New hardware product development requires trust in order to go FAST. Trust breaks through the inevitable setbacks and deep technical challenges that attend the development of novel and complex technologies. These problems are hard and it takes human intelligence and confidence in your team to problem-solve and persevere through them.
This trust needs to be placed in your people, your design partners, your suppliers, and your process. It will allow you to progress forward in a purposeful and disciplined way. This is not a shortcut, but rather just doing the required work. It acts as a guard against ill-informed decision making that leads to project-killing, expensive, and schedule-draining efforts. As the saying goes: “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast”.
Don’t just trust anyone. You’ve (likely) spent a lot of time vetting your people to ensure they are exceptional, buy into your product vision, and compliment the rest of your team. They are experts (or earnest beginners) in their individual areas and are committed to doing their best work. This same competence and integrity are the foundation of that trust and are the same metrics applied to design partners, suppliers, and fellow design leaders. Trust will result in your team members owning their respective areas and helping or mentoring those who are not there yet. And they will not own it unless they know that they are trusted with it. Trust allows for undiluted and honest feedback.
Trust your design partners. They have done this before; that's why you are working with them. They have seen successes and failures. Their expertise means that you don’t have to learn the hard lessons firsthand. The right partners have learned how to be highly effective with their decisions and their time. They should embrace transparency in the design process, which maintains trust and builds the capability of your broader team.
Trust in your suppliers is not blind. They have deep insight into their capabilities, design feedback, and their ability to deliver. When they fulfill commitments and solve problems, that trust is built. It is through the individual relationships with the supplier and relying on your internal team's experience that you will know when to accept their feedback (or schedule) and when to push back.
Trust the process. In product development, like grammar, it is ok to break the rules, if you’re following them most of the time and know why you are breaking from the norm. A well-designed, informed design process enforces engineering rigor. It can be tempting to skip ahead to the next milestone or development build before de-risking critical items. Some teams skip ahead and pay for it. However, much of the design process can be tailored to meet the project’s priorities and a trustworthy team can choose the necessary activities. This will give you a fighting chance to hit ambitious schedules and reduce churn.
Trust does not work unless matched with accountability. The quality of all the individual efforts show in some way in the final product. Nothing will stay hidden. It is too late to discover this at the end of a project. This accountability begins with relationships and builds through open and regular communication of expectations, transparent status updates (whether good or bad), and setting priorities. This brings issues to light earlier so that they can be addressed at the right time. Regular follow-up allows for high-performers to display integrity and be given more latitude. This is where it is vital to have an engaged and competent lead who can delegate appropriately and redirect or remove low performers.
As a decision maker, your strength is bringing your experience and vision to bear, knowing the extent of your own knowledge and the beginning (or overlap) of your trusted colleagues' expertise. Be decisive and own your decisions so your team can trust you.
No doubt optimism has gotten you into this endeavor in the first place, but it will be trust in your team’s strengths that will align your (overly?) optimistic expectations with what is possible and they will plot your path through.
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