Program Management for Improved Business Results, 2nd Edition

Appendix C

Bitten by a Rattlesnake

The Rattlesnake program was the second product development program Ken Jensen managed since coming to his current company, a leader in the computer industry. When he decided to change companies three years ago, he felt that the ten years he spent managing programs in the aerospace industry gave him a good understanding of program management and how to manage programs to success.

The first program he managed at his new company was a success, but proved to be much more of a challenge than Jansen had anticipated. Part of the challenge was Jensen's learning curve of the differences between product development in the computer industry versus the aerospace industry. The most notable differences were the faster pace of work and decision making in his current company and people's willingness to take considerable risk to achieve competitive advantage.

Fortunately for Jensen, he was given an excellent program team for his first program that had a strong drive for success. Jensen was elated when the majority of the team was assigned to his second program, code named “Rattlesnake.”

The Rattlesnake program was projected to take 15 months with a development investment of $10 million. The program team would ramp from 5 people in the definition stage to over 50 during full development, test, and launch. The Rattlesnake product, a multi-microprocessor data center server, was considered to be highly competitive, with 10 technology advancements that were new ...