Take a Lean Product Development
Self-Assessment Quiz

How Much Would Your Team or Organization Benefit from the Methods of Lean Product Development?

        Complete this informal questionnaire and compare your results to the guideline that follows. Remember, you must answer honestly and objectively for this tool to be useful. Score your answers based on whether a specific question applies: frequently (score of 10 points), sometimes (score of 5 points), or rarely (score of 0 points).

Common Sources of Product Development Waste

1. Is more than one hour of a typical team member's day spent in meetings?

2. Do poorly defined requirements cause significant delays in product launch?

3. Is product development work interrupted by "emergency" customer / factory support?

4. Are critical decisions delayed for weeks or months due to a slow decision process?

5. Do handoffs from the design team and the factory require correction or iteration?

6. Do your new product development projects overrun target costs and miss margin goals?

7. Are your development projects characterized by multiple, disruptive design changes?

8. Is the production launch date of a new product delayed because of a slow start to projects?

9. Is your design review process ineffective at identifying errors or risks in a timely manner?

10. Do you or your team spend too much time in status meetings or management reviews?

11. Are your design team members typically working on three or more projects?

12. Are work priorities among multiple projects unclear, or do they change often?

13. Do your projects suffer from persistent slips in task completion dates and milestones?

14. Are some job functions or individuals consistently a bottleneck to timely project completion?

15. Do delays on one project have a "cascading effect" on the schedules of other projects?

        Now total your score (the possible range is from 150 - 0). Use the following guideline to assess your potential to benefit from the methods of Lean Product Development. Please note that this is a very qualitative self-assessment. A much more comprehensive self-assessment tool for both teams and entire organizations is available as part of our Do-it-Yourself training packages.

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