What I Learned: How Does Social Computing in PLM Help Collaboration?

What I learned this week … is based
on responses and my own reflection stemming from my post
Is
Social
Networking in PLM Just More Collaboration? from last week. In
that post I talked about how social networking capabilities can add
more than just collaboration by extending into “discovery.” But
what I want to circle back on now is that yes, social
networking capabilities can also play a significant role in
collaboration. In my enthusiasm with what could happen for
manufacturers that are willing to stretch the boundaries of their
current business, I may have made some pretty big assumptions in
regards to people understanding what is most likely their first
step in embracing these technologies in product innovation and
engineering - which is enhancing collaboration in
design and product development. So in this post, I want to
step back and comment on the near at hand values of social
computing and PLM, and potentially put the horse back before
the cart for many. Will social networking make your product
development team as happy as this picture? Probably not, but it
might just help make your products more profitable.

Why Social Networking Extends Traditional
Collaboration
I started my last post with “Why Social Networking
Complements Traditional Collaboration.” I believe that there
is significant new business value that can be unlocked by
using social networking to find new people to collaborate with. But
I don’t want to ignore some of the benefits that can be achieved by
extending collaboration with existing contacts. To explore this,
let me share some scenarios:

A Non-Engineering Scenario - The Product Manager
Checking on Their Launch Date
Let’s start outside of Engineering and look at a common scenario. A
product manager is planning a product launch and needs to get an
idea on when a packaging issue will be resolved and get a better
sense of the impact recent activity has had on the delivery of a
prototype to be used at a tradeshow. In a small company, he may
yell over the cubicle or catch up with the people he needs at
lunch. But that is not the case for most manufacturers today. In
this case, the packaging is being done by a contractor and the
project is being managed from a different corporate facility. Let’s
look at each part of this separately:

Is my Packaging Issue Resolved? Is it Going to Be?
Really?
If I was the product manager, I would want to know if I need to
step in and intervene or let things go their course. Step one
should be to check existing information. If the
company has an integrated PLM system, it should be relatively easy
to look at the latest packaging design. If their PLM goes beyond
the basics, it should be possible to look at the project plan. But
looking up what is on record is probably only a part of
what the product manager needs in this scenario. Like you
or me, the product manager will want to know what is “really” going
on. They will want to get the “inside story” by
checking into progress and having conversations with those involved
- enter social networking.

Associated with the packaging design, how valuable would it be
to see a threaded discussion that shows the
history or the issue and those involved? A quick
look into that would say a lot more than a one word status on a
workflow step. Even if the company was doing really well in PLM and
had project issues documented and linked to the project,
seeing the interactions is much more insightful.
Are they really close to a resolution, or is that just wishful
thinking? This is where formal documentation lets us all
down, but the more informal communication of social networking
gives us more valuable information. It helps replicate the
“let me walk down the hall and see what is really going on” in a
global, distributed product development environment.

When Will the Prototype be Done?
OK, now
what about the impact on the date for the prototype? Maybe there
were some unexpected design changes, or a supplier was late with a
design. Of course the formal project timeline will be up to date,
right? And again with a well put together PLM system maybe we have
documented issues and ready access to the latest status reports.
But what I would  want, and I assume you would to, is
to talk to somebody about it. Wouldn’t it be nice if we
insert presence detection and instant
communication? Looking at the project plan, I would love
to be able to “Right-Click” the person assigned to the task and
send them a quick instant message, or ring their mobile phone, to
get an unfiltered view of the status. Or if that is not possible
(due to policy or security) I would like to be able to
instantly speak with the project manager about status. But I
wouldn’t want to look them up in a corporate directory and get
their administrative assistant, I want to connect. Now.
Instantly. I am looking at their name on the status
report, I want to “right click” them instead of leaving a
voice-mail and waiting to hear back.

Implications for Manufacturers?
I hope the
scenario approach helps paint a picture about how the social nature
of product development can extend the value that PLM provides.
PLM took collaboration to a certain level by offering
centralized information. But what is missing? The people side of
things. This example shows how social networking
integrated with the PLM information (product, project, suppliers,
etc.) helps. I will share a more engineering-centric view next
time, that will explore why tighter integration to the engineering
information itself is important.

So that is what I learned this week, I hope you found it
interesting. Let me know what you think.