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Burndown Charts Don't Work for Hardware

David Paulson - 01/30/24 03:19 AM

In a previous blog post I explained (and hopefully convinced you) that measuring “percent complete” literally causes your projects to take longer.

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10 tips for running a daily standup meeting

Paul DeLong - 04/5/23 07:06 PM

Running a daily standup meeting seems pretty simple right? After all it’s just another meeting. Well not really. The daily stand-up process is...

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Applying agile to hardware development (part 1)

Eric Graves - 02/5/23 06:00 PM

Agile development

Yes, Agile principles can be applied with benefit in hardware product development (Agile hardware development). However, Agile's...

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Agile principle 1: early and continuous delivery of value

Eric Graves - 01/5/23 06:21 PM

In the next three posts we discuss Agile principles and how to apply the principles in hardware development. In this post we look at delivering...

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Agile principle 2: welcoming changing requirements

Eric Graves - 10/5/22 05:22 PM

Agile principle 2: Welcome changing requirements, even late in development.

Software and hardware product development teams share important...

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3 Tips for Implementing Agile

Elyssa Pallai - 05/14/19 02:12 PM

Hardware product development is different than software. Both types of products go through a build-test-learn cycle, but the most obvious difference...

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10 Planning Mistakes Project Teams Make

Elyssa Pallai - 03/22/19 12:01 PM

10 Planning Mistakes Project Teams Make

Product development is hard, but with the right short and long-term planning in place, launching ahead of...

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4 Lean Product Development Trends Worth Watching

Elyssa Pallai - 03/6/19 06:18 PM

You pretty much have to have your head in the sand not to notice the changes in hardware product design innovation and new product development that...

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Lean vs Agile vs Waterfall

Elyssa Pallai - 03/5/19 06:00 PM

Lean vs. Agile vs. Waterfall Project Management

In a previous post we discussed that there is no doubt project management methods have evolved and...

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Decentralized Project Management

Paul DeLong - 02/19/19 05:37 PM

This is the ninth part in our in-depth series on Lean Agile project management.

We've covered a variety of Lean principles that have a direct impact...

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7 Benefits of Calculating the Cost of Delay

Elyssa Pallai - 02/12/19 04:53 PM

About 10 years ago, very few companies that we talked to knew what Cost of Delay was, much less what their own number was for any of their products....

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Push vs. Pull

Eric Graves - 02/12/19 02:00 PM

What is the difference between push vs pull?

In a pull system, teams pull tasks from the backlog. As opposed to a push system where work is pushed...

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10 Benefits of Visual Management

Elyssa Pallai - 01/30/19 03:05 PM

Change is hard. There is no doubt about that. However, if you want to create flow among new product development teams, and ultimately speed up...

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Lean Project Management Principles

Elyssa Pallai - 01/30/19 11:57 AM

A fundamental principle of Lean is smooth, continuous flow. Flow is achieved by eliminating turbulence caused when the flow through any process is...

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8 Ways to Decrease Risk in Project Decisions

Eric Graves - 01/8/19 06:30 PM

So how do you increase certainty in project decisions. In part we can increase certainty by increasing the accuracy of our impact estimates. 

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Procurement Strategy That Works

Eric Graves - 12/4/18 05:23 PM

Shipment delays in product development happen. Packages get lost or dropped off at the wrong location. As a result projects can get delayed more than...

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Cost of Delay: How to Calculate It - Free Excel spreadsheet

David Paulson - 09/18/18 07:01 PM

The goal of developing new products is profit. And even though we intuitively know it's important to get to market sooner, do you really understand...

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Lean or Agile, Which is the Best for Hardware Development…?

David Paulson - 07/10/18 02:40 PM

We created a 9 minute video that shares two paradigm shifting ideas around what causes late projects. Here is the video, and why we did it...

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5 Principles of Lean Project Management

Eric Graves - 03/8/18 12:00 PM

I recently read the new book Team of Teams – New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, by General Stanley McChrystal. I’d like to share some of my...

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Playbook Knowledge Center: Applying Agile to Hardware

Elyssa Pallai - 12/5/17 05:41 PM

At PLAYBOOK it's our mission to help you change the world faster! So, we have a number of free resources available on our website to help you on your...

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Guide to Lean Product Development

Elyssa Pallai - 06/6/17 03:16 PM

Know your current product development process could use a few tweaks or maybe a total overhaul, but don’t know where to start?

We’ve pulled together...

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Lean Principles

David Paulson - 04/25/17 05:00 PM

In my previous blog post I introduced two of Don Reinertsen’s books and explained how they contained dozens and dozens of great ideas around Lean and...

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Lean Product Development: Where in the world should you begin?

