New Product Best Practices: Over 100 Ideas for Better NPD (PDF Version)

New products are one of the key leverage points for growth in every company, and for some it is the most important driver of success.

Improving NPD programs is one of our top priorities.

This list of over 100 best practice ideas is drawn from our experience and from academic research.

Customer Requirements: How potential customers requirements are identified, defined and changed.

1. Customer needs are identified via multiple sources of information.
2. Product requirements are solicited, consolidated & fed back to potential customers.
3. Product requirements are documented and subject to formal change control.
4. Product requirements are allowed to change only during the early stages of design.
5. Decisions on changes to product requirements are based on assessment of multiple predefined criteria.
6. During requirements definition, potential customers are involved continuously and interactively.
7. Demographic changes in our marketplace are continuously investigated and forecasted.

Product Strategy: How new product development is aligned with internal constraints and with external factors like regulations and competition.

1. Projects are initiated through a process involving multiple functional areas.
2. Projects are terminated through a formal decision making process.
3. Project priorities are updated periodically through a systematic process.
4. Project funding is primarily based on potential business contribution to the company.
5. New opportunities are most often put through a formal process to determine priorities.
6. Company constraints are incorporated into established division "Design Rules".
7. Product strategy is used by departments to collectively align priorities with other departments.
8. Development projects are categorized and matched with appropriate existing NPD processes.
9. NPD plans are most influenced by informed planning activities (e.g. SWOT, forecasting...).
10. Regulatory compliance is handled through design guidelines that anticipate compliance challenges.
11. Market research is used as input into design decision making.
12. NPD plans are most influenced by analyses of overall value to potential customers.

Concept Generation: How candidate concepts for new products are generated or acquired.

1. New product concepts are generated jointly by employees, customers and suppliers.
2. New product concepts are based on anticipated industry technological capabilities.
3. New product concepts are explored in an unconstrained manner.

Concept Selection: How candidate product concepts are screened and concepts selected for further development.

1. Concepts are selected using multiple, explicit criteria.
2. Concept selection is based on simultaneous evaluation of multiple concepts.
3. Concept selection occurs after manufacturability issues have been addressed.
4. Agreement on concept selection is in the form of explicit (documented) buy in from all departments.

Concept Design: how the selected concept is designed at a high level.

1. Concepts are designed to optimize product performance through its life cycle.
2. Technological risks are managed by completing essential inventions before development.
3. Risk analysis is performed to proactively determine project priorities.
4. Concepts are documented and are subject to formal change control.

Detail Design & Redesign: How product details, materials, dimensions are specified.

1. Product performance is verified by testing of prototypes by customers.
2. Detailed design decisions are made by employees with input from customers and suppliers.
3. Suppliers are selected based on a formal supplier certification program.
4. Materials are selected based on formal engineering analysis.
5. Target specifications are set to minimize problems over the entire product life cycle.
6. Documentation describes the product and its production processes.
7. Formal Change Control begins at the concept stage.

Manufacturing and Launch Preparations: How manufacturing processes are developed and channels to get the product to the customer are established.

1. Production processes are developed using off-line pilot production lines.
2. Transition to production occurs through early product and process integration.
3. Product launch plan is based on forecast of market demand.
4. Products are launched when service, sales and distribution channels are ready.
5. Product performance is evaluated through field-testing.
6. Market receptivity is evaluated by key customer feedback prior to launch.
7. The decision to launch is automatic, once all the preparations are complete.

Product Improvement and Disposal: How product defects are identified, improvements made, and how products are disposed of at the end of life.

1. Product improvements/redesigns occur because improvement ideas from customers are solicited.
2. At the end of product useful life it can be returned and/or reused in other products.

Goals: The quantified objectives of performance for the new product development system and its products.

1. Project goals are supported by documented resource commitments.
2. Project objectives include economic, market and product outcomes.
3. Project objectives emphasize delighting customers.
4. Program (a collection of projects) goals are primarily economic criteria based.

Metrics: The quantified measures of performance for the new product development system and its products.

1. We track financial investments in individual projects.
2. We track project schedule slippage on a continuous basis.
3. We track lead times for specific project steps.
4. Program metrics includes the number and type of design projects at various stages.
5. We track the number of changes (of any type) in each project phase.
6. We compare our project performance with the best in class.
7. Metrics are used to improve the NPD process.

Project Management: How project participants are organized and situated to perform competent work on projects.

1. Utilize Critical Chain project planning practices
2. Schedule tasks on an aggressive, but possible timing
3. Consolidate task based time safety buffers into a project safety buffer
4. Implement an early warning process to notify the next resource that they will be work soon
5. Accountability for managing a project is shared by everyone involved in the project.
6. Project responsibilities are determined jointly by project members.
7. Project planning emphasizes prevention of problems in projects.
8. Project management activities emphasize proactively limiting schedule slippage.
9. Project members are organized around product families. 68. Suppliers and/or Customers (for OEM's) assign their people to participate in projects.
10. Project activities show considerable overlap and collaboration.
11. Project members communicate freely and continuously.
12. Project members are physically/virtually colocated for the project duration.
13. Group achievements and individual achievements are equally important.
14. Teams facilitation is provided through an external facilitator.
15. Teamwork training is required of team members.

Organizational Context: The supporting systems that enable competent work on projects.

1. Senior managers focus on defining a general new product strategy.
2. Senior managers review projects on a relatively continuous basis.
3. Senior managers convey that good NPD processes are essential to gain competitive advantage.
4. The technical strategy of the company is defined and known throughout the organization.
5. Technologies are proactively developed to gain competitive advantage.
6. Technological changes in the industry are actively driven by our R&D efforts.
7. Performance evaluations are based on peer reviews.
8. Rewards are based on both individual and group achievements.
9. Employees build their project skills through interaction with mentors and facilitators.
10. Career development programs include external assignments.
11. A single product database is the source of data for several disciplines and tool sets.
12. The "Information Systems" department is directed to provide a competitive advantage.
13. Computer based tools like CAD/CAM are used widely by everyone involved.
14. Information Systems are operated and maintained jointly by IS people and users.
15. Individuals can get appropriate training easily, as and when required.
16. External communications are maintained by all employees, with suppliers and industry groups.

Maturity: The extent to which a process has knowledge of itself and takes action on that knowledge.

1. New products are developed using processes that are explicitly documented.
2. Improving the NPD process is the responsibility of all project teams.
3. Improvement of the NPD process occurs through "Lessons Learned" disseminated across projects.
4. Process learning occurs through exchange of process data and analyses of other projects.
5. We want to establish a goal-driven, structured and monitored NPD process.
6. We try to prevent problems from occurring.
7. We try to control the development process through data on intermediate steps from multiple projects.
8. Development process outcomes agree well with predicted expectations.
9. Development process goals include anticipating product life cycle challenges.
10. Process metrics are aligned with management goals for the NPD process.
11. Development process metrics are quantitative.
12. We have been collecting process data for a while.