DO: Take account of the familiarity of the project team with the type of product and the intended market when setting a time to market
The ability of the project team to do the following are the rate limiting processes in Speed-to-Market :
acquire the information they need – customer feedback, for example,
assimilate it and combine it with their existing knowledge; and,
apply the knowledge they have generated to developing the new product
Setting a time to market that inhibits learning (the cycles of acquire – assimilate – apply) will result in a poorer product outcome .
This is the most likely explanation of the observation of an inverted-U shaped relationship between development speed and product success.
Different types of products and markets have significant differences in the time needed for the cycles of acquire – assimilate – apply needed for an acceptable level of product performance: small changes to an existing product for a familiar market can have a short time to market, while a highly novel product for an unfamiliar market will require a much longer time to market.
DO NOT: Set a time to market that pushes your product development process beyond what’s feasible for the project team and the allocated resources
An inverted-U shaped relationship between development speed and product success will occur when a firm’s NPD process has been pushed beyond what’s feasible for the project team and the allocated resources. The most important action to address this situation is to focus on improving the overall product development process, beginning with the areas set out in [link to Common Issues]
Inhibition of the learning cycles of acquire – assimilate – apply that lie at the core of an NPD process will also result in an inverted-U shaped relationship between development speed and product success.
acquire needed information,
assimilate it and combine it with the team’s existing knowledge; and,
apply the knowledge they have generated to developing the new product
This is most likely to occur when uncertainty is high, as in this situation the information gathered by the project team is more likely to be ambiguous and more difficult to assimilate and combine with the team’s existing knowledge. This occurs in contexts of:
market and technology newness, that is, low familiarity with a market or technology; and,
market and technology turbulence – a high rate of change of customer preferences in a particular market or of a technology being used for the product
Your business may accept poorer product outcomes at initial launch if a product development team is able to continue learning and to adapt the new product after the initial launch and this is acceptable in the target market. This will not be possible in some markets, for example, when regulatory approval is necessary and difficult to obtain.
