CPDM – Complex Product Development Model

Complex Product Development Model is a procedural model to keep you out of the swamp of details. It’s your roadmap to success. It’s your toolkit for success. Complex Product Development Model’s planning principles can cut your disasters by half and double your success rate!

Holistic model composed of detailed explanations for developing products containing a mix of mechanics, electronics, and programs

Increased complexity

Digging deeper into the development topic in order to find the root cause of why products fail to satisfy end users, reveals the most common reason to be an exploding number of technical possibilities, which in turn causes competency and growth problems when organizing development of such products, which in turn causes that this increased complexity of the product is not being enough understood and thereby has not product development process been enough managed.

Managed complexity

There might be airplane crashes and medicines with severe side effects, but to travel by air or follow a doctor’s prescription is generally very safe. In these cases, the high complexity of developing aircraft or medicine is undoubtedly handled with success. Obviously, in these fields, the mastering of complexity has worked out very well, even if not totally free from disasters. One can object that a lot of money is behind the mastery of that complexity, but nevertheless, this complexity is, in fact, handled with success.

Unmanaged complexity

What can clearly be seen is that product development might often be very messy, and many of you are in the middle of this mess. If so, you have to back out of the mess, and get a chance to recover. I have been in the same mess, and have also seen a lot of development failures. Don’t copy them all; let me instead help you out, and save your time from a further mess. Start learning Cpdm and persuade your surroundings to use it. It is as simple as that!

Christer Sandahl used his long experience at Ericsson with mobile system development and other experience within system development to develop his unique Cpdm method based on a systematically hierarchical approach. Complex Product Development Model gives a thorough description of the Cpdm method with several well-worked examples from different domains. It is well worth reading and an excellent alternative to other books on system engineering that do not provide such detailed examples explaining the approach.

Christer Sandahl builds his experience in CPDM on a lifetime of qualified professional service in the telecom industry. He started as a consultant and gradually moved to leading positions at a globally market-leading mobile phone manufacturer. Sandahl’s book on CPDM guides the reader through the complex CPDM process, highlighting challenges, pitfalls, and opportunities. The structure of Complex Product Development Model allows the reader to skim some chapters and deep-dive into others. The book is highly recommended for those who need new perspectives on CPDM and benefit from the author’s profound understanding of the subject.

There is often a lack of high-level systems engineering, architecture, and planning in today's agile development, especially when it comes to complex system development. This leads to delays and quality issues like performance problems. The Cpdm gives a model – a structured approach – for addressing complex product development. Complex Product Development Model explains Cpdm principles in-depth, with numerous real examples from different domains. Based on his many years in the development industry, Christer Sandahl has conceptualized many other best practices into the Cpdm