17.4 Integrated Master Planning for Destination Development - Part 4 – Product Development

First before getting into Product Development lets remind ourselves what Integrated Master Planning is all about.

Integrated Master Planning - the process of Orchestrating the vast range of technical and professional disciplines in order to execute a development. This includes marketing, environmental analysis, programing, physical planning, economic planning, social planning, execution and operations planning.

In discussing each part of the Integrated Master Planning for Destination Development process, I will use the same methodology which is answering the following questions.

1.   What is the objective of this phase of the process?

To come up with the Product Development in form of a design brief that will ultimately yield a successful business product.  The design brief should draw conclusions from the Site / Environmental Analysis and the Market Analysis and be able to both quantify and qualify the design objective into a document that the physical planning / design can follow. 

This product design brief is a starting point and probably will evolve over the course of the actual design, but unless radical new discoveries are uncovered during the physical design process it shouldn’t be a 180 degree change.

2.  What expertise is involved in this phase of the process?

There are no standard consultants or advisors that do the design brief and this tends to be a real “grey area” that quite often falls through the cracks in the master planning process.  Quite often it starts with the market analysis consultant, the developer project manager sometime prepares it, but more often than not is given as something general and open ended which only leads to problems. Architect or planners sometimes try to step in and formalize it, but usually without much success.

The real way to have his done is by the Development Orchestrator who is managing the whole process and has insight into the full picture.

3.  What are some of the common mistakes?

This is one of the very crucial stages of the whole process.  The product development design brief is unclear, which really means the developer in unclear on the business they are trying to develop!  And if the developer is unclear, little chance the architect, planners can come up with the correct design.  It becomes a wheel constantly spinning in trial and error!

Although this part of the process should evolve with the physical design, a concerted effort should be spent on this prior to the start of the design to make the time spent on design effective and efficient.

4.  Any other issues that relate to this phase?

This phase is one of the most critical to getting the whole thing right and really this is where the Orchestrator earns there keep in setting the ground work for the smooth design process to proceed.

During this phase if not yet done some simple feasibility calculation should be done to make sure the design brief looks financially viable.  

The Cost Plan, Physical Planning / Design, and Product Development are all developed in an interactive process together and cannot be seen solely in isolation as a “phase” of development on its own.

Go to previous parts of the series and look for future parts.

Part 1 – Need for a Methodology?

Part 2 – Environmental / SiteAnalysis

Part 3 – Market Analysis
Part 4 – Product Development
Part 5 -  Physical Planning / Design
Part 6 -  Cost Plan
Part 7 -  Business Master Plan
Part 8 -  Site Execution
Part 9 – Operations Management
Part 10 - Review and Revise


Jiwa Studio
Singapore, December 2011
http://jiwastudioweb.blogspot.com/