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Posts containing:

Eric Graves

Aerospace and mechanical engineer turned NPD systems engineer, Eric spends his time engineering better product develop systems, using Playbook as his tool of choice!

Recent Posts

How to calculate risk exposure - free risk exposure calculator

Eric Graves - 07/5/23 07:00 AM

In general, companies can take two approaches to calculating risk exposure, a quantitative approach and a qualitative one. There are pluses and...

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Resource loading vs. resource leveling and how to calculate it

Eric Graves - 06/5/23 03:10 PM

Resource loading is a critical project metric. Get it wrong and you could inadvertently commit to a seriously unrealistic project launch date....

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WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) and how to calculate it

Eric Graves - 05/5/23 06:53 PM

In life, sometimes it just seems easier to continue doing things the way we are used to instead of seeking new approaches that may cause the...

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Cost of delay: how to calculate it

Eric Graves - 03/5/23 04:13 PM

Here is a simple formula for quickly estimating Cost of Delay: the profit lost per-month of delay.

Total COD = Lost Month Cost + Peak Reduction Cost.

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Applying agile to hardware development (part 1)

Eric Graves - 02/5/23 06:00 PM

Agile development

Yes, Agile principles can be applied with benefit in hardware product development (Agile hardware development). However, Agile's...

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Agile principle 1: early and continuous delivery of value

Eric Graves - 01/5/23 06:21 PM

In the next three posts we discuss Agile principles and how to apply the principles in hardware development. In this post we look at delivering...

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8 Types of risk and risk management investment

Eric Graves - 12/5/22 08:57 PM

8 Types of risk 

In order to examine risk exposure and uncertainty in greater detail, let's look at the different types of risks --uncertain events...

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Risk drivers and 5 whys

Eric Graves - 11/5/22 09:58 PM

We begin the analysis phase and look at risk drivers and the 5 Whys technique - a simple and powerful technique for discovering the root of the...

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Agile principle 2: welcoming changing requirements

Eric Graves - 10/5/22 05:22 PM

Agile principle 2: Welcome changing requirements, even late in development.

Software and hardware product development teams share important...

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Product Development and Golf: An Analogy for Success

Eric Graves - 10/17/19 02:59 PM

Golf. It’s a wonder anyone ever keeps playing. Sure, the greens are often in captivatingly beautiful locations. The views, fresh air and time with...

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Risk Mitigation Strategy (Part 2)

Eric Graves - 03/12/19 10:05 PM

What is a risk mitigation strategy?

Mitigating a risk essentially means deliberately doing something to reduce risk exposure - to burn down the...

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Risk Management Process

Eric Graves - 02/26/19 09:00 PM

Risk management has four steps. It is cyclical, and each risk, issue, question, and opportunity is put through the process as quickly as possible....

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Effective Task management

Eric Graves - 02/20/19 12:15 PM

A lot has been said over the last several years about the fallacy of increased productivity when a person multitasks. Lean, Agile, and the Theory of...

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Risk identification and risk capture

Eric Graves - 02/19/19 08:35 PM

The first step in risk management is identifying risks and capturing them in a risk management spreadsheet. In risk identification and capture teams...

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Risk Mitigation Strategy

Eric Graves - 02/19/19 05:30 PM

Defining Risk Drivers

Product development is a risky business. So how do you effectively minimize the impact of risks on your project? In short, you...

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Push vs. Pull

Eric Graves - 02/12/19 02:00 PM

What is the difference between push vs pull?

In a pull system, teams pull tasks from the backlog. As opposed to a push system where work is pushed...

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Resource Management

Eric Graves - 02/4/19 03:09 PM

This is the fifth part of our series on Lean Project Management. In this post, we look at resource management. 

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Kanban Board Examples

Eric Graves - 01/24/19 11:34 AM

This is the third part of our series on Lean project management.

In this post we discuss visual management’s and Kanban's role in Lean and Agile...
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Lean Project Management Methods and Principles

Eric Graves - 01/17/19 01:12 PM

This is the second part of our series on Lean Agile Project Management.

In Part 1 we recognized that one of the primary drivers of success in product...

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Lean Project Management

Eric Graves - 01/9/19 06:55 PM

Feeling like you are using the wrong tools to achieve your product development goals?

This is Part 1 of a series of posts on Lean Project Management

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8 Ways to Decrease Risk in Project Decisions

Eric Graves - 01/8/19 06:30 PM

So how do you increase certainty in project decisions. In part we can increase certainty by increasing the accuracy of our impact estimates. 

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ROI of Risk Management

Eric Graves - 01/1/19 09:47 PM

The Return on Investment in project risk management is high, and therefore worth the effort.

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Procurement Strategy That Works

Eric Graves - 12/4/18 05:23 PM

Shipment delays in product development happen. Packages get lost or dropped off at the wrong location. As a result projects can get delayed more than...

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Cost of Delay Project Model Examples

Eric Graves - 11/27/18 06:43 PM

Project Modeling: Project Management Decisions Based on Profit

How do you make project decisions based on their impact on profit? Here are some...

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Cost of Delay and Project Modeling

Eric Graves - 11/20/18 04:39 PM

In order to make project decisions such as whether or not to add a new feature, we need an economic model. Cost of Delay is one input into this...

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Resource Availability - How to Calculate It

Eric Graves - 11/13/18 09:43 PM

The project team is falling behind schedule at a rapid rate. The major milestones and planned launch date are becoming further out of reach. You are...

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Lean Agile Project Management (Part 2): Which Lean practices deliver the highest ROI?

Eric Graves - 07/19/18 05:47 PM

Feeling like you are using the wrong tools to achieve your product development goals?

