Teradyne Corporation -The Jaguar Project PDF

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Teradyne Corporation – The Jaguar Project This case examines Teradyne’s implementation and use of new approaches to project management and project teams in the development of a new-generation tester, code-named Jaguar. The development involved significant hardware and software design Strategically, ...

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Teradyne Corporation – The Jaguar Project

This case examines Teradyne’s implementation and use of new approaches to project management and project teams in the development of a new-generation tester, code-named Jaguar. The development involved significant hardware and software design Strategically, this was a very important project for the company as the timing of the launch and performance of the product would have a significant impact on the company’s revenues for years to come. Due to competitive conditions, time to market was viewed as a critical success factor. Since 1996, Teradyne had been engaged in a multi-year effort to improve its product development capabilities and performance, and had adopted various tools and concepts such as aggregate project portfolio planning, product line road mapping, phase gate reviews, more integrated project team structures, and post-project reviews. The company reported mixed success with the implementation of these methods. One of the lessons learned from previous projects was that failure to properly project scope and deliverable timelines were root causes for project delays. For Jaguar, it was decided from the beginning that the project would build on the existing concepts but also implement a more detailed and rigorous up-front planning and makes use of tracking and reporting tools. The hope was that this approach to product development would facilitate the identification and corrections of problems in planning, tracking and controlling the development of the Jaguar project so as to ensure the delivery of a high-quality product on time and within budget. For this case, you should take the role of a consultant hired by the CEO to determine the effectiveness of this approach and the general lessons for the management of product development and project execution strategy. In managing the Jaguar project, the approach Teradyne used was very rigorous. Yet, part of the project failed. Was the rigorous approach Teradyne used appropriate for the company given that Jaguar was a highly complex project involving both software and hardware development? You should explore the links between product development, project management, and potential behavioral biases causing unintended consequences in the use of project management tools. The decision about what tools should be used also allows you to understand and explore why different project management tools and approaches may be more or less appropriate within specific organizational and strategic settings. In general, despite the existence and availability of advanced project management tools, there is widespread evidence that product development projects are consistently late. The traditional approach to the problem is to develop better models for project management and more sophisticated in-process management tools (such as real time scheduling and earned value progress charts) and to undertake more planning activities. You should recommend and understand when and under what conditions this is in fact a good approach.

You should report on the following themes: Project Management tools, The tension between flexibility and discipline in project execution, Dynamic learning versus static (project execution) and behavioral issues in project management. Here are some general questions to consider when developing your presentation. 1)   Compare and contrast Teradyne’s traditional project execution strategy to the approach it used in Jaguar? What was similar? What was different? 2)   What impact did the project management tools have on the Jaguar project? Specifically, how did they change behavior? How did they influence performance? 3)   What were the unintended consequences of using the project management tools? What lessons should Teradyne take away from the Jaguar project?

Teradyne Corporation: The Jaguar Project About Teradyne Corporation • • • • o o o o

Teradyne was founded by Alex d’Arbeloff and Nick DeWolf, who were classmates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1940s. Teradyne is a 45 year old corporation Sales of $1.8 billion in 2004 with over 6000 employees Teradyne corporation has following major units: Semi-Conductor Test (64% revenue) Assembly Test Broadband Test Connection Systems and Diagnostic Solutions

About Jaguar Project • • •

The project was envisioned as a culmination of sorts in Teradyne’s 8 year effort to improve product development process In 2001 O’ Brien, a 25 year veteran of Teradyne’s engineering organization is appointed project leader Company decided to abolish the markets-segment-focused platform into a single platform engineering group

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Teradyne senior management made a pivotal strategic decision to embrace a flexible platform strategy Aim was to create a flexible tester platform that can be easily adapted to the needs for difference device segments Main emphasis was to use project management tools to streamline the product development activities

Question1: Compare & contrast Teradyne’s traditional project execution strategy to the approach it used in Jaguar? What was similar? What was different? Strategy Goal and Scope definition

Project Management tools

Visibility to higher management Project Status tracking

Test Strategy

Resource allocation

Traditional Project Execution

Jaguar Project Execution

Goals and scopes were not defined clearly up front. Since the requirements were not clear and not defined, the engineering and other stakeholders added many features during development which increasing the delivery time & quality Teradyne’s culture was to mandate the use of specific tools, but if was left up to the individual divisions and managers to decide There was very less visibility to higher management on the project status and phase Progress tracking was highly variable even within divisions, some were using phase gate model, detailed project planning, conduction after-action reviews and others not Market-segment-focused platform for testing. There was different test platform for each market segment Mostly over committed. Some times to the extent of 300%

Requirements & scope are very clearly defined. Delivery date is also finalized and adding scopes during development was not allowed

Formalized project management tools like Work Breakdown structure, 3-point estimation, Critical Path analysis, Earned value analysis are used Clear visibility and tracking was possible Usage of tools resulting in near accurate tracking of project status

Embrace a flexible platform strategy

Correct commitment was provided, but sometimes forced

people into commitment which was not possible in real world

Question 2: What impact did the project management tools have on the Jaguar project? Specifically, how did they change behavior? How did they influence performance? • • • • • • •

Higher management did not pay enough attention to the data provided for project management tools and they did not get the understanding of the metrics Most of the time in meeting were spend on finding the right tool, right way to report the data rather than think about the product solutions The Teradyne culture of individual contribution was slowing eroding and people started to feel that they are not responsible for the project delivery timelines Hardware system were largely able to keep on track on timelines, but the software development emerged as a problem Software development division were under enormous pressure to keep the timelines The learning required for new software platform like windows NT was affecting the project delivery The software challenge turned out to be a bigger than anticipated. Even though the hardware units were on time due to software delays the push out was delayed by 6 months for “Ultra Flex” systems

Question 3: What were the unintended consequences of using the project management tools? What lessons should Teradyne take away from the Jaguar project? Unintended consequences of using the project management tools

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Some of the metric were not understood by the management teams and they choose to use the metrics which was easier and understandable for them. This did not reflect on the correct project status More development resource were wasted due to the training, tracking and status update meeting Employees and development teams did not feel that it is their responsibility for project delivery and expected higher management to govern. The need to update status and maintain the project management tools created a diversion for the development teams from the real problems

Lessons should Teradyne take away from the Jaguar project

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Value of the project management tools has to be taught to the project manager teams The need to understand and report the most important metric has to be training. Project management maturity assessment to identify strengths and weakness, and areas of improvement in the organizations project management practice The use of project management tools required a cultural change There is a need for continuous monitoring of the project progress Process is not important, but the capable people has to be there to execute these process Information overload should be avoided Project management tools cannot be used for the development stuff where there is lots of uncertainty....