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Posts containing:

David Paulson

CEO

Inquisitive, provocative and results oriented, David is willing to dig into problems until their true essence is understood and the solution is executed. We love that at Playbook!

Recent Posts

Milestone Buffer Chart: The Most Important Report You've Never Heard Of

David Paulson - 02/14/24 04:31 AM

In previous posts I’ve written about reports that are meaningless, misleading, and even damaging. (Yes, the last one actually causes your projects to...

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Burndown Charts Don't Work for Hardware

David Paulson - 01/30/24 03:19 AM

In a previous blog post I explained (and hopefully convinced you) that measuring “percent complete” literally causes your projects to take longer.

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Resource Loading - How a Small Error Can Double Your Schedule!😧

David Paulson - 01/6/24 11:23 PM

Would you believe that a 10% increase in the workload on your teams could double the length of a project? 

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Your Favorite Report is Delaying Your Project

David Paulson - 12/6/23 03:15 AM

Most companies are trying hard to achieve predictable end dates.

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Stop the Evil and Nefarious Multitasking!

David Paulson - 11/14/23 09:28 PM

Not that long ago multitasking used to be considered a valuable skill. Thankfully that belief has been proven wrong, but for some reason a lot of...

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Predictable End Dates - One Company's Journey

David Paulson - 10/19/23 01:01 AM

One of the most difficult things about making process improvements is knowing where to start. Doing the wrong thing is a waste of time and money, and...

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Does Your Project Management Software Deliver Zero-Touch, Real-Time Project Status Reporting?

David Paulson - 06/24/21 12:30 PM

Are you on track to hit your next project milestone?

Most project teams hold status meetings once every two weeks. But have you ever considered that...

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The Importance of Resource Loading Explained

David Paulson - 06/25/20 11:30 AM

Resource Loading

Here is an easy quiz.

Two teams are going to race on the same project. One team planned their work for 90% loading (36 hours per...

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Lean Agile Project Management Case Study

David Paulson - 05/28/20 02:30 PM

Recently, we had the fortunate opportunity to talk to our second Playbook customer about the successful completion of their large and complex...

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Lean Agile Assessment

David Paulson - 10/24/19 02:28 PM

Having a working knowledge of the core principles of Lean Agile product development is critical to your project's success. For example, do you know...

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Six Lean Methods for Accelerating Projects

David Paulson - 06/6/19 12:30 PM

A fundamental principle of Lean is smooth, continuous flow. Turbulence is caused any time that the flow of work is interrupted by something in its...

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Six Steps to Visual Work Management and Self-Empowered Teams

David Paulson - 04/12/19 11:40 AM

Self-empowered teams is a common goal for many companies. But most of the people we talk to feel it’s only a dream, or requires too much work to...

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Cost of Delay: How to Calculate It - Free Excel spreadsheet

David Paulson - 09/18/18 07:01 PM

The goal of developing new products is profit. And even though we intuitively know it's important to get to market sooner, do you really understand...

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Lean or Agile, Which is the Best for Hardware Development…?

David Paulson - 07/10/18 02:40 PM

We created a 9 minute video that shares two paradigm shifting ideas around what causes late projects. Here is the video, and why we did it...

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4 Ways to Ensure your Product Development Initiative Won't Fail

David Paulson - 04/30/17 12:00 PM

The first attempt to implement Lean product development is critical. If you don’t get it right, there will be more resistance on the next attempt....

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Lean Product Development: Barriers to Adoption

David Paulson - 04/27/17 05:00 PM

I often hear companies use the excuse that their culture is preventing them from adopting Lean product development, or making other positive changes....

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Lean Principles

David Paulson - 04/25/17 05:00 PM

In my previous blog post I introduced two of Don Reinertsen’s books and explained how they contained dozens and dozens of great ideas around Lean and...

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Lean and Agile Lessons That Make Parenting Easier (Really!)

David Paulson - 04/20/17 04:00 PM

My last blog post was about an example of great packaging design from Girl Scout Cookies, and I pointed out that we can learn Lean and Agile lessons...

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Lean Product Development: Where in the world should you begin?

David Paulson - 04/13/17 05:15 PM

In the previous two blogs I made a compelling case for Lean Product Development being the business opportunity of the century, and then gave an...

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Lean Product Development Case Study

David Paulson - 03/16/17 05:30 PM

In this post, I want to share an incredible case study that demonstrates the unexpected results that can be achieved when you apply the proper set of...

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Lean Product Development: The Business Opportunity of the Century

David Paulson - 02/14/17 06:34 PM

Lean Product Development 

People sometimes tell me they’re having trouble getting their company interested in applying Lean and Agile concepts to...

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Innovation and New Product Development: If you thought you couldn't learn Lean NPD lessons from Girl Scouts, think again…!

David Paulson - 02/9/17 04:32 PM

You probably weren’t surprised last week when we shared lean product design examples from Elon Musk. But did you ever think you would learn about...

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Lean Product Development: Positive Economics of Failing Fast

David Paulson - 02/2/17 06:15 PM

One of the topics that frequently arises when I'm talking to someone about lean product development is the concept of failing fast. They usually tell...

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Lean and Agile? Yes, it's both in hardware development!

David Paulson - 12/15/16 05:55 PM

Lean and Agile in Hardware Development

There seems to be some confusion about which works best for the hardware development process. This makes...

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The invisible, nefarious cause of project delays …!

David Paulson - 10/27/16 05:11 PM

Lean Project Management - The Cause of Project Delays

In a previous blog post, I mentioned how electronic lean/agile/kanban visual project management...

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Visual Management - Return on Investment

David Paulson - 10/6/16 04:20 PM

Visual Management

Visual management allows you to have tangible everyday conversations about the work in progress -- it makes work visible. It's such...

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Visual Project Management Software: Play the game and see what you've been missing!

David Paulson - 06/2/16 06:39 PM

Does this sound familiar? Intuitively you know visual project management software is worth the investment, but how do you effectively communicate the...

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Lean Product Development: Why did we focus on the wrong end of the value chain...?

David Paulson - 04/5/16 06:13 PM

Lean Product Development Value Chain

Manufacturers have known for years that one of the primary tenets of Lean is to identify what the customer...

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3 Secrets of Highly Successful New Product Development Executives

David Paulson - 12/19/13 02:54 AM

3 Secrets of Highly Successful New Product Development Executives

At Playbook, we work with a lot of great Fortune 500 companies that are adopting...

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Audible Ready - Lean Project Management

David Paulson - 10/22/13 09:10 AM

Welcome to Playbook's's blog, Lean and Agile product development blog. Running projects requires the ability to adapt to new information quickly and...

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