Professional planning: hiring an outside R&D tactical planner can pay off.

In many food companies, research and development includes a product developer or process engineer who not only contributes technical expertise, but also serves as the product development team leader - PDTL.

As a subject matter expert, the PDTL is responsible for executing his day-to-day

In addition, the PDTL must secure the resources needed to implement the plan, communicate progress to management, and drive the team to flawlessly execute the tasks outlined in the plan. As the team leader, the PDTL should have the expertise to understand and integrate solutions to the challenges facing all team members.

Many technical experts serving as product development team leaders can become overburdened and challenged in their efforts to execute the product development work and still manage the multitude of issues that face the team daily. A new strategy is to pair the PDTL with a professional tactical planner uniquely trained in applying project management skills in an R&D environment. A benefit of this strategy is that the planner ensures that all work related to the product development and launch is executed on a timely basis.

As a team member, the planner's commitment is to the success of the project team. But if the planner is an outside consultant, she has the autonomy to offer unbiased advice to the PDTL. For example, ProjDel Corp., a Cincinnati-based project management firm, provides R&D project support in tactical planning, scheduling and communicating.

"This strategy has two advantages," says Eric Browne, chief executive officer of ProjDel. "First, management is given the timely, consistent information it needs to ensure project sponsorship, and secondly, PDTLs have tools which allow them to make quick and - more importantly - efficient project management decisions while still focusing their functional skills on research and development."

One company realizing the opportunity this new strategy offers its product development teams is Pepsi-Cola Co. "Pepsi saw a need for more focus and coordination on delivering products to the market. In the beverage industry, things must move very quickly. Conception to market is measured in months, not in years," says Julius Jerdon, manager of Pepsi's Aggregate Planning group.

Using PMBOK - Project Management Body of Knowledge - as a base, Pepsi developed a project management process for its research and development department that included cross-functional planning and scheduling. However, they needed skilled people to implement it. They also realized a need to better focus the skills of the R&D teams and provide support for the day-to-day project management details such as updating, scheduling and coordinating that the PDTL must do.

Implementing this system means that the scientists, research and development staff and other members of the R&D team could immediately spend more time focusing their skills on making a successful product and not worrying about the details of the project management process. To facilitate the team's transition and ongoing project communication, a unique set of tools has been developed to enhance the sharing of information up and down the organization. These tools are easy to use and convey their message quickly, without the need to know sophisticated Gantt charts. They let the other team members and management know what everyone else is doing and inform everyone of the deadlines for all deliverables of the project.

Schedules are updated and adjusted to maintain maximum efficiency and flexibility. This allows for setting priorities as conditions of the development process change. When changes occur, information needs to be exchanged smoothly and quickly to eliminate rework.

Engaging a consultant as a tactical planner offers some unique advantages. They can operate freely throughout the organization, crossing all organizational, contractual and political boundaries. In addition, a professional tactical consultant can provide knowledge of planning software and access to current literature on new and innovative project management techniques.

"At Pepsi, we've proven the concept and demonstrated we can sustain it," says Jerdon. "Now, the next level is skill transfer."