Stratos

Dealing with development risk has never been more important to the success of your business. Customers are adapting to a fiercely competitive economic climate and their needs are rapidly evolving. To meet these needs predictable launches of innovative new products will be required. Managing technology risk in your product development programs will help reduce the painful schedule slips that result in missed market windows and lost market share.

Technology Risk Assessment

The first step in managing development risk is a thorough analysis and assessment of the risks in each of the projects that comprise your product development portfolio. The assessment must first identify exactly what the risks are and where the risks reside in the overall program development path. Examples of these risks may include algorithm development, new material requirements, manufacturing process development, sensing systems, thermal requirements and assay stability.

Once identified, technology risks should be analyzed to determine the current maturity of the technology, its robustness level, current mitigation activities and known back-up approaches. Understanding these parameters will provide the firm with a realistic window on launch predictability for each of its product development programs.

Fast Risk Reduction

Improving launch predictability can be accomplished by undertaking tightly-targeted risk reduction sub-projects in parallel with the overall development program or as gating tasks within the program itself. Rapid development of models, bread boards, prototypes, simulations and performance test regimens along with expert applied research can substantially change the risk profile for a particular development program. These focused risk-reduction activities can be clearly defined and lend themselves well to outsourcing.

Resource Priorities

Evaluating resource allocation based on development risk is an important facet in an overall approach to applying resources where they will best drive business growth. With an understanding of your company’s development portfolio risk profile in hand, management can ensure that that the right development projects are getting the right resources to drive their success, and ensure predicable launches and meet the evolving needs of the customer.

Dealing with development risk has never been more important to the success of your business.