Stratos

Now is the time to be positioning your product development portfolio and organization to take advantage of the eventual economic recovery. Strategically cultivating the right projects, technologies and knowledge acquisition will ensure that your investments yield a bumper crop of profitable products when the economy turns. Take time now to make sure you are sowing the right seeds.

Review your Development Portfolio Map

Take time to analyze your product development map vis-à-vis what you think the economic realities of recovery will be. Will your portfolio meet the new needs of your customer? How will your products make your customer successful in the recovering economy? What are the structural changes that both you and your customers will have to contend with? This is a strategic exercise. The goal is to ensure that your long-lead development projects are properly targeted, prioritized and will reflect the realities of the new economic environment.

Focus Resources

Once management has reviewed the portfolio and understands with which new products the organization wants to enter the recovery, make sure that those projects are fully resourced. People, budgets and development tool requirements should be reviewed and committed so that the organization’s development teams are set up to be successful. Prune away lower-priority projects now to make the necessary resources available for your top projects.

Sharply reduced revenues and R&D budgets can make it difficult to gain corporate commitment to full product development programs. In this environment consider small, targeted projects aimed at building the key knowledge, technologies and actual hardware or software modules needed for future products. Developing modules during slow times and putting them on the shelf can be an excellent strategy for positioning product development to take advantage of the recovery and rebounding R&D budgets. Their completion now can significantly reduce your future development risk and increase launch predictability.

Take Care of Your Performers

You want your top performing employees with you when the economy turns. Identify these people now and make sure that they feel secure in their jobs, have interesting and funded work and understand that they are highly valued by the organization. Ensure that their compensation is competitive and invest in their personal growth. Without these people, your organization’s ability to take advantage of the recovery will be severely constrained.

Now is the time to be positioning your product development portfolio and organization to take advantage of the eventual economic recovery.