Midway through Katie Dixon’s development timeline, before commercial launch she assembled everyone in the organization who touches the project to conduct an NPD self-assessment. Each functional group crafted their problem statement, conducted a root cause analysis and identified the top 8 criteria for improvement. Katie facilitated small teams to achieve quick wins in their improvement goals. A first win was to enable the teams to interact with the product development people. The unexpected but critical benefits of the exercise were to: • create new knowledge of the product development process. • visualize the work of cross functional product development. • foster new appreciation, trust and respect for the persons who get the work done. Make sure you have this critical problem-solving savvy, motivation and person-to-person interaction that integrates the work of your product development operations to meet your 2021 deadlines.