New Product Development Best Practices

An Examination of New Product Development Best Practice - Kahn - 2012 - Journal of Product Innovation Management - Wiley Online Library

This recent study provides insights on NPD best practices and reinforces the importance of strategy for successful NPD---one of the reasons we spend so much time on it in the Stanford Advanced Project Management Program. Sample factors include:

Strategy

• Goals: Clearly defined, visible to the organization, clearly aligned with organization mission and strategic plan
• Projects and programs are reviewed on a regular basis
• Opportunity identification is ongoing and can redirect the strategic plan in real time

Process

• Common NPD process cuts across organizational groups, is visible, and well documented
• Go/no-go criteria are clear and predefined for each review gate
• NPD process is flexible and adaptable to meet the needs, size, and risk of individual projects

Culture

• Top management supports the NPD process
• Management rewards and recognizes internal “entrepreneurship”

Project climate

• Cross-functional teams underlie the NPD process
• Activities between functional areas are coordinated through formal and informal communication

Research

• Ongoing market research is used to anticipate/identify future customer needs and problems
• Concept, product, and market testing is consistently undertaken and expected with all NPD projects
• Customers and users are an integral part of the NPD process
• Results of testing (concept, product, and market) are formally evaluated

Metrics - Practitioners surveyed could not agree on any consistent best practices for metrics

Commercialization

• The launch team is cross-functional in nature
• A launch process exists and project postmortem meeting is held after the new product is launched
• Customer service and support are part of the launch team