Introduction

I am happy to present the first issue of my Weekly Newsletter – npd Project Mastery.

Before getting into details, I would like to share with you why I started this Newsletter.

I will also mention why I have chosen this topic and what can you expect from the Newsletter.

It was around June 2005 I started working in Engineering and New Product Development at IFB Industries (India’s leading Front Loading Washing Machine manufacturers) after a very short stint as production supervisor at Ophthalmics Lense manufacturing plant.

Since then, I have worked on Engineering and Development of numerous products in variety of industries.

I made lot of mistakes along the way and learnt many things. I was proud techie who filed almost a dozen Design Registrations and attempted couple of Patent Applications for innovation.

But that’s not what I want to boast of.

As the career progressed, I was happy designing and developing lot of new products, sometimes out of my core domain.

After working for almost a decade in core technical role, I realized that, though I had relatively good technical knowledge, I was not exposed to end-to-end Product Development Process.

What I mean is, I was mostly involved in technical aspects but was never exposed to other areas like interacting with customers, external agencies, project planning, product commercials etc.

That realization was an eye opener because, to grow professionally beyond certain limits you must be aware of allied activities other than core technical things.

I realized that it is important to know how overall npd Projects are managed. That’s when I started exploring Project Management concepts and started expanding my horizon.

Now, when I look around, I find lot of people who are going through same stage which I experienced couple of years ago. Most of the techies I meet are stuck in same role and are never exposed to overall npd project activities.

This Newsletter is an attempt to – share my experience and help people expand their horizon and take up bigger role by achieving Mastery in managing npd Projects.

Going forward, you can expect stories from my work experience of almost two decades, some tips, tools and techniques to move to a leadership role.

The whole world is looking at India as a future Manufacturing and Innovation Hub. Demand for npd Project/Program Leaders is definitely going to rise in coming years. This is my small contribution to help fellow members in learning and gaining npd Project Mastery.

npd Project Leaders will be in demand who can work within constraints yet bring results in developing new products to beat the competition.

If you resonate with what I have mentioned, and if you have not yet subscribed, you can consider subscribing so that you keep receiving Newsletter directly to your Inbox.

In the upcoming issues, I will be discussing Project Management related Technical Aspects, People Skills and Business Skills which are very much essential to become npd Project Leaders.

See you next week with new topic.