Last week, we focused on the first habit of highly effective PLM adoption, being proactive. I highlighted the importance of maintaining balance between results and process and what happens if you become too fixated on one at the expense of the other. The second habit in Mr. Covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is to "begin with the end in mind". After spending a ridiculous amount of hours watching the Olympics I started to wonder about the Olympic athletes and whether they follow the same practice. Obviously, if you are an elite athlete like Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps it is easy to imagine the end with them holding the gold medal. You have to wonder what the swimmer from Cameroon who disappeared last week envisioned as his outcome, escape? Athletes much like us, in order to be successful have to start with the outcome in their mind and work backwards to achieve it. They must understand the level of commitment and time needed to accomplish their objectives. The elite athletes really hone in on the outcome and fully dedicate themselves to reaching their goals. Goal setting is a critical part of successfully implementing PLM. This article will explore the value of goal setting and the mechanics of beginning with the end in mind.
Last year, I wrote an article that did not garner a lot of attention. It was titled Goal!! Why We Use PLM. In the article I interviewed three of the leading authorities on PLM, the prolific Oleg Shilovitsky, Jos Voskuil, the Virtual Dutchman, and Andreas Lindenthal, owner of the PLM Technology Group and partner at Kalypso about goal setting for PLM implementation. I thought that all three gave insightful answers that really help us understand the critical nature of taking the time upfront to identify objectives and direction for your PLM initiative. In his book Covey defines this habit as meaning "to start with an understanding of your destination. It means to know where you are going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction". It sounds easy enough but he points out that the haste and busyness of our lives may prevent us from taking the time to do this. In my experience, we see similar phenomenon in PLM implementation where companies are in such a hurry to get PLM or other enterprise tools adopted they don't take the time to fully understand what their desired outcomes are. As Covey states, "most business failures begin in the first creation, with problems such as undercapitalization, misunderstanding of market, or lack of a business plan." This statement is true on the formation of a business and true for any major process improvement plan the business attempts into the future. We have seen examples where PLM initiatives fail because they are undercapitalized either literally or through lack of executive support. A company must be fully committed to this type of project from top to bottom. This means that the funding should be sufficient to purchase the software services needed to fully address the company's objectives. It also means management must be fully engaged. Last week Rob Leavitt from PTC commented on the my blog talking about how their research shows that if senior leadership is not actively involved in business initiatives the risk for failure goes up significantly. Here is the link to their article.
The second point in Covey's quote is about the misunderstanding of the market. In our situation this is really about problem definition and making sure that the solution is appropriate and will be adopted by the organization. I have been involved in IT led projects where solutions were developed with minimal input or involvement from the end user community. When the solution was deployed the end user community was highly resistant and the new processes did not really address the true issues the company needed to fix. As Shane Goodwin from Oracle pointed out in his comments on the previous article "The leadership, middle management and all PLM participants must be aligned on the proactive vision of the company." Taking the time to understand the current state of things and what is needed to address issues or drive higher value is a critical step that is often missed in PLM implementation. Covey talks about how we may be very busy and we may even be efficient but if we are not effective we are only going in the wrong direction at a faster pace. This is where goal setting and envisioning the end state really come in to play. It is important that as a company you define the outcome you desire at this point. That you fully understand what the system or process will look like at completion and communicate this clearly to your vendors and implementation partners so that they can incorporate it into their plan.
This leads to the last part of the quote, "the lack of a business plan". Again we are extrapolating but it certainly applies. Covey states that all things are created twice. First, it is created in our mind and then it is created physically. Obviously, the better the job you do defining, documenting and communicating the vision the better the results will be. Covey likens it to constructing a home. You create every detail mentally before you drive the first nail. You work with the ideas until you can clearly visualize the home. Then you commit it to paper via blueprint or in the modern age you might whip out AutoCad or something and create drawings. That blueprint or drawing represents the end and you don't start building until you have it. Most of the time when I see a plan in PLM it is more of a schedule. We create statements of work which capture the scope but they are very functional and tend to deal with specific aspects of the deployment. One of the items in the SOW is a needs assessment or discovery workshop. What we have found is that conducting this after the project is underway can be problematic. We may uncover issues that were not identified initially and could be significant drivers to cost and schedule. Trying to make changes to any project while it is underway can be an expensive proposition no matter what it is. Because of this we have started offering the discovery workshop as an upfront option that a company can use to help them better understand the full scope of a process improvement initiative and reduce the risk of late stage change or missing the mark entirely with the project.
None of this is revelatory. In fact as I read Covey's book I find most of it is really just common sense. However, there is an awareness and discipline involved in adhering to these practices. Most of the time well-run companies or skilled consultants follow these approaches but may not know why or even fully understand the practice. It is just something that has evolved from experience in their environments. They may not fully understand that beginning with the end in mind is what they are actually doing and circumstances may occur that cause them to try and shortcut things. It is very tempting as a consulting organization to accept that a company is in a hurry and deploy PLM in a limited capacity but this is probably not going to serve the companies best needs. It is also tempting for a company to skip solution design and jump straight to tool adoption because the issues they are experiencing are time critical. As Covey says (stealing from many others no doubt) "measure twice and cut once". To be successful in any arena you have to leverage all of the best elements available. If you are an Olympic athlete that means setting clear goals and understanding what you are going to need to do to meet those goals. In the product development world it means understanding the desired outcome and working to it through planning, communication and execution.
[edit: Repost from 2012]
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