First, this smaller cross-functional team must quantify the make clear the exact definition of the binocular series of products, starting with the development of a Market Requirements Document that will, if the product area appears attractive, will lead to the development of a Functional Engineering Specification. Stage 2 will lead to the development of a first prototype, followed by Stage 3, which will be a thorough business case preparation, where the pro forma financial statements of the project, the marketing plans including pricing, distribution, product strategies, and promotional strategies and initial engineering plans as well. Stage 4, product development, is the phase of as project where the initial cross-functional team expands significantly to include several other areas of the company. This is the phase where production processes will be added to the manufacturing centers or factories to support producing binoculars. This is the phase where the majority of time is spend during the development of a new product. Stage 5 is product testing where quality assurance and quality testing are used to test the binoculars for durability and accuracy. Stage 6 is the product introduction, where the entire company gets behind the new product, launching it and looking to make the sales quickly increase to offset the development expenses, and also grow company revenue.
Information required to create a cross-functional team for the development of a binocular product family would be first and foremost, the total available market for this type of optical product, the existing presence or absence of competitors in existing distribution channels, the pricing practices in the binocular market, and the costs of competing from a marketing, selling, and service standpoint in the market of interest. In addition, and just as critical will be the ability to re-align internal processes within manufacturing to support the production of binoculars...
There also needs to be a strong endorsement, even at the initial cross-functional team level, from senior management to pursue the project. It will specifically be the decision of senior management to pursue the binocular market or not relative to other strategies and product development plans that may also be in consideration at the same time.
Q3. What is the difference between a project limit and project exclusion?
In the case of critical skills including engineering and programming, the number of professionals who are employees of a company is a project limit. In a broader sense, any resource is in fact constrained by how much of that resource is available, and as a result there is often a project limit as to what can be accomplished. A project limit in the case of the binocular development case would be the use of higher levels of optics and materials that may require more intensive engineering and design time; two critical resources that do define project limits daily in any manufacturer or service company.
A project limit then is more often dictated by a scarcity of resources first and secondly by a lack of prioritization of projects second.
Project exclusion is more of a function of the prioritization, at the strategic level of choosing to pursue the binocular market or not at the broadest level. What is more often the case is project exclusion most often refers to the excluding of features or functions within a product or service for the sake of staying on schedule. Project exclusion is often used to combat "scope creep" which is what happens when a project begins to incrementally get additional tasks as more and more internal and external customers for the product being developed ask for additional features. Project exclusion is actually a very positive strategy for staying focused on the original objectives of the design.
