I am Mad as Hell and I am not Going to Take it Anymore!!!
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| Freedom from
Project Surprises Newsletter - Issue #61 |
May 2010 |
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Has the title of this
newsletter gotten your attention? The title is a key line from the 1976
movie "Network"
where the news anchor gets a large portion of the population yelling
this from
their windows to vent frustration with things.
Clip
from the 1976 movie "Network"
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So what does this
movie have to do with the chip business? Read on to find out how the
famous line from this
movie forms a strategy that will guide you towards making a difference
in your work situation.
Jeff Jorvig, IC NPD Coach
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Items of Interest to New Product
Development Teams
Leadership Quote of the month:
"The
best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do
what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling
with them while they do it."
-- Theodore
Roosevelt |
I am mad as Hell and I am
not going to Take it Anymore!
The level of frustration I feel on all levels of the
semiconductor new product organizations are at an all time high. It's
pent up,
steaming and being held close to the chest; further weakening the
possibility
for solutions. Issues
are
being
aired
around the lunch table with great ease,
plausible solutions are being generated and then people go back to
work,
sitting silently in the great wasteland of sameness!
Here's the deal. Things are exactly the way you tolerate
them to be. There is a lot of acceptance of clearly negative sources of
impact
going on, and that's the problem at large. I read a book review in the
newspaper paper this past week titled "Your kids are your own fault" by
Larry Winget. I have not read the book, only the synopsis.
Interestingly,
this title made me think long and hard about the situation with
project execution, outsourcing and the working climate we have today in
the
semi industry. Fact
-
we
are
personally responsible for creating and
maintaining our work situation as it is today.
If something is impacting your ability to perform your tasks
and it's ticking you off, own
it
as
your
problem to be resolved and take the
initiative to make it go away! Sorry people, but that's the only
way things are
going to change for you. Stop waiting for
someone else to notice how something
is impacting your ability to execute and fix it for you. It's
just not going to
happen that way, so stop with the empty whining and take action. I have
talked with a lot of
people on new product teams and the way I see it is there are a lot of
them
waiting for someone to remove a barrier that is personally impacting
them.
Everyone wishes things were different. The business manager
wishes new products would meet expectations for delivery timing,
quality and functionality
- just be predictable. Designers wish the tools and flows gave them
what they
needed, always. The test people want to be involved earlier in
products. The
product people wish designers would communicate better. The project
manager
wishes people would do what they said
they would do. The wish list goes on and
on. What's on your list?
Get
mad,
mad
as
hell about what's causing you
grief on projects. Feel the impact of the problem on your activities
and the
sleep you lose over it. Stop accepting the situation as it is, you
don't need
to take it anymore. Now here's the big step - take that
frustration burning
within and own the source of it. Make it your personal objective to
eliminate
it as a source of aggravation. Stop falling into the sameness trap
of making sure the problem is not yours by creating justification to
transfer
ownership; remember you are mad as hell and not going to take it
anymore. This
one is yours!
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| How I
can Help
"Providing solutions to the systemic project challenges that
quietly steal early revenue opportunity"
- Discovery
& Solution - Do
you need to find and remove the the barriers to a predictable and
streamlined new product flow? Maybe you need to understand the history
of past failed project activities. Our Discovery & Solution
services provide the results you need.
- Requirements
workshops
- I will facilitate the timely closure of a high quality set of
requirements for a specific product. If you have a complicated project
where requirements closure is
critical, this would be an ideal candidate for a workshop. Closure means consensus. More
information can be found here.
-
Design
services - Digital & analog IC design, PC Board Design,
Firmware.
-
NPD Flow
Management - Web based best practices, flow, task, deliverable
& monitoring of the project portfolio. Details here.
-
Register
Management - Tool
for synchronization of register information between hardware, firmware,
validation and documentation. Delivers the RTL code, verification code
and documentation for common or custom bus interfaces.
-
NPD team one day workshop to improve planning, execution and monitoring skills for
design projects.
- Ready made downloads:
schedule, checklist, analog design guide.
- Increase management bandwidth via Virtual Design Manager.
- Full listing of common services here.
Contact me today via email, or phone at
480-442-6730. |
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Feedback
To increase the value of this newsletter for you I would like
to hear your comments.
- What do you like or not like about this
newsletter?
- What subjects would you like to see covered in
the future?
- How is the format?
- Ask me a question related to new product
development and I will anonymously post and answer it here in this
section.
Please email me here with any questions,
comments or suggestions that will help me better serve my readers. I
would enjoy hearing from you.
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