Product Based Planning Demystified – Part 5
Create the Product Flow Diagram (PFD)
This next step in product planning is to identify the sequence in which those products will be created by using a product flow diagram.
The important thing to note here, is that all of the previous different symbols from the product breakdown structure are still used, apart from the product groupings. If you remember, these product groupings were not real products at all but merely a mechanism to allow the planner to help determine all of the products.
You can draw these diagrams left to right as I have done, or top to bottom as it makes no difference. However if you were to draw them vertically, then the following information will make more sense:
Performing the “bottom up” checks
As the name suggests, you start at the bottom the diagram and work back up to the top. The value of doing this is as follows:
You can check to ensure that each dependency arrow leading to the product being examined is correct. You can be sure that you cannot develop the lower product without having each of the higher products in place.
If you find you don’t actually need one or more of the higher products, then remove the dependency lines to them.
For the product being examined, do you need any other products to be produced other than the ones with arrows leading to it?
In other words, is there anything missing?
You may find the missing product or two, and you may find that the related product is on the diagrams somewhere but without a narrow to the one you are examining at the present time. In this time you can spot errors or omissions.
These bottom up checks can help spot for particular problems:
Starting from the bottom, the dependencies to other products might seem okay, but when asking whether you need anything else you may realise that you have missed out a product.
When thinking about the logical flow sequence, you can often identify a new product that was not originally thought of. In which case you need to add it to this diagram as well as to the product breakdown structure.
You may also find the sum of the arrows are redundant, and this two may help you find small omissions. It is important to revise the diagram should any of these be found.
If you are using post it notes or a whiteboard, is very easy to correct these issues. A good idea is to make sure at least one other team has a camera or a smart phone, so that a picture can be taken of the whiteboard or post it notes.
This can be valuable in terms of being an electronic record, but also in the case of an accident with a whiteboard is wiped clean or if all or some of the post it notes removed or fall off!
… to be continued …
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