Should you always be expanding or deploying Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)? In today’s video, Chad Jackson reviews the positive and negative arguments behind implementing continuous PLM updates.

He explains that part of the argument for constant expansion lies in the concept of continuous improvement; you should always be getting better with your processes and how you execute development into perpetuity. Since PLM is a key enabler of that, then you should always be expanding PLM.

While this argument is understandable and has value, Chad comments on his hesitancy to agree. Provided that PLM is delivering quantified value to help the company, you can continue to expand it.

However, the counter-argument to constant PLM updates is the threat of running into organizational fatigue. It is common for many organizations and the employees in those organizations to have gotten used to executing processes the same way for a number of years. While these processes can always be improved, there is some efficiency in knowing what your process is going to be tomorrow, in the next month, in three months, or in nine months from now.

Yet companies and their employees can get to the point of organizational fatigue where there are repetitive waves of change, seemingly never-ending. Not all organizations are able to take that. Some companies have a culture of change and a culture of continuous improvement in which PLM is a great enabler. However, we recommend that if you’re not doing that today or your company is uneasy with change, such as with cultural resistances, this may not be the best path to take. You need to pick your fights, pick your wars, and really make sure that what you’re going to do delivers value for the company.