HOW NOT TO DO IT

We’re always told to embrace our failures; that if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not learning. Still, there are a few pitfalls inherent in new product development it's worth while avoiding:

PET PROJECTS NO ONE WAS BRAVE ENOUGH TO CHALLENGE

The solution: People around you who’ll be honest, senior leaders who talk to the CEO, and teams that will challenge each idea.

TAKING YOUR EYE OFF THE CUSTOMER

The solution: Focus on the customer right the way through and loop back to that customer at every stage of the development.

AIMING FOR PERFECTION

The solution: “Sometimes 80% is good enough,” says NZTE's Craig Armstrong, who still harbours regrets about a failed project he worked on at Schweppes Australia. “We spent 18 months trying to get it 100% right, but we never actually took it to market. “The iPhone wasn’t perfect when it first came out, but if they hadn’t got to market, Samsung or someone would’ve beaten them to it and earned that first-mover advantage.”

TIME TO MARKET

Getting your product out to the end user and getting them adopt typically takes far longer than the original design and creation. Build that into the project.

WRONG PRICING

Companies often price on a “cost plus markup” model, says Armstrong. Instead, look at how much a consumer would be prepared to pay. “Go into people’s homes, look at your competitors’ products and ask: Why would they choose mine and how much could I charge before they’d start substituting with something else?”

ENDLESS LOOPBACK CYCLE

Constant loopbacks (idea, prototype, testing, redesign, new prototype etc) cost money and create waste and delays, says NPD consultant Saskia Van der Geest. The learning first (or lean) product development approach ( page 64) is about testing first, then designing. Like the Wright brothers making their plane, companies need to break an idea into its critical component features and understand them, before producing a prototype.