This is Part 2 of a series of posts on Lean product...

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What is Lean Project Management?

Eric Graves - 07/17/18 11:48 AM

Feeling like you are using the wrong tools to achieve your product development goals?

This is Part 1 of a series of posts on Lean Project Management...

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What is Project Risk Management

Eric Graves - 04/3/18 05:45 PM

While on a recent trip to New Zealand to ramp up a new client, I took a little time after work to see some sights. Coincidently, I was also...

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5 Principles of Lean Project Management

Eric Graves - 03/8/18 12:00 PM

I recently read the new book Team of Teams – New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, by General Stanley McChrystal. I’d like to share some of my...

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8 Tips for Adopting Lean Project Management

Eric Graves - 02/8/18 06:00 PM

Achieving project flow is what enables project teams to have greater confidence task completion and launch dates. At Playbook, we have found that...

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Architectural Runway and WSJF

Eric Graves - 10/24/17 03:33 PM

What is an architectural runway?

Designing a new product with an architectural runway means supporting the business' ability to "land" new features...

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14 Tips for Calculating Cost of Delay

Eric Graves - 03/9/17 06:30 PM

14 tips for calculating cost of delay. Implementing cost of delay and ultimately creating a project economic model for basing project decisions on is...

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Cost of delay: Calculating economic value to increase profit (Part 7)

Eric Graves - 02/28/17 07:26 PM

This is Part 7 in a series of posts discussing Cost of Delay and making objective decisions in new product development, based on economic analysis.

...

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Early Learning in Hardware Development

Eric Graves - 12/15/16 04:00 PM

Early Learning in Hardware Development

This series is a comprehensive review of Agile and how to apply Agile to hardware product development.We look...

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Making Hardware Development More Agile

Eric Graves - 12/1/16 06:23 PM

Optimizing Hardware Development to be More Agile

So how do you make hardware development more Agile? In this part, part 5, we examine Agile's 3 and...

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Agile Values

Eric Graves - 11/15/16 02:26 PM

Component procurement time, component cost, and the variety of skills needed on most hardware development projects are greater and represent in our...

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Setting a target launch date (project baseline) too early is a recipe for project delays

Eric Graves - 11/3/16 04:31 PM

Lean methods and Agile principles recognize that it’s almost impossible to get anything absolutely right the first time. Testing and iterating are...

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Agile Hardware Development: Agile Principles 4 - 12

Eric Graves - 11/1/16 05:25 PM

We agree. Hardware product development is different than software. So when we apply Agile principles, we need a different approach.

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Risk Management for Hardware (Part 12): Risk Mitigation Strategy

Eric Graves - 10/18/16 04:15 PM

Making the trade-off between scope, schedule, and cost, and making decisions that maximize the top-level goal of making a profit is at the heart of...

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What is Lean Product Development

Eric Graves - 09/21/16 03:34 PM

What is Lean Product Development?  The Lean landscape is confusing because there are many flavors of Lean. But here is our definition...

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Resource Leveling - A Step by Step Guide

Eric Graves - 08/30/16 06:05 PM

Resource leveling is the process of using a company's resources in the most efficient way possible. To some, high efficiency is the same as high...

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Objects Impacted and Modular Architecture

Eric Graves - 08/2/16 03:46 PM

Objects Impacted and Modular Architecture

It's critical to capture the objects impacted by a risk in order to understand risk exposure, as well as...

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Project Risk and Project Objectives

Eric Graves - 03/17/16 05:11 PM

Project Risk and Project Objectives

Evaluating risks starts by defining and understanding a project’s objectives. If there aren’t any objectives,...

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Agile vs. Waterfall Product Development

Eric Graves - 02/26/16 06:00 PM

Agile vs. Waterfall

Recently I came across an article on the Dummies.com website comparing the traditional Waterfall method (Phased and Gated) to the...

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Four Agile Product Development Techniques That DON’T Work for Hardware

Eric Graves - 02/2/16 06:40 PM

At Playbook, creating velocity in product development projects has been our passion for 18 years. As a result, we’ve analyzed Agile and other product...

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11 Tips for Implementing Lean Project Management

Eric Graves - 07/14/15 08:01 PM

I heard recently some people in software development were proposing that there be ‘no projects’, because ‘projects’ create batches and stifle project...

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Lean Startup Methodology and Early Learning

Eric Graves - 05/20/14 05:49 PM

The series explores the relationship between Lean Startup Principles, Knowledge Based Product Development, and Project Risk Management, and how they...

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Lean Startup Methodology

Eric Graves - 03/20/14 06:19 PM

Lean Startup Methodology and Product Development

There has been a lot of discussion about Lean Startup principles and whether they apply to hardware...

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Cost of Delay and Strategic Advantage

Eric Graves - 02/1/14 09:26 PM

Uncertainty in Product Development

Gaining a strategic advantage through statistics and mathematical analysis is changing the game of product...

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Lean and Agile New Product Development Systems and How They Parallel a Fighter Jet Flight System

Eric Graves - 11/16/13 09:27 PM

Being an Aerospace Engineer by training, I find some parallels from time to time between product development systems and flight systems. One that I...

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11 Lean and Agile Tips for Achieving Your Project Launch Date

Eric Graves - 10/19/13 09:09 AM

I heard recently some people in software development proposing that there be "no projects," because projects create batches and stifle flow. Being a...

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Changing Mindsets by Applying Lean and Agile Methods

Eric Graves - 09/12/13 09:11 AM

Hello world! This is my first entry into the blogging business. I hope to have many great discussions with you. Please allow me to introduce myself....

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