Product development
Product development is a process allowing to materialize concepts, to concretize objects, goods, equipements, or to create services, technique different from those already existing, and which propose answers to satisfy collective or paticular needs in order to bring benefits to users. In other words, product development is a process bringing a product from concept through market release, with the aim of offering answers to collective or particular needs. (New product development) and (What is Product Development?)
This process is composed of various stages. Although it is not always, the same steps for every organazation, there are common stages throught which products typically progress:
- Idea Generation: Collective brainstorming ideas through internal and external sources.
- Screening: Condense the number of brainstormed ideas.
- Concept Testing: Structure an idea into a detailed concept
- Business Analysis: Understand the cost and profits of the new product and determining if they meet company objectives.
- Developing MVP (minimum viable product): Developing a sample of the product. This initial version of the product needs just enough functionality to be used by customers
- Market testing/release MVP to users : The product is tested to a trial run, this will allow to get feedback, complaints and suggestions but also bring interest to potential customers.
- Commercialization: Introducing the product to the public
(New product development) and (What is Product Development?)
Idea Generation (What is idea generation ?)
There are several methods to do this step, we can mention the following :
- Idea challenge: A form of focused innovation where you raise a problem or an opportunity in the hope of finding creative solutions. The goal of the Idea Challenge is to participate in ideation and generate ideas around a predefined theme during a limited time period. It allows you to formulate a specific question and address it to a specific audience in order to receive new ideas and unique points of view. Idea challenge is the best technique when you need to generate a lot of new ideas. It may not be the most effective way to generate ideas if you only involve a few experts in your ideation process, as it has proven to be more useful for engaging large audiences. However, it is important to keep in mind that while the Idea Challenge allows you to gather many ideas quickly, careful planning takes time and may not be worth the effort if you do not have the resources to execute it properly. In addition, proper timing is necessary for the challenge to be successful.
- Analogical thinking: A technique of using information from one source to solve a problem in another context. Often, a solution to one problem or opportunity can be used to solve another problem. For example, analogical thinking can be used to analyze a successful business, identify what makes it great, and then apply those same principles to your business. It's an effortless way to come up with new ideas that are pre-validated. The above techniques are some of our favorites for generating ideas, but they are certainly not the only ones out there. It is by testing different options that you will find the ones that work for you.
Screening
Idea selection is the step in the product development process that follows idea (or concept) generation.It involves the use of checklists or personal judgments and is based on information from experience and market research. Considerations include strengths and weaknesses, the company's mission, market trends, and the product's potential return on investment. The screening also uses judgments that predict the organization's ability to manufacture the item and its ability to market it successfully. The purpose of this step is to sort through all of the initial ideas to select those that will provide guidelines to guide the technical staff in their concept development efforts.
Concept testing (What is concept testing? Definition, methods, types & examples)
Concept testing is defined as a research method that consists of using surveys (and sometimes qualitative methods) to assess consumer acceptance of your product or service concepts and ideas before you actually launch them. In this way, you can assess your customers' acceptance and willingness to buy and thus make critical decisions before launch.
There are four primary methods of concept testing:
- Comparison testing:In comparison tests, two or more concepts are presented to respondents. Respondents compare these concepts by using rating or ranking questions or by simply asking to select the best concept presented.
- Monadic testing:In a monadic test, the target audience is divided into several groups. Each group is presented with a single concept. These tests focus on the in-depth analysis of a single concept. A monadic test survey is usually short and very focused.
- Sequential monadic testing:Like monadic testing, in sequential monadic testing, the target audience is divided into several groups. However, in this case, each group is presented with all concepts. The order in which the concepts are presented is randomized to avoid bias. Respondents are asked to answer the same set of follow-up questions for each of the concepts to obtain additional information.Because each group of respondents sees all concepts, the size of the target audience needed to conduct a sequential monadic test is relatively small. Multiple concepts can be tested in a single round. This makes sequential monadic testing more cost-effective and easier to conduct. This method of concept testing is ideal for research with budget constraints or when only a small target audience is available.However, because all concepts are presented to each group of respondents, the length of the questionnaire is quite large. This affects completion rates and can lead to non-response bias. Researchers can reduce the length of the questionnaire by limiting the number of questions. However, this affects the depth of information collected.Sequential monadic tests are also subject to other biases, such as interaction bias or order bias.
- Proto-monadic testing: A protomonadic test includes a sequential monadic test followed by a comparison test. In this case, respondents first evaluate several constructs and are then asked to choose the construct they prefer.This design is useful for validating the results of the monadic sequential test. Researchers can check whether the construct selected in the comparison test is consistent with the information collected on each construct.