Process Improvement
Pearls of Innovation - AI Meeting Notes Workflow with Granola and Claude
AI-powered meeting notes meet intelligent action: fractional CTO Brad Taylor shows how pairing Granola with Claude lets you stay present in meetings, then turn transcripts into updated decks, PRDs, and policy docs in minutes.
Pearls of Innovation - Visual Tools to Make Better Product Decisions
TCGen principal and Innovate Products Faster co-author Jeanne Bradford explores how visual tools help product teams make better decisions, communicate more clearly, and bring products to market faster.
Learning Loops and Customer Satisfaction
Many leaders view Net Promoter Score as the standard for measuring customer satisfaction, but by itself NPS is useless for deciding what ought to change to drive improvement. Read this paper to learn how to develop habits that drive improvement in customer outcomes.
Capacity Models in Agile Development
A good capacity model is your secret weapon for improving your ability to deliver value rapidly. This paper describes how capacity models work and steps to develop your own.
Schedule Prediction Accuracy - Anticipating Problems to Deliver On Time
Measuring schedules is not new. Using this graphical tool, that allows you to quickly monitor performance to the initial plan and check key drivers that can take you off course, is a new technique for many organizations.
Product Management Methodology: A Comprehensive Guide
Product management methodology is a set of structured frameworks, principles, and practices that product managers and development teams use to plan, execute, and deliver products to market.
Quality, Time, Scope - in the right order
Have you made a clear decision about how to order Quality, Time, and Scope in your organization? If not, you may not be getting the results you want.
Five Habits That Can Accelerate Product Development
Better development habits let your team deliver more value, faster. This paper explores five key habits that the team at Agilent’s Software division adopted to double their productivity and build competitive advantage in the contested market for laboratory informatics.
What is the Stage-Gate Process? Pros and Cons
The Stage-Gate Process divides product development into 5 stages where progress to the next stage is approved at the gate.
Product Development Life Cycle: The 4 Stages Explained
Product development life cycle describes the 4 stages of a product’s life: 1. Introduction, 2. Growth, 3. Maturity, 4. and Decline. It is fundamentally part of your product development strategy.
Agile Documentation: Definition, Importance, Process, and Best Practices
Discover the essentials of Agile documentation with TCGen’s comprehensive guide. Learn the importance, process, and best practices for effective Agile documentation in software development, and how it differs from traditional methods.
Digital Product Development Process: A Complete Breakdown
Learn about the digital product development process to start creating digital products that solve customer problems, provide value, and drive profits.
Sprints and Demos: Twin Beacons of Accountability
Two of the most effective and beneficial of these practices are sprint demos. Powered by these twin aspects of Agile, development teams of all manner of products can increase accountability and make programs faster and more predictable.
Project Efficiency: Getting More Done by Doing Less
Managers want to optimize their resources by loading them up and have them do more on the priority list to satisfy the executive suite and improve project efficiency. The optimum load is approximately 2 projects – one large and one small.
Execution: Quickly Estimating Accurate Project Schedules
The Lite Schedule Estimating Matrix is a tool that helps to estimate the amount of time a project will take in any given phase. It leverages past experience combined with the critical few, key drivers that impact a project’s schedule.
Why Retrospectives are a Waste of Time
Preparation is key to a winning retrospective. The most important goals in most programs are time to market, a winning feature set, and quality. The best method is to collect the events that impacted these factors using a timeline.
Getting a Project Back on the Rails
Setting “project boundaries and conditions” at the time of a project’s approval is an effective way to create a “contract” between the management and project teams.
NPI - New Product Introduction | 2023 Definitive Guide | TCGen
The new product introduction process is a set of repeatable steps or stages a company uses to realize the new product to satisfy a market need.
Waterfall vs Agile - 9 Ways to Get the Best of Both | TCGen
Of 12 Agile principles contained in the Manifesto, 75% are not specific to agile software development projects.
4 Agile Ceremonies Every Project Manager Should Know
Maximize the success of your Agile project with these four crucial Agile ceremonies: Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospectives.
New Product Development Process
A new product development process is a series of stages to turn an idea into a product that satisfies customer needs.
Product Discovery Techniques: Importance and Application | TCGen
Product discovery can be a significant investment for any company. Before you launch a team into the discovery process, ensure that the idea is one where you can win and that it is worth it.
What is Agile Project Management? A Basic Guide
Are you wondering what is agile project management and when we use it? In this post, you will learn everything there is to know regarding agile project management.
Agile Construction Management: Applying Agile Practices to the Construction Industry
Agile project management can help streamline construction processes and reduce delays. In this article, we explore how to be agile in the construction industry.
What is Agile Planning? Why is it Important for Your Business
Learn what an agile project plan is, why it’s important, and how to create an in-depth agile plan for your company to streamline business operations
Agile vs. Waterfall vs. Scrum: Similarities and Differences
In this article, we’ll discuss these different methodologies. We’ll define key terms like Agile product management, Scrum project management, and the Waterfall methodology and see how they compare with each other
What is Refactoring in Agile? Benefits, Principles, and Techniques
Learn what refactoring in Agile is, its benefits, principles, and techniques to follow in order to utilize Agile best for software development.
