what is the $2$ Major Problems and $2$ Minor Problems of The Jaguar Project

O'Brien, a $25-$year veteran of Teradyne's engineering organization, was appointed project leader.

Almost immediately, he was faced with a thorny issue. Before the reorganization, Teradyne's

engineering organizations in Boston and Agoura Hills each had their own flexible tester projects

underway. The decision to launch the Jaguar project meant merging the efforts of these two teams.

But both the east coast and west coast legacy teams had their preferred approaches, and tensions

arose over whose approach would "win." As Joe Carbone, manager of Analog Instrumentation

Porting, reflected: "The merging of the teams created some tensions. This was not a group that came

together willingly, and there were some battles over technical approaches."

From the outset, it was recognized that the project had to execute flawlessly. As Mike Bradley,

then president of the Semiconductor Test division, noted:

It was a simple but monumental strategic choice. We had a strong installed base of

customers committed to our existing platforms. Going to a single, leveraged platform meant

disrupting this installed base. This was risky, to say the least. And it meant that timing was

absolutely critical. If we had stuck with our existing architectures, we could have made the

argument to customers that our new products would be worth waiting for. But once we

committed to a leverage strategy and a new, single$-$platform architecture, we just couldn't

make this case anymore. This meant we had to get the new tester to market in as fast a time

frame as possible, or we would open up many of our customers to the competition.

It was decided that mid$-2004$ was a critical target date for beginning shipment of the tester. Given

how much was riding on the success of the project, the division and the corporate senior leadership

took an early and active interest in the project. One area of early focus was setting a clear scope for

the project. Bradley explained:

The most critical decisions in product sizing are not around what you do$,$ but around what

you don't do$.$ In the past we tended to go "all in$"$ on front$-$end sizing, and we defeatured the

system later when we couldn't hit the schedule. On the Jaguar, we had to take the opposite

approach to be sure we would hit the market window. This was an uncomfortable change, but

one we had to make.

In practice, this meant spending more time than usual in the early stages of the development

process $($concept development and product planning$).$ Bradley and other senior managers pressed

O'Brien and his team to clearly identify customer requirements and to commit to key product

specifications. In addition, the senior leadership also pushed the team to identify all the critical

technical risks and the contingency plans for managing those risks. As part of Teradyne's

development process, major funding commitments for a project would not be made until senior

management signed$-$off on the Phase $2$ gate. Passing this gate required detailed analyses and a clear

articulation of the product requirements. On the Jaguar project, this initially caused some frustration,

as the team was anxious to get moving on the detailed engineering. $[$George$]$ Conner commented:

We have a tendency to pile everything into Phase II because senior management expects a

high level of certainty before committing to the program. We end up having to produce

detailed plans, schedules, and specifications at that point, and this leaves less room for

experimentation in Phase III. I might be the only one with this perspective, but I think Phase II

should be limited to identifying risks and understanding whether you can solve them in

Phase III.

In May $2002,$ the Jaguar team came back to senior management with a $75-$page presentation

detailing the proposed system architecture, design, and functional specifications for critical

subsystems, target performance specifications, and the project execution plan. Satisfied that the

project scope was clearly defined, focused, and aligned with the market, senior management formally

signed off on the Phase $2$ gate.