uncover helpful tips.

Chip Shortage eBook Banner

8) Your Finance Department Isn’t a Fan

Finance departments work really hard to keep the cogs turning and stop employees going trigger happy on the expenses. Development work can be a hard sell as you are essentially asking for a lot of upfront costs before you can make your money back after launch.

Plan Your Pitch

Prepare a pitch for your FD, don’t go in cold with an invoice for Test & Verification with a pricey consultancy or a feasibility study, lay out exactly what you expect your ROI to be. Ask us if you need some advice.

9) Failing to Watch Your Target Audience

Times are changing very quickly, from sanctions on countries to changing buyer habits, with peoples’ expectations for touchscreens, sustainable products and hygienic products trending.

Do your research.

Authorship

This blog was written by Hannah Ingram marketing manager, taken with the knowledge of the award-winning design consultancy Ignys. Hannah has over 2 years’ experience in the electronics design industry, 4 years in product design and 6+ years in the manufacturing sector.

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