Understand the Trends Shaping Modern Product Delivery

In the modern technology-driven economy, change is the only constant. For organizations that want to remain competitive, product innovation must keep pace with customer demands. This especially rings true across the microelectronics and embedded systems industries, which are at the beating heart of rapidly escalating technology advances. In such highly competitive markets, the margins of operation have always been tight, with little to no room for error.

Quality and maximizing yield remain key drivers, allied to the acceptance and adoption of new materials, architectures, and manufacturing techniques that have seen research and development intensify as the scaling of devices has moved to smaller nodes, but with increased demands on functionality and robustness, along with shorter product development cycles. This increasingly aggressive timeline brings with it a new set of challenges throughout the supply chain as product developers face the accelerated pace of, and relentless drive for, innovation.

The rise of the machines, the age of the customer
According to a May 2013 McKinsey Global Institute report on disruptive technologies, the number of of connected machine-to-machine devices has increased 300% since 2008. As software becomes more embedded into technology, the rate of innovation accelerates. Software can do so much more, so much faster -- and it can evolve faster. What's more, according to Forrester Research (subscription required), the top three drivers for acceleration are the need to reduce costs, improve capabilities, and meet the escalating expectations of customers.

This new dynamic reality means that just about every large company, across almost every industry, is a technology company to some extent. However, many organizations are having a hard time keeping up with the rapidly accelerating pace of change, especially when their teams are working in silos using outmoded systems. Product delivery is plagued by (what should be) preventable delays.

Obstacles to optimized product delivery
In a survey conducted by Forrester for Jama Software, "unclear or changing requirements" was the most common reason cited for product delays. Communication issues within organizations and teams were also seen as significant obstacles to product development. Reasons such as delayed decisions, coordination problems, and shared resource conflicts are preventable, but they happen all the time. In many companies, collaboration occurs only when the right people finally find time in their overscheduled days for a one-hour conference call -- and then, half the time is wasted going over why past decisions were made without everyone's approval.

According to the Forrester report, five main factors contributed to product delays: