The 7 Deadly Sins Of

Product Development

Pitfalls To Avoid When

Designing & Developing
Products

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 The 7 Deadly Sins Of Product Development
Table Of Contents

Chapter 1. The Pregnant Women Theory

Chapter 2. Stepping Over A Stack Of $100 Bills To

Pick Up A Penny

Chapter 3. Champagne On A Beer Budget

Chapter 4. The Scalpel Is Only As Good As The

Surgeon Who Uses It

Chapter 5. You Never Run Out Of Things That Go

Wrong

Chapter 6. A Plan Is Just A list Of Things That

Didn’t Happen

Chapter 7. Good, Fast, Cheap … Pick Any Two

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 Chapter 1

The Pregnant Women Theory

If one woman can make a baby in 9 months, then 9 women

can make a baby in 30 days. Now you may laugh, but this is the
most common problem in developing a new product. Throwing more
resources at the problem and praying it goes away does not solve
anything.

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 Chapter 2

Stepping Over A Stack Of $100 Bills

To Pick Up A Penny

We can’t spend $10 on an off the shelf tool but we can spend
$1,000 to develop our own, which doesn’t work and causes more
problems than it solves.

Spending countless hours in useless meetings and then having

a meeting to discuss why everything is overbudget and behind
schedule.

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 Chapter 3

Champagne On A Beer Budget

Expecting everything for free and having It done yesterday.

This is a very common occurrence especially when subcontractors
are hired.

“I want to hire an Engineer with 3 PhD’s, and 30 years of experience

for minimum wage”

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 Chapter 4

The Scalpel Is Only As Good As

The Surgeon Who Uses it, Not All Tools
Are Created equally

A Scalpel is a commodity, the surgeon who uses it to save your

life is not.

Not all tools are created equally, choose the right tool for the
right job, not just because that tool Is the cheapest and the “sales
guy” said it would “work”.

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 Chapter 5

You Never Run Out Of

Things That Go Wrong

There will always be an endless supply of challenges and things

that go wrong.

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 Chapter 6

A Plan Is Just A List Of Things That

Didn’t Happen & Everything Takes
Longer, & Costs More Than You
Planned

The battle plan is the first casualty of war, as soon as the first shot is
fired the plan goes out the window. Likewise, when the first
problem is encountered when developing a new product, the plan
and the Gantt Chart go out the window.

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 Chapter 7

Good, Fast, Cheap …

Pick Any Two …

We never have time to do it right, but we always have time to do it

over….. and over….. and over…..
I hear time and time again. Just get it done right now, we’ll fix it later.
The problem is that later never comes, and the product is only
“fixed” after a very expensive product recall. By then it is too late
and significant market share has been lost as well as the reputation
of the brand. Trying to save a few bucks in product development can
cost millions in product recalls.

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