The Importance of Following a Product Development Process

“The company failed to understand consumer needs and wants.”

“The company targeted the wrong market.”

“The product development team was weak.”

These statements illustrate the failure of thousands of products each year. And yet they each have a positive thing in common: they’re solved by following a product development process.

A Solid Product Development Process Increases the Chance of Success

As many as 85% of new products launched each year will fail, resulting in a massive loss for the company. The other 15% succeed due to proper preparation and planning before the launch. Thorough planning and preparation occur inside of a solid product development process. Although this process won’t ensure your product’s success, it will dramatically increase your chances.

Benefits of Following a Detailed Product Development Process

Following a product development process provides you and your development team with a roadmap for all operations. It ensures your team stays on track to reach launch goals, gives them guidance for decision-making and streamlines the product launch process.

The product development process:

• Assigns ownership and leadership to each program: Each step in your process needs someone to own it, ensuring completion before moving forward. This helps move your product down the pipeline in a timely manner.
• Forces you to better understand the market: Product development forces you to know where you fit best in the market and your market’s current landscape. This understanding helps you make informed decisions about the future of your product.
• Allows you to fine-tune your ideas based on that market: Does your product solve a problem? Does it deliver what your customers are looking for? Product development helps you fine-tune your product based on your market, increasing its chance of success.
• Helps you complete each step thoroughly: The overall process includes “gates” which force you to complete each step in the process before moving on to the next step. This ensures you miss nothing along the way that could be detrimental to your launch.
• Gives leadership the opportunity to make critical decisions: Following a process allows leadership to pass judgment on the program without being intimately involved in every detail. The process gives them the opportunity to make critical decisions without confusion.

The RFA and Matrix product development process is a derivative of the Stage Gate® process developed by Robert Cooper. When applied correctly, this process drives the development and launch of successful new products in any market.

Give Your Product Its Best Shot With RFA & Matrix

Product development can truly make or break your product’s success. To learn more about RFA’s product development services or Matrix’s product development coaching, give us a call at 952-843-2700 or send us a message.