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Engineering’s Interests in Product
Portfolio Management
Chad Jackson, Founder and President

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Agenda
• The Recession, Recovery
and Engineering
• What’s the value of PPM for
Engineering?
• What is Engineering’s role in
a PPM Strategy?
• Summary and Conclusions

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The Recession, Recovery and Engineering
• Recession forced executives to
realign expenses to match
revenue levels to salvage profits
• National Bureau of Economic
Research (NBER) declares
Recession ended June 2009
• Manufacturers more aggressive
with revenue projections without
backfilling resources
• New products, not cost controls,
is the growth strategy

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The Recession, Recovery and Engineering
All things being equal...
You will not do more with less...
You will do less with less

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The Recession, Recovery and Engineering
Multi-Part Blog Series: The Hero
Work of an Engineer
•Projects are understaffed, there’s
less of a safety net
•The firedrills that land on your desk
have more dire consequences
•Work later into the night and
sacrifice your weekends
•Rising frustration from working on
projects you know will fail

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What’s the value of PPM for Engineering?
Objective for PPM Strategy: Align
resources to the company’s
commercial goals
– Funding concepts that best
match company’s criteria for
success
– Killing development projects no
longer match company’s criteria
for success
– Continuously reinforcing
company goals

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What’s the value of PPM for Engineering?
What’s in it for engineering?
– Resourcing feasibility often part
of the initial funding gate
– You work on projects that are
aligned to company goals
– If a project is floundering, you
have the opportunity to go work
on a new project or ongoing
successful project

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What is engineering’s role in a PPM strategy?
• What are the primary activities of a
PPM strategy?
– Funding Point: Ongoing and new
potential development projects
compete for funding
– Engineering Project Management:
Health assessment of ongoing
projects highly dependent on accurate
status updates and corrective action

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What is engineering’s role in a PPM strategy?
• Engineering and the Funding Point
– Provide leadership with respect to to
accurate assess new and ongoing
development project’s alignment with
company objectives:
• Competitive Differentiation
• Technical Feasibility
• Engineering Resourcing
• Timeline and Scheduling

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What is engineering’s role in a PPM strategy?
• Engineering Project Management
– Provide and accurate status of the
ongoing development projects to give
insight into the entire picture
• Keep close track of progress
against schedules
• Identify risks and means of
mitigating risk
• Track corrective actions

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Summary and Conclusions
• Today’s engineering organization is
currently resource poor with
organizational and personal
implications
• A sound PPM strategy provides a
means ensure engineering resources
are working on the development
projects with the best match to
company objectives
• Engineering can and should take an
active and leadership role in PPM