This is interesting for all project managers working on the development of new products.

I can imagine everybody has his own preference on using a digital or paper planner for managing new product development projects. I like to share with you my experience and give you some tips.

Although I’m a sucker for automation and everything digitally, I love writing on paper as well.

So I use both my paper planner as well as a few digital planners.

When to use a digital planner?

I use a digital planner to plan my new product development projects in detail. First, I’m going to divide my new project into phases. I start with the Fuzzy Front-End phase where we’re going to generate new product ideas.

Followed by the product concept start, next in line is the product development phase. And we end with the product launch phase and finally the project evaluation phase.

In all those different phases, I include a lot of details in my planning. For example, I even include the time needed to ship samples, and the time needed to evaluate those samples and collect feedback from team members.

So it’s really detailed.  I us a spreadsheet or Microsoft Projects if it’s a more complex planning so I can easily adjust when we’re going to deviate from the schedule. This means that when I change the deadline dates, it automatically calculates new dates for activities that are linked to the date I changed. So that’s very convenient, it saves me a lot of time to update my planning.

When to use digital software to manage your project team?

For a high-level planning of my projects and to lead my project team, I use Asana and Trello, This software allows me to allocate tasks to my team members and deadlines. We can review documents in this software and keep on task.

This planning is separate from my Microsoft Project Planning or my Excel planning, where I have all the different project tasks.

How to use a paper planner successfully?

As a third planner I use a paper planner to plan my day. So that’s a little bit different from the digital planet digital project file. Because that contains all the project details. And in my paper planner, I don’t include all those tiny details, but I use the paper planner to structure my day, to focus and work efficiently as a project manager.

I can note down my weekly and daily priorities and goals per project.

What’s my to-do list, who should I call, who should I email?

This paper planner is very convenient if I want to quickly write something down.

The Ultimate Paper Project Planner: New Product Development Project Planner

Specially for you, I’ve created a paper planner that I think works best for project managers who are working on new product development. So tangible new products.

It’s available for sale on amazon.com.

Enter as search term ‘new product development project planner’.

My paper project planner will pop-up in your search results.

It’s very easy to use. It’s self-explanatory. It’s a great tool for you to plan your days. You’ve room for 10 projects and 52 weeks of to-do lists. It’s an undated paper planner.

If you’re interested in being more productive, check out my paper project planner by clicking here.