David Paulson - 04/13/17 05:15 PM

In the previous two blogs I made a compelling case for Lean Product Development being the business opportunity of the century, and then gave an...

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Agile for Hardware - Free eBook

Elyssa Pallai - 02/14/17 06:31 PM

The most obvious difference between hardware and software is that hard goods cannot be undone, twisted, adapted and adjusted at the same rate, or...

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Lean Product Development: Positive Economics of Failing Fast

David Paulson - 02/2/17 06:15 PM

One of the topics that frequently arises when I'm talking to someone about lean product development is the concept of failing fast. They usually tell...

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Lean and Agile? Yes, it's both in hardware development!

David Paulson - 12/15/16 05:55 PM

Lean and Agile in Hardware Development

There seems to be some confusion about which works best for the hardware development process. This makes...

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Early Learning in Hardware Development

Eric Graves - 12/15/16 04:00 PM

Early Learning in Hardware Development

This series is a comprehensive review of Agile and how to apply Agile to hardware product development.We look...

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Making Hardware Development More Agile

Eric Graves - 12/1/16 06:23 PM

Optimizing Hardware Development to be More Agile

So how do you make hardware development more Agile? In this part, part 5, we examine Agile's 3 and...

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The Top Cause of Project Delays (It's Not What You Think)

Elyssa Pallai - 12/1/16 05:02 PM

Welcome to Playbook’s Three Lean Product Development Links. Why are projects late? We spend a lot of time thinking about this very question at...

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Agile Values

Eric Graves - 11/15/16 02:26 PM

Component procurement time, component cost, and the variety of skills needed on most hardware development projects are greater and represent in our...

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Agile Hardware Development: Agile Principles 4 - 12

Eric Graves - 11/1/16 05:25 PM

We agree. Hardware product development is different than software. So when we apply Agile principles, we need a different approach.

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Risk Management for Hardware (Part 12): Risk Mitigation Strategy

Eric Graves - 10/18/16 04:15 PM

Making the trade-off between scope, schedule, and cost, and making decisions that maximize the top-level goal of making a profit is at the heart of...

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Visual Management - Return on Investment

David Paulson - 10/6/16 04:20 PM

Visual Management

Visual management allows you to have tangible everyday conversations about the work in progress -- it makes work visible. It's such...

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7 Tips for Improving Your Hardware Development Process

Elyssa Pallai - 09/22/16 07:42 PM

Looking to refine your hardware development process? Here are 7 Lean and Agile principles to refine your process and deliver projects faster...

7...

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Agile Hardware Development: Playbook's Lean Links

Elyssa Pallai - 06/7/16 04:30 PM

Welcome to Playbook’s Three Lean Product Development Links. Can Agile be applied to hardware development? It can. Here are three Lean links that...

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Visual Project Management Software: Play the game and see what you've been missing!

David Paulson - 06/2/16 06:39 PM

Does this sound familiar? Intuitively you know visual project management software is worth the investment, but how do you effectively communicate the...

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Lean Product Development: Why did we focus on the wrong end of the value chain...?

David Paulson - 04/5/16 06:13 PM

Lean Product Development Value Chain

Manufacturers have known for years that one of the primary tenets of Lean is to identify what the customer...

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eBook: Applying Agile to Hardware Product Development

Elyssa Pallai - 03/25/16 04:58 PM

Due to the popularity of our blog series on Applying Agile to hardware new product development projects, we decided to create an easily shareable...

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Agile vs. Waterfall Product Development

Eric Graves - 02/26/16 06:00 PM

Agile vs. Waterfall

Recently I came across an article on the Dummies.com website comparing the traditional Waterfall method (Phased and Gated) to the...

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Four Agile Product Development Techniques That DON’T Work for Hardware

Eric Graves - 02/2/16 06:40 PM

At Playbook, creating velocity in product development projects has been our passion for 18 years. As a result, we’ve analyzed Agile and other product...

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The Sweet Spot Between Agile and Waterfall Project Management

Elyssa Pallai - 01/12/16 06:00 PM

What is the Sweet Spot Between Agile and Waterfall

There is no doubt project management methods have evolved and the traditional Phase Gate or...

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PLAYBOOK's Lean Product Development Links: December 11th

Elyssa Pallai - 12/11/15 10:47 PM

Welcome to PLAYBOOK’s blog series: Three Lean Product Development Links. This week we cut straight to the chase with the three most popular blog...

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Lean and Agile New Product Development Systems and How They Parallel a Fighter Jet Flight System

Eric Graves - 11/16/13 09:27 PM

Being an Aerospace Engineer by training, I find some parallels from time to time between product development systems and flight systems. One that I...

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