82
Appendix C: Interview
Strategy, Organization and Process
What do you understand under PRODUCT portfolio management?
What do you understand under PROJECT portfolio management?
Product portfolio management = a dynamic decision process, whereby a business’s list of active new product (and R&D) projects is constantly updated and revised. In this process, new projects are evaluated, selected, and prioritized; existing projects may be accelerated, killed, or de-prioritized; and resources are allocated and reallocated to the active projects.
Project portfolio management = the central management of portfolio(s) in terms of identification, prioritization, authorization, organization, realization and controlling of its associated projects” where a portfolio is a “clearly marked of collection of associated projects.
Can you describe your role as product manager? What are your tasks?
Who are involved in both PRODUCT and PROJECT portfolio management process and what roles do they fulfill?
o How is the/your management involved in this process? (supportive, controlling)
Can you give a short description of strategy in your organization / business unit?
What tools (software etc.) are in place for portfolio management?
Do you use a product roadmaps for managing the products in the portfolio? o How do you construct and use these roadmaps?
Roadmapping = a popular metaphor for planning and portraying the use of scientific and technological resources, elements and their structural relationships over a period of time. But roadmaps are not just the output of a process, instead they are a snapshot of a ‘rolling’
strategy at a certain moment in time.
Product portfolio evaluation
What do you think of the products in the current PRODUCT portfolio considering the organizational (or business unit) strategy?
o Do you believe that the current product portfolio fulfills this strategy? o Is there room for improvement? (where)
o Do you change the process based on earlier findings? (towards best practice)
How do you evaluate the current PRODUCT portfolio? o What performance matrixes do you use? (e.g. BCG)
o What triggers are there for particular decisions? (e.g. stop a product) o Is your product portfolio evaluated on a continuous base or periodical?
83 o Alignment with business objectives?
o Does it have the right balance? (e.g. right number, high value projects)
What external factors influence the portfolio management process in your organization?
o What external parties? o What events / occurrences?
How do you assess the need for new products?
How do you make decisions on the need for a new version of a specific product?
How does the corporate/business unit strategy influence this decision? (e.g. does it give guidance and if so, what level of guidance?)
What information do you use for making decisions on the product portfolio? o What are key indicators to take action?
o Do you use different indicators for new products/modules vs End-of-Life decisions? If so, what are the differences?
o What information do you present to convince management of your decisions? o What is the influence of the strategy?
o How long does it take to gather this information?
From you own experience, what do you want to change in the current situation?
Lifecycle management
How do you go about product lifecycle management? o Can you describe the current process?
o What are the key areas?
o What is the sort of information you are looking for? o How do you use the information you find?
o How is IT used in this process?
What are areas for improvement regarding product lifecycle management?
Project portfolio management
According to what criteria will a project be assessed for inclusion in the portfolio?
How do you make project portfolio decisions?
o What methods do you use to make decisions on resource allocation? o What is balance in your opinion?
o How do you keep or create balance?
o Do you make use of project roadmaps and how do you construct these?
Do you use product roadmaps of existing products when managing the project portfolio?
o How do you adjust current product roadmaps based on the project portfolio?
84
Appendix D: Coding scheme
CODE EXPLANATION
mm-ma-a Market trend identification. mm-ma-b Market strategy
mm-ma-c Customer win/loss analysis mm-ma-d Competitor analysis
mm-ma-e Custom market trend identification mm-pc-a Service level agreements
mm-pc-b Intellectual property management mm-pc-c Investigate distribution channels mm-pc-d Establish and evaluate pricing model mm-pc-e Monitored partner network
mm-plm-a Product lifecycle analysis mm-plm-b Portfolio innovation mm-plm-c Portfolio scope analysis mm-plm-d Business case
mm-plm-e Product lines
t-spmmm-1 Gatekeeper importance t-ppm-1 Strategy is a recurring subject
t-ppm-2 Just do it
t-plm-mm1 Saaksvuori and Immonen’s (2008) PLM maturity model t-plm-mm2 Batenburg et al.’s (2006) PLM maturity model
t-plm-1 Acknowledge PLM importance
t-plm-2 Create PLM roadmap
t-plm-3 Formalize PLM processes
t-plm-4 Need for refinement of PLM processes t-plm-5 Proper IT for support
t-pm-mm1 De Reyck et al.’s (2005) implementation trajectory t-pm-1 Balance between tactical and strategic focus
t-pm-2 Project management using proper IT
t-pm-3 Be able to manage the project portfolio using go/kill/hold/fix decisions and management involvement
t-pm-4 Establish clear methods t-nppm-1 Unique facets for NPPM
t-nppm-2 Balance incremental and radical innovation t-nppm-3 Link projects to strategic objectives
t-spm-mm1 Maturity table by van de Weerd et al. (2006) t-spm-1 The essential role of the product manager t-spm-2 The importance of the roadmap
t-s-d1 Define goals and objectives
t-s-d2 Establish product focus and portfolio strategy t-s-d3 Develop strategy for particular arena
t-s-d4 Allocate resources properly t-s-d5 Create strategic roadmap
t-s-1 Create a match between products and strategy
t-pmx-1 Find the matrixes that fit the organizational information needs iv-ee-1 Rules and legislation influence
85 iv-ee-2 Market demand influence
iv-ee-3 Technological influence
iv-r-1 Roadmap for external communication iv-r-2 Roadmap for internal communication iv-s-1 Implement strategy in different layers iv-s-2 Take underlying values into consideration iv-p-1 Partnering leads to less control and visibility iv-rp-1 How to prioritize requirements
iv-plm-1 Parallel development
iv-plm-2 Be aware of costs after development and launch iv-plm-3 Reasons to end a product
iv-pf-1 Don’t formalize too much
iv-pf-2 Balance management involvement iv-spm-1 Promote software re-use