Key Elements of Choosing a Product Development Process

A question that is frequently asked is “What product development process should we follow?” There is no single answer, but to say “It depends.” There are several product development process (PDP) models available: Spiral, Waterfall, StageGate™. Both iterative and linear methods to choose from. Linear methods that do not incorporate concurrent engineering practices are dead. The need for speed to move to the top or maintain your position is required in defining a good PDP.
There are a few things that are elemental to developing and executing a good process. Investors like The Fundable Entrepreneur point out;
you must have a market need, solution, and a team. It is easy to understand. The investor has a stake in your success.
1) Get in tune with the customer.
Get market feedback early. What size is the market? Market growth? Trends? What is the buyer behavior? Do you have a product that meets a market need or fulfills your vision of a need? For the individual innovator, do not depend on friends and family. They may try to be honest, but watch the early season shows of American Idol. They are not the true customers.
2) Stay in tune with the customer.
Maintain customer input in development to ensure the proposed solution meets the demand. You must continuously connect with your customer that has the need to be fulfilled. Developing a solution that does not satisfy the need will result in failure unless another need can be found, but now you are wasting time.
3) Build the right team and use them to their full potential!
This is especially true in small teams where experience is limited. It may be a surprise that the shipping person spends their weekends rebuilding classic cars and can actually contribute to mechanical design issues. Don’t build silos of knowledge or place experience in a position where it can not contribute. Find the experience you need to cover immediate and future development aspects.
As for choosing a PDP method, there are several questions to ask about product cost, safety and compliance issues, ease of modification, time requirements, and complexity of the proposed solution. Iterative models work well for low cost solutions with few components that allow an innovator to spin out 30 designs before they are brought to a customer focus group. For large, complex, and costly designs a larger team is normally required and a gated model will fit better to identify timely milestones and ensure they are met before the project proceeds. Providing both “must meet” and “should meet” criteria will keep a team focused on the compulsory milestones while generating solutions to meet the voluntary milestones.
PDP models are guidelines to develop a plan that fits the company, project, and team. Flexibility is important to ensure the plan works. Combining PDP methods is not uncommon where the main project is developed in a gated process and smaller parts of the main project are created in an iterative environment.
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