Posts by Rob Allen

Clear roles and responsibilities for project managers and team leaders can significantly improve alignment of skillsets and overall teamwork A generally accepted principle for a successful business is great people, processes & products. This can be further simplified as “maximizing customer value and minimizing cost” of the product. Consider the following: An excellent product development process should ensure…

Use an Integrated Approach in the Product Life Cycle Process to Enable Customer Value Given our primary goal of developing a profitable product, our objective in the design process is to maximize customer value and minimize cost.  From a financial analysis standpoint: we pursue products with the highest possible margins (ie. charge the customer “as…

Wouldn’t it be great if we could require the stock market to provide us 15% increases in our portfolio every year…or if we could simply require a sunny day for a picnic? You might be familiar with the term ‘market requirements’ or a ‘market requirements document’ as a deliverable in the definition phase of a…

In recent articles I framed the structure of a market analysis to ensure we understand customer needs and value, product requirements are “the what” the design provides (to ensure customer needs are met); the design is “the how” the product requirements will be met. Product requirements are determined by answering the following question:  “What shall the (product) design provide…

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is an excellent tool to ensure linkage of customer needs to product requirements.  This article will provide a high-level overview on creating a ‘first-level’ QFD and how it can be used to guide design optimization. (There are many additional features of QFD , however, and readers of this article are encouraged…

Significant savings in product development costs can be realized with robust validation processes, starting with requirements validation.  Validation confirms the product meets customer needs for the products intended use, and answers the question “are we designing the right product?” The “right product” therefore starts with the “right” product requirements.  Even a product designed with detailed…

In recent articles I focused on a ‘linear’ approach to product development by understanding customer needs, establishing requirements (“what the design provides”), establishing a conceptual design, etc. In this article, I’ll discuss a framework whereby an idea for a product or design might kick-off the process. Also, rather than a commercialized product, we will assume…

In this article we’ll explore the topic of requirements, and attitudes about identifying requirements before the design work begins. In my experience, I’ve had design resources literally state “I hope there are no requirements”.  (Unconstrained design and no requirements certainly made this designer’s job much easier.) There are several other reasons requirements are sometimes neglected:…

Managing requirements for complex systems can be challenging, however, establishing a hierarchical framework of key questions (answered at each layer of the hierarchy) can be quite helpful. While some regulatory authorities (such as the FAA) may require various layers of documentation and traceability, this article isn’t necessarily advocating a bureaucratic development process.  The process can be…

While previous articles focused on requirements writing, another element of products requirements is design constraints. A design constraint might not be a requirement in the purest sense, but must be accommodated in product requirements (and, ideally, identified as such).  Design constraints almost always make their way into product requirements. Let’s use a simple example whereby…