What is Product Development?
Product development is the process of creating a unique offering that meets the needs of a target market. This process aims to either improve existing products or launch new ones based on research and market analysis. A significant amount of time and effort is often required in this, involving designers, developers, engineers, and other product specialists.
Teams Involved
Many people and teams are involved in product development, from ideation to launch. Here are some of the key players:
- Product Management – Product managers are responsible for the product’s strategy and roadmap. They work with stakeholders to understand the goals for the product and then translate that into a plan that the development team can execute.
- Engineering Team – Engineers are responsible for designing, building, and testing the product. They turn the vision for the product into a reality and ensure that it meets all the necessary safety and quality standards.
- Innovation Team – Innovation specialists are in charge of developing new solutions to business and customer problems. They build product ideas based on market analysis, which drives product strategy and helps the company avoid getting stuck.
- Product Marketing Team – Product marketers create the product’s narrative—from positioning and messaging to competitive analysis and buyer personas. They plan marketing campaigns, promote awareness of their products, and encourage usage among customers.
- Operations Team – The operations team oversees organizational performance and progress, aligning team budgets and processes. Project managers supervise resource allocation, risks, and bottlenecks while encouraging teamwork.
7 Product Development Stages
Although the specifics of product development will differ depending on the company, there are some key stages that nearly all teams go through—from strategizing to assessing success. The stages of the product development process are as follows:
Stage 1: Strategize
It’s the stage where you define goals and initiatives, establish objectives and key results, and gather information about your audience and target market. Using product development templates, checklists, project plans, and other tools can help you organize your thoughts and establish a clear product development strategy.
Create your own product development checklist
Stage 2: Ideate
In this stage, the product team examines and evaluates their customer, coworkers, and partner suggestions. The team brainstorms new product ideas or enhancements and narrows them to the most promising ones. The focus should be on taking raw ideas and turning them into tailored solutions that benefit both the customer and the company.
Stage 3: Plan
This phase of product development is where you build a product roadmap and establish product value. Product teams move into detailed roadmap planning under the direction of the product manager. It involves defining epic, major user stories, and features that fall under each project.
Stage 4: Showcase
After the product team has finalized its roadmap, it’s time to present it to stakeholders. Ensure everyone understands the product’s vision, objectives, and goals. This phase gives product teams a chance to answer questions about where the product is going and gather feedback from stakeholders.
Stage 5: Build
Product teams work with development teams to start building the product. In this stage, it’s essential to focus on delivering new functionality that meets customer needs. It may involve multiple iterations and releases before the product is complete.
Stage 6: Launch
After all the hard work of strategizing, planning, and building, the time has come to release the product to the public. In the product launch stage, the newly created or improved product is made available to customers.
It’s essential to have a solid launch plan to ensure your product is successful. A digital checklist may help you organize your staff around the work that needs to be done.
Stage 7: Analyze
After launching your product, it’s time to analyze the results. It’s when you assess whether your product successfully achieved its objectives and goals. Did it meet customer needs? Was it profitable? Use data and feedback to answer these questions and determine whether your product was a success.
Product Development Strategies
Organizations looking to enhance their current products or develop new ones can utilize any of the following strategies to get started:
Design Thinking
Design thinking is a method for bringing design and innovation together. It has cognitive, strategic, and functional phases for generating new ideas. Below are the steps behind design thinking:
- Empathize – Know who the user is and what they want.
- Define – Frame the problem in ways that focus on users and people.
- Ideate – Collect comments and come up with ideas.
- Prototype – Make early versions of a product or service.
- Test – Find out what works and what problems there are.
Front-End Innovation
The front end is the first half of a product’s development. The purpose of front-end innovation is to evaluate the concept of a product and whether or not to invest additional time and resources. Below are the standard components of front-end innovation:
- Strategic planning – Set goals for the company and the products.
- Idea selection and analysis – Think about and understand the viability of a product.
- Product definition – Make a business case and list the needs.
New Product Development (NPD)
The objective of NPD is to go from concept to commercial availability for a product. It consists of the following stages:
- Idea generation – Brainstorm ideas inside and get ideas from customers outside.
- Idea screening – Analyze and rank product ideas.
- Concept testing – Turn an idea into a clear concept.
- Market strategy and business analysis – Figure out how much it will cost and how much it could make.
- Technical product design and development – Plan and build the product.
- Market testing – Run the product through beta testing or a trial run.
- Commercialization – Finish a thorough go-to-market launch and put the product on the market.
How to Create a Plan for Product Development
A product development plan is a journey from an idea to a marketable product. It should include as many stakeholders as possible to ensure all their needs, requirements, and concerns are considered (if not addressed).
Creating a product development plan is essential to ensure your product is successful. Here’s a quick guide to making this one for your organization:
- Create a product vision and mission – Describe the purpose of the new or enhanced product, who it’s for, and what benefits it can provide.
- Establish primary goals for the product – Set measurable targets for the features, enhancements, and capabilities needed to achieve the objectives of the product.
- Develop a product roadmap – Based on customer research and validation, map out a plan and rank which topics to be addressed first.
- Put the roadmap into action – Create schedules, break down big themes into sprints, and develop iterations of the product.
- Collect feedback – Connecting with the sales team, customers, and support department can identify new opportunities, point out problems, and suggest areas for improvement. Use this data to update the product roadmap and prioritize the development backlog.
Best Practices for Product Development
If you want to start or improve your product development process, here are some best practices to keep in mind:
- Involve customers at every stage of product development through surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
- Gather insights on what you can improve from your organization or external sources like competitors and industry reports.
- Use the Agile methodology to help teams move quickly and adapt to change.
- Create a product backlog and keep it updated as priorities change.
- Use prototypes and experiments to validate ideas and get customer feedback.
- Set the KPIs and metrics used to measure the product’s success.
- Establish deadlines for developing and releasing the product in the short and long terms.
FAQs About Product Development
Product development is the process of designing, creating, and bringing a new product to market. On the other hand, product management is the strategic process of managing a product’s life cycle, including planning, development, and marketing. These two collaborate to plan and build the product roadmap that’ll bring the product to market.
Some benefits of a well-structured product development system include:
- Quickly bringing new products to market
- Increased customer satisfaction
- Improved quality control
- Reduced risk and costs
- Improved communication and collaboration among team members
Successful product developments are anchored on the following metrics:
- Market acceptance – Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT)
- Technical performance – defect rates, downtime, and response time
- Financial metrics – sales revenue, Return on Investment (ROI)
- Operational efficiency – iteration cycles, time-to-market
Agile product development involves breaking down the project into short cycles known as sprints. After each iteration, the team responsible for developing the product delivers a working prototype to customers for feedback and make changes if necessary.
Rob Paredes
