Product development is a complex and dynamic process that involves creativity, collaboration, and experimentation. However, it also requires consistency and quality to deliver value to customers and stakeholders. How can you achieve both aspects in your product engineering projects? One possible answer is standard work.
Standard work is a lean product management practice that defines the best way to perform a task or a process. It specifies the steps, tools, inputs, outputs, and standards for each activity, and it is documented and communicated to the team. Standard work helps to reduce variation, waste, errors, and rework, and to improve efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction.
Standard work in product development involves documenting and following established SOPs, ensuring consistency in processes. Some examples detailed guidelines, work instructions, checklists, and best practices for tasks
I agree best practice is an effective approach to follow because it had been developed and proven in the system. And it is also a mindset as a standard for engineering to follow to update to adjust for any new technologies on the market.
Standard work is crucial in product development to ensure consistency and efficiency. Define and document standardized processes, minimizing variations and errors. For instance, in software development, establish coding standards and version control procedures. Regularly update and communicate these standards to the development team. Implement checkpoints and reviews at key stages to verify adherence to standardized processes. This fosters a culture of continuous improvement, streamlining workflows and enhancing the overall quality of the product. Standard work in product development acts as a reliable framework, reducing uncertainties and promoting consistency throughout the development lifecycle.
Product development is not a linear or predictable process. It involves uncertainty, ambiguity, and change. However, it also has some repetitive and routine elements that can benefit from standard work. For example, you can use standard work to define how to plan, execute, review, and iterate on your sprints, how to conduct user research, testing, and feedback, how to document and communicate your product vision, roadmap, and backlog, and how to collaborate and coordinate with your stakeholders and cross-functional teams.
By adhering to the standards, teams can reduce variation, improve efficiency, and enhance the overall quality of the product. Regular reviews and updates to the standard work help adapt to changing requirements and maintain relevance.
Creating standard work for product development is not a one-time or top-down activity, but rather a continuous and collaborative process. To start, identify the tasks or processes that need standard work using tools such as value stream mapping, customer journey mapping, or user story mapping. Then, define the best way to perform each task or process by utilizing checklists, templates, guidelines, frameworks, data, feedback, and best practices. Additionally, document and communicate your standard work using wikis, knowledge bases, shared folders, diagrams, charts, and dashboards. Train and coach your team on your standard work by hosting workshops, webinars, videos and using feedback forms, surveys, and quizzes. Lastly, review and improve your standard work by evaluating results with retrospectives, audits, metrics and testing changes with experiments, pilots or kaizen events.
Standard work for product development can offer multiple advantages, such as increasing the consistency and quality of your product outcomes and deliverables. It can also reduce variation, waste, errors, and rework in your product processes and activities, while improving efficiency, productivity, and speed of your product team and workflow. In addition, it can help to enhance customer satisfaction with your product value and experience, as well as foster collaboration, alignment, and transparency among your product team and stakeholders. Lastly, it supports continuous learning, improvement, and innovation in your product engineering.
Standard work for product development can also present some challenges, such as balancing standardization and customization of your product solutions and features, adapting to changing customer needs and market trends, and avoiding over-complexity or bureaucracy in your product documentation and communication. Additionally, it is important to encourage creativity, experimentation, and empowerment in your product team and culture while resolving conflicts or gaps in your product standards and expectations.
The need for regular updates to stay current with evolving processes and technologies. Ensuring that standards remain relevant and effective over time requires ongoing monitoring and adjustments. Striking the right balance between flexibility and standardization is crucial, as rigid processes may affect creativity and adaptation.