Managing the new product development process

Managing the new product development process

1. Development cycle time: time elapsed between initiation and launch of a project

2. Partly parallel development process: A development process in which some (or all) of the development activities at least partially overlap. That is, if activity A would precede activity B in a partly parallel development process, activity B might commence before activity A is completed.

3. Lead users: Customers who face the same general needs of the marketplace but are likely to experience them months or years earlier than the rest of the market and stand to benefit disproportionately from solutions to those needs.

4. Crowdsourcing: A distributed problem-solving model whereby a design problem or production task is presented to a group of people who voluntarily contribute their ideas and effort in exchange for compensation, intrinsic rewards, or a combination thereof.

5. go/kill decision points: Gates established in the development process where managers must evaluate whether or not to kill the project or allow it to proceed.

6. three-dimensional printing: A method whereby a design developed in a computer aided design program is printed in three dimensions by laying down thin strips of material until the model is complete.

7. Successful new product development requires achieving three simultaneous objectives: maximizing fit with customer requirements, minimizing time to market, and controlling development costs.