Product Development Process
What Is the Product Development Process?
The product development process encompasses all steps needed to take a product from concept to market availability. This includes identifying a market need, researching the competitive landscape, conceptualizing a solution, developing a product roadmap, building a minimum viable product, etc.
Who Is Involved in the Process?
Because they are ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the company’s products, product managers typically drive the product development process from a strategic standpoint. But this process is not strictly a product management function. Product development requires the work and input of many teams across a business, including:
- Ideation
- Research
- Planning
- Prototyping
- Testing
- Product Development
- Deployment & Testing
Process
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Ideation
The new product development process begins with idea generation, where you brainstorm an idea (or ideas) that will help you solve an existing customer problem in a new and innovative way. As you’re coming up with ideas that will help you solve customer needs, it’s important to have a robust understanding of your target market and the pain points they have that you want to solve.
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Product Development
Depending on your type of business, you’ll likely have a different process for product development. For example, if you’re a SaaS business, your internal software development or programming teams will likely work to finalize code. If you create a physical product, you may outsource labor for certain components and assemble final products in your warehouse.
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Research
During this stage, you can also get early feedback from customers about what they think of your ideas before coming up with a final definition for your product. One of the best ways to get this feedback is through surveys, where you can easily and quickly collect information from existing customers.
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Testing
Before launching your product you need to test it to ensure it will work as advertised and effectively solve your customer needs. So, during this stage, you’ll share your prototypes with target audiences and ask for actionable feedback on how the product works.
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Planning
The third stage is planning, where you formulate a final product idea/definition based on your initial idea and research and begin coming up with your plans to bring it to life.
When you define your final product, you’ll want to begin planning for what you’ll need in order to create it. -
Application Testing & QA
The final stage of your new product development process is commercialization, where you introduce your products to market. This is the culmination of your brainstorming, research, iteration, where your audiences can finally make use of what you created.
You’ll enact your marketing plans to make your audiences aware of your new product, and enact campaigns that will entice them to become customers.
