The automotive industry is at the crossroads of three major disruptions — EVs, autonomy, and ride-sharing — but that's not all. Our industry is changing from "automotive" (building cars) to "mobility" (moving people), with our whole objective shifted to the right.
This has generated high levels of creativity, countless new ideas, and many new ventures — each facing a mix of problems, both old and new. The new, technology-based problems are exciting: they're the lifeblood of the fascinating scientific and engineering work we all enjoy doing or reading about. The old problems — building a supply chain, designing for cost, meeting programme deadlines, engineering release, managing change (and the list goes on) — tend to attract less excitement and hence less attention.
How much new funding was raised because of an exciting new product? How much for a well-oiled development process?
As we're all aware — and as recent results from Tesla, amongst others, highlight — ill-defined or immature processes will eventually hit hard. Five key lessons to help avoid early- or growth-stage pitfalls without losing focus on your all-important new product:
1. Don't confuse 'buy a system' with 'implement a solution'
A well-worn comment, but it's rare to see an implementation well balanced between process, people, and systems — and for those efforts to not let up until it's genuinely working (and not, in reality, still driven by countless Excel sheet workarounds).
There are a variety of reasons for this: your people are focused on the product; the systems integrator wants to finish the project on time; and if the new process doesn't stick, where should you point the finger?
A few ways to avoid this, none of them new. First, some old-fashioned requirements capture to really understand what issues you're trying to solve for — before you've selected your product or implementer. Next, a clear set of KPIs to measure adoption and value added (and to be led by them). Throughout, a focus that starts with people and how they work — not systems and what they do. The process and the systems will follow. And make it one empowered person's role to deliver it.
2. Don't let product trump process all of the time
It's rare that a really well-oiled process will win you funding for a new vehicle project — so early-stage businesses need to focus on creating a really good and differentiated product. The importance of that never goes away. But as the quantity of products created increases, so does the need for an organised and more formalised approach to delivering them.
Too often, the focus is on product to the exclusion of process. This is not easy to avoid when the pressure's on — but we've seen some effective strategies. First, make someone responsible for process very early on, and keep them away from delivery. Have them report directly into the senior leadership team, and hire well — this role done well will pay you back many times.
Also helpful: set the same set of goals and milestones for process as you will undoubtedly have for product. This is especially important where funding is unlocked stage by stage. If they don't already, help your investors understand the importance of investment in processes alongside the exciting new product — otherwise successive stages will get successively harder.
3. Invest before you're forced to — but not too much before
Someone once told me that if you develop a process at the right time — just before you need it — it costs half as much as doing it when the need arises, and a tenth as much as doing it after you needed it. I doubt this is scientific, but having been involved in a few firefights, it feels about right.
It's also important not to jump too far ahead: your solution needs to be relevant to the business as it is, not as it unfolds. Try using a "now, near, far" approach to process planning — acknowledging the changing needs and making decisions about what to do when, rather than a binary yes/no, all/nothing approach.
4. Don't build an 8-lane highway to cycle on
Similarly, the scale and sophistication of processes should be matched to the need. You need to look ahead — but trying to persuade a whole business to do something they don't yet see the need for is a lot of hard work, and risks the parts you do need at the time failing.
Again, "now, near, far" planning helps get everyone on board — seeing that there can be a big, bold vision but with a pragmatic implementation plan. Release changes in digestible stages, or programme by programme, in a clearly communicated way.
5. Plagiarise, but don't copy and paste
The large majority of people working in these new ventures will be professional and experienced — they'll have used these types of processes before and will come with many ideas of how they should work. That's a great thing, but can lead either to copy-and-paste or to conflicts between differing factions from different backgrounds.
Taking ideas that have worked elsewhere is the right thing to do — but it needs to be based in the specific needs of your venture, and needs to be led in a consistent way. Your full-time process lead should take responsibility for listening to and understanding the views, ideas, and — most importantly — the needs of the wide stakeholder group. It's then the board's role to support them in developing a staged solution, without the strongest personality, the strongest view, or the current firefight colouring the outcome excessively.
May you live in interesting times
The next few years will be exciting and interesting for everyone in our industry — a mixed blessing for some. To provide true mobility solutions that are effective, efficient, and sustainable, we need the best ideas and new technologies to reach the market quickly and smoothly. We'd like to think the best ideas will carry themselves, but most will fall by the wayside if the old lessons from the past are not applied and we don't invest enough — not just in our new products, but in how our products are created.
The organisations that build pragmatic, effective processes alongside their products will ultimately be able to develop new products and technologies faster and more effectively than the competition. That's unlikely to win today's PR race or the next funding round — but it's likely to win the industrial race and deliver a long-lasting impact.