GGI RapidNews R&D Product Development eZine: Volume 2, Issue 1 - February 9, 2001
GGI RapidNews is published monthly

NEWS & NOTES
Jesús Muñiz, a 4th year MIT student in Management Information Technologies, is GGI's Web Master. Jesús comes to Cambridge by way of Eagle Pass, Texas. Mr. Muñiz previously worked for Honeywell's Sensor Guided Products Division in Minneapolis where he help to develop a web-based reporting tool for software development metrics. He also upgraded Honeywell's web site to enable real time product testing for Honeywell's laser-ring gyroscope operations. Jesús and his wife Erica are expecting their first child.

R&D SURVEY RESULTS
GGI's 2000 R&D Metrics Survey has been completed and is about to be published. The 2000 Survey focused on Product Portfolio Management and Metrics. Several key findings are presented below. We will provide additional survey findings in future issues of RapidNews.

Selected 2000 R&D Metrics Survey Findings:

• 32% of survey respondents do not track product life cycles!
  
  
• 60% of companies tracking product life cycles report exclusively decreasing life cycles!
  
  
• Only 19% of survey respondents have an active product retirement/obsolescence policy!

The original survey questionnaire may be found at http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/Metrics.pdf. GGI's next R&D Survey will be conducted in 2002. If you would like to participate, please send me an e-mail.

NEW WEB CONTENT
As a part of GGI's Gateways To Knowledge ® (GTK), a product development vortal, we are expanding our Mega Calendar to include Distance Learning: http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/gateway/calendar3.shtml .

A comprehensive calendar of industry conferences and seminars is already offered in eight professional interest areas at the above URL. The eight categories are:

• Strategic Management, Product Development
• Software Development & Testing
• Manufacturing & Automation
• Project Management, Metrics
• Entrepreneurship & Interpreneurship
• Knowledge Management

Check on offerings in your interest area, and click on the relevant links to connect with the conference or seminar provider. The Distance Learning Gateways are located near the bottom of the Mega Calendar Gateway.

GGI is also continuing to develop the Technology Providers Gateway with additional suppliers and service providers. Currently, about 15,000 suppliers and service providers are listed. Further Gateway development is planned in categories such as Electrical/Electronic Design and Software Engineering. Go to http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/gateway/techproviders.shtml to find these Technology Providers.

MANAGEMENT PRODUCTIVITY
Robb Olsen, Procter & Gamble R&D, gave an interesting presentation at the recent IQPC Web-Enabled R&D Conference in Orlando. He discussed the features of P&G's Intranet R&D web site entitled InnovationNet. P&G is an industry leader in utilizing web technology to increase R&D productivity:

• The target P&G user community is 18,000 R&D staff.
• About 25,000 P&G staff actually access the site.
• 87% of all P&G R&D staff have accessed the site at least once.
• 67% of R&D staff use the site at least once per week or more.
• 1 million pages of the more than 5.5 million on-line documents are accessed each month.
• About half of P&G's users read the on-line content and half use it to find out "who knows."
• There are 20 chartered communities in R&D functional disciplines like test, design, etc.
• There are 500 content owners and 600 team spaces for P&G project communications.
• There are 3 R&D Intranet security levels.

In an internal survey conducted by P&G, the company realized the following benefits from Web-Enabled R&D:

• 75% reported that the R&D Intranet made them an average 13% more productive.
• More than 50% reported it reduced product time-to-market by an average of at least two weeks.
• P&G has to date realized project savings of $160 million.

UPCOMING PUBLIC SPEAKING
Brad Goldense will Co-Chair the International Quality & Productivity Center's (IQPC) Collaborative Product Design and Development Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona on February 26-27, 2001. Brad will also offer a half-day post-conference workshop on Measuring Product Development.

The conference focus is on using the Internet to streamline Product Design, increase Speed-To-Market and control R&D Costs. Case study presentations will be offered by General Motors, Dell, Lockheed Martin and 3M, among others. Go to IQPC's web site to see details of this increasingly important topic, or to register for the conference and workshops: http://www.iqpc.com