We have started to see the fallout from months of isolation at home, a lack of travel to project sites around the world, and the lack of regular human contact between team members. In this case, project teams working together towards a common objective to create new products.

We observed on a recent program that the program manager was "taking control," but was also "avoiding responsibility" for the current state of the program and its eventual outcomes (it was very late). It seemed like the worst-case scenario in that the manager positioned himself as a gate keeper of information and control, while avoiding responsibility for the root causes of the problems (which were causing the delay).

Successful outcomes were the result of at least two out of three of his "success criteria" being met in the relationship.

We assess teams prior to engaging. It is important to define the boundaries of the problem and understand root causes or barriers to fast cycle time. This is a typical assessment map that we use during the interview process with selected team members and executives involved with product development.

"I'll work on it, make the changes and email it back to you....then let me know what you think and send me back your comments and or changes..."

The AMP management program, first implemented at Seagate in the early days.

We’ve developed a common and reusable metric by which teams can assess and track their growth or “maturity" in using the methodology on multiple projects. Clients that use this system are typically running FTTM on tens if not hundreds of concurrent projects.

I’d argue “no” for the most part, but there are exceptions. Let me defend this unconventional “opinion.”

Over the years we've been asked by clients to help them select Program Managers that demonstrate FTTM (fast-time-to-market) behavior and skills. This post will discuss some of these attributes and a selection process used.

High performance teams reach Maturity Level 3 (ML3) in 3-4 months.

Determining the process maturity level for you team using the FTTM System is critical in order to drive continuous improvement towards continuous schedule acceleration.

Freedom to act, or in many cases “the lack of freedom” is a root cause of delay, apathy, and a general feeling of helplessness. Regardless of the position in the corporation, we see the “lack of empowerment” from the very top to the bottom of the reporting chain. This post is about a system we adapted called “Freedom Scale.” This originated from our best practice research into factors that drove speed — fast organizations empowered people with “freedom” to act quickly. Pushing power down the hierarchy increases speed to market.

A core principle of fast teams is that they spend more time looking forward and less time looking back.

This video is not dated, but it must be from around the late 1980's-1990 time frame when Steve Jobs was at NeXT. I met Mr. Jobs at NeXT at about this time (1989) when they were working on the NeXTCube. We were trying to persuade him to participate in our Best Practice Study we had initiated a few months earlier.