Agile Books: Explore the 14 Must-Read Books
Unleash the power of Agile with our handpicked selection of 14 must-read books. Enhance your project management skills, master Scrum methodologies, and transform the way you work.
Agile Workflow 101: What it is and How it Works
Understand what an Agile workflow is, how it’s different from Waterfall, and how to create an effective Agile workflow process for your own business.
Agile VS Scrum: Similarities and Differences
Confused between Agile and Scrum? Understand the difference and similarities between the two terms to know what to apply to your business.
Time To Market (TTM): What it is & Why It's Important
Time to market (TTM) is the length of time to develop a product from conception until it is released to the market and is available for sale.
The Product Management Process Explained
Learn more about the product management process, its main stages, differentiation in terms of software and hardware, examples and much more in our guide.
Lean Product Development: An Introductory Guide
Learn more about lean product development, its benefits, implementation, and tips for success in our guide.
Product Management Frameworks: A Complete Guide
Using product management frameworks is a way to dramatically improve product management and make your products a success. Read on to find the most powerful frameworks you could use to boost your business.
The Importance of Product Management Documentation for Product Development
Product management is a complex process that begins with ideation and ends in commercialization of a new product.
Product Development Process Tools
These Product Development Process Tools are based on real life examples, and have been tested in the field with clients on multiple engagements. We often are stuck when first getting started working on a complex issue, because we don’t know how to take the first step.
The Best New Product Development Process [Definitive Guide] (new)
The new product development process describes the steps to move from an idea to a finished product to generate a profit.
Product Development Checklist
The fastest way to destroy an Agile implementation is to let functional silos get in the way. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. And it happens because many companies underestimate the organizational implications of a successful Agile implementation.
Risk Management Matrix: Anticipating and Mitigating Risk
You can’t take the risk out of invention and no project is completely risk-free. But you can reduce the risk, even in the most innovative programs. How? By anticipating it. The Risk Management Matrix is an elegant way to anticipate, manage, and mitigate product development risks.
How to “Control” an Agile Development Project
So-called “Waterfall” or “Phase-Gate” product development methodologies often give management the illusion that they are under control of the project, while they are actually just meddling and slowing it down.
Visualizing the Unexpected
Project post mortems can be an excellent tool for learning from mistakes and implementing process and decision-making improvements.
How to Manage Risk Proactively
Innovation entails many kinds of risk: technical, market, or risks related to external events. Product developers can’t avoid it, but they can do more to mitigate risks.
Change Impact Matrix: Understanding the Consequences of Changes
The Change Impact Matrix is a descriptive tool that details the scope of the changes that everyone involved in a project will face. The matrix is useful for presenting the project context to upper management when discussing the project status, schedule, and progress to plan.
Make Meetings the Best Use of Your Time (Instead of a Waste of Your Time)!
We’ve all experienced those mind-numbing meetings – there are a lot of people in the room, and many issues to resolve – but at the end of the meeting, little has been accomplished – what a waste of time and energy! One of the biggest factors driving inefficient meetings is organizational politics.
Anticipating Risks: The Risk Mind Map
The Risk Mind Map enables a team to create a comprehensive risk profile. It allows management to anticipate where risks might arise and to prepare to meet these challenges more effectively.
Optimizing Processes: Four Fields Mapping
Four-Fields Process Map Originated in Japan, the Four-Fields Map is a graphical technique most commonly applied to cross-functional processes.
Team PERT Chart
Breaks projects down into tasks, shows the dependencies of one work stream on another, and provides real estimates, created by the people who actually perform the tasks.
Task Burn Down Chart
Shows the team and management how much progress they are making on a project. An improvement on Gantt Charts in that it focuses on customers, and provides a more accurate estimate of the work performed on a project in-progress.
Social Innovation Maturity Scorecard
Social Innovation enables organizations to tap the wisdom of the crowd, both inside and outside of your company. The Social Innovation Maturity Scorecard helps determine your organization's maturity l...
Schedule Prediction Accuracy Chart
The Schedule Prediction Accuracy Chart provides an early warning when a project fails to hit the schedule. This tool allows project teams to anticipate problems before they occur, and to intervene bef...
Root Cause Diagram
The Root Cause Diagram is a framework that helps you discover the ultimate cause of any outcome. Also known as the Fishbone or Ishikawa diagram, it is a graphical representation of an evidence-based m...
Project Retrospective Methodology
This overview of the TCGen methodology is utilized for Project Retrospectives and Process Reviews. These are conducted as a series of workshops that help a team constructively build a prioritized cons...
Lite and Precise Schedule Estimating Matrices
The Lite Schedule Estimating Matrix is a parametric tool that helps estimate the time to complete a given phase of a project. It creates a rough estimate using past experience combined with the critic...
Four-Fields Map
The Four-Fields Map is a graphical technique most commonly applied to cross-functional processes. It emphasizes the elements of task, teamwork, and quality, with a focus on how you do the work rather...
Circle Dot Chart
This simplified RACI helps you clarify who owns what decisions within a project.