When you list “outsourcing” on your Linked In profile, go to conferences and trade shows, and generally network within your industry, a lot of potential outsourcing partners will approach you with a pitch on how their service will change your life. As a result, you appreciate and do business with the companies that seem to […]

Ever feel like your outsourcing partner just doesn’t “get” you, your product or your business?  Having worked with many different outsourcers across a few different industries, I have developed a good sense of what makes a good partner.  Here are a few things I wish all outsourcers understood about how to make clients happy. Do […]

For the past three months, I have been working closely with one project to improve their production management processes. They were already working with a basic implementation of Agile project management with Scrum, but they reached a stage in the project where they needed to take what they were doing to the next level. The […]

This month I am working closely with one of our production teams to help fix some process issues.  I thought I would discuss my approach each week as a sort of diary on improving an Agile process.  Out of respect to the project team, I can’t give any context or details of the project itself.  […]

Being on vacation this past week, I have not been thinking much about work.  However, I couldn’t help but follow the story of RIM‘s woes after announcing poor quarterly results and subsequent major sell-off of their shares.   The  Open letter to BlackBerry bosses on Boy Genius Report really caught my attention.  I am sure […]

Whether the product in development is a video game, software, hardware, a website, or even a book, the new product introduction (NPI) process goes through three major phases throughout the life of the project.  The first and most creative phase is the Funnel.  In my first post in this series,  I stressed that the product […]