NPI projects are often not given sufficient priority in the business to have specific project management resource allocated. It often falls to design and development engineers to run projects in amongst their other responsibilities, without the cross-functional support for project activities or escalation of issues. This can result in a late launch into manufacturing with incomplete information and a stressful push through the final production stages in an attempt to deliver on time to the customer. Effective project management requires an agreed approach, clear communication, defined resources and strong support from the management team.

Common challenges

• Limited awareness of project management principles in teams
• Need project manager role to be established
• Limited project planning skills with work breakdown and activity planning
• Limited effective project / programme monitoring and reporting
• Limited stakeholder management and communication
• Limited consideration for managing project risks, lessons and changes

Expected Benefits of this course

• Improved project management effectiveness to ensure projects are properly planned, controlled and delivered to customer and business requirements
• Less surprises requiring expensive reaction or delaying project delivery
• Team ownership of risk, reducing stress on individuals
• Skills to introduce formal lessons learned approach resulting in reduced issues discovered at later stages of projects
• Effective resource utilisation for project change management
• Build change management as a structural part of New Product Introduction process