Is your NPD process manager coaching teams and providing training / IT support?

In our previous blog post we discussed how the NPD process manager, or whatever their job title is, should be ensuring that your stage gate process works.

This week I am going to move onto the next best practice which is that the NPD process manager should coach teams & provide training / IT support.

Why you may ask should the NPD process manager be responsible for user training and providing IT support, is that not the responsibility of HR & IT?

In my opinion the reason is that the training needs to be personalised to each specific users role within the NPD process and will often be delivered on a one to one basis. This type of specialised training requires specialised knowledge to be delivered effectively. HR & IT are best suited to delivering generic training at scale.

This one to one training is likely to elicit powerful insights on issues within the process which can be used to improve the process and ensure all stakeholders feel fully engaged in the process.

Regardless of whether you are using a best of breed solution such as QADEX product launch manager or making do with spreadsheets, there will be elements of IT support that users require as part of NPD delivery. This might even include training on customers IT systems.

This is a fundamentally different responsibility than is often currently the case.