Control Plan Gaps: What Most Quality Professionals Overlook Control Plans are among the foundational quality tools within Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) and are required by IATF 16949. They help organizations define process controls, monitor product characteristics, and establish reaction plans when performance deviates from expectations.  This blog post is prompted by a LinkedIn post […]

PPAP Risk Management: Why Most PPAP Approvals Still Fail at Production Launch I recently reviewed a visual guide titled “How to Create PPAP – Complete Practical Master Guide.“ Like many PPAP references circulating online, it does an excellent job explaining the documentation requirements, submission levels, and elements of the Production Part Approval Process. What it […]

Project Management Review of the Deeply Practical Project Management Framework The “Deeply Practical Project Management” framework offers a strong foundation for structured project execution. William Stewart sent me some of his works on project management and asked for my thoughts.  Check out The Institute for Practical Project Management. The flowchart effectively reinforces many core project […]

Executive Decisions and Product Launch Failure Most executives do not wake up in the morning intending to launch a defective product. They are not trying to damage customer trust. They are not attempting to trigger recalls, incur warranty costs, or cause reputational damage. Most are attempting to balance delivery schedules, investor expectations, internal politics, manufacturing […]

Product Development Writing — Engineering Beyond Engineering I never intended to become a writer. I intended to become a product development professional. Like many engineers, I initially believed technical competence and creativity would largely determine success. Certainly, strong engineering capability matters. But over time, reality exposes a far more complicated truth: Products rarely fail solely […]

Why Most Testing Strategies Fail: The Real Problem Isn’t Testing This post is borne out of a LinkedIn post.  If you’re responsible for testing, here’s a simple question: 👉 Do you actually know what’s going on? Not what’s reported.Not what’s assumed.What’s really happening? Because in most organizations, what looks like a testing strategy failure isn’t […]

The Fates and Project Management: Understanding Control and Uncertainty In Greek mythology, the Fates—Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos—govern the thread of life. This powerful metaphor offers a compelling way to understand Fates project management in today’s unpredictable project environments. Despite detailed plans and structured methodologies, projects rarely unfold exactly as intended. Like the Fates, project managers […]

In many organizations, teams face a subtle but dangerous behavior known as product development chicken. This occurs when individuals delay communicating problems or risks, hoping that someone else’s issue will surface first. Instead of addressing challenges early, teams wait until the project is already in trouble. The result is predictable: missed deadlines, increased costs, and […]

Quality Improvement in Product Development: The Horse Isn’t Even Near the Water Before we go any further with this blog post, I need to note that this stems from recent consulting work that demonstrated the principle.  But that would not have been enough even though these thoughts were rolling through my head.  The catalyst was […]

The Iterative Development Process in Modern Product Development The iterative development process is not a single activity or phase—it is a system of interconnected disciplines working together throughout the product lifecycle. The attached graphic illustrates this system as a set of interlocking gears, each representing a critical capability required to move from concept to successful […]