We have completed more than one thousand product development projects for more than 275 small companies. Often, we come in to “save” a project that has gone off-track. One of the biggest problems we see people doing is developing the wrong product, although often they’re doing it really well. Focusing only on how something is… Read More

“Ask no questions, and you will be told no lies” Charles Dickens Great Expectations Ask your average product development engineer how long a project will take or how much it will cost, and you may get wishful thinking. Sometimes people tell you what you want to hear versus what you need to hear. In order… Read More

To outsource, or not to outsource, that is the question – or is it? For small companies, the answer is generally to do some of both. How do you know what to send out and what to keep in house? Here are a few things to think about. Like many other business decisions, the choice… Read More

Got a call from an engineering friend of mine. He just moved to a new city for a new job. He writes firmware for a small company. Reason for the call? He is bored and wondered if we had any projects he could work on. Good engineers love their jobs and hate just sitting around…. Read More

I just finished reading the book “The Three Rules“. This academic team attempted to find “rules” of biz that are ALWAYS true. They found three: Rule #1: Better before Cheaper Rule #2: Revenue before Cost Rule #3: There are no other rules. “Better before Cheaper” means that if you are faced with a choice between… Read More

A long time ago, after a disappointing personal failure, someone told me: “Steve, there are no failures, there are only results. Sometimes you get what you want, and sometimes you get what you need—specifically, information about how to get what you want. Both results are helpful.” This changed my whole attitude on life. Instead of… Read More

“If you do not know where you’re going, any direction will do” Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland We are often brought in to help with troubled product development projects that do not seem to be progressing as expected. You might expect that the reason for the lack of success would be poor technical skills in… Read More

What’s the most common complaint managers of small businesses have about product development projects: it always costs too much and takes too long. Albert Einstein once said: “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them”. If you want to reduce product development time and money, then you are almost… Read More

We often get calls asking if we can design a prototype, or, have you ever worked with the XYZ technology/IC/Software/etc. After a few probing questions, what we learn is that this company really needs a product developed, not a prototype designed—at least not yet. Developing a product is not the same as designing or building… Read More

We have a lot of interactions with CMs (Contract Manufacturers). These companies are amazing—they can do ten thousand things and not make a single mistake. Their business must work this way to stay competitive. Product development, on the other hand, is different. In product development, you are lucky if you do 10 things and get… Read More