Will This Product Be a Winner? A Product Success Check List
All products seem to look like winners on the front end. In fact when was the last product development proposal you saw which didn’t look better than sliced bread, payback development expenses ten fold and have huge hockey stick revenue growth in year three?
The following are some tests to weed out unsuccessful products before resources are applied that could be used for more productive projects. This list is designed to improve your aggregate plan for new products as a part of your project selection process.
Product Definition
- Is their a clear value proposition that is stated in writing?
- Does this product fit into a clear product category? Will customers readily know "what it is/what it's for"? If not are we prepared for pioneering?
- Is there a product uniqueness/superiority that can be transferred by word of mouth?
- Have we avoided excessive pressure from a customer with typical needs?
- Do we know the "must haves" that customers will expect? Does the product definition/plan incorporate these? Or will we continually investing our time and energy in work-arounds and customizations?
- Does the product leverage an emerging market trend?
- Do we know what will be included in the n+1 release?
Project Execution
- Is the project schedule less than twelve months? (For many industries a longer cycle makes you vulnerable to shifting competitive, technology and business priority conditions).
- Can we state the projects top five risks?
- Do we have contingency plans?
- Do we have the skills necessary to carry out the project?
- Do we have the resources? Will project team members be splitting their time with other projects?
- Are we familiar with and confident in the technology?
Organizational Alignment
- Do we have endorsement from senior management?
- Is there undue pressure to pursue this imitative?
- Is there broad support throughout the organization, beyond R&D?
Product “Fit”
- Does this product fit our product vision / strategy for long-term growth?
- Can our sales force / distribution channel sell this product “as is”?
- Does this fit the market’s expectation of us? Will customers buy this?
- Does this fit our risk profile?
- Does this fit with our partner strategy?
- Have we included launch costs in our program budget? Does the launch budget provide for appropriate expenditures and/or a percentage of the development costs?
With these guidelines in mind, your organization is much more likely to develop products that will succeed in the marketplace and generate the revenues your shareholders expect from your organization.