Should I keep secrets from my PLM system?

Product Lifecycle Management pretend to manage everything in the organization that related to product, information about product, development IP etc . So far, a pretty long list. The ultimate PLM goal, is to manage product lifecycle from an initial idea until disposal. When I’m thinking about such as goal is always sounding big and ambitious. However, do we really need it to success with PLM?

Maybe we can learn from people experience in non-PLM areas. I was reading interesting post on New Com Biz related to people notebooks. I discover some interesting observations related to notebook (paper, not computer :)) management. You can see below a picture of weekly pages separated into four zones – Work, Projects, Personal, Misc. You can consider it as a weekly lifecycle. So far, this approach will not manage all your tasks, but will provide you quite good control on what is going on.

My experience in the area of digital control is related to my own implementation of GTD (Getting Things Done) in my Outlook system. If you are not familiar with GTD approach, take a look on this book. Take a look on the picture. You can see a stream of incoming messages, contextual folders, next actions, projects etc. This is an ultimate system to control your digital life.

My Getting Things Done Folders

Now, back to PLM. Should we take “total approach” and manage everything related to a product with PLM? The answer probably yes, but the long term. For the short term, please keep secrets from PLM. Don’t give PLM system power to make your life complex. You better keep your PLM implementation simple and get your things done on time.

Best, Oleg