I'm looking for books or articles or companies to talk to that have executed product strategies successfully in the internet economy. I want to learn better processes for identifying and developing new products. My current company has new product development processes that require lots of documentation. That takes time and meanwhile, other companies are beating us to market. Also, trying to determine how best to incorporate market research into the process successfully and in a timely fashion.

Any leads?

-- Christine Newman (cnewman66@hotmail.com), October 09, 2000

Answers

Christine go to http://www.google.com and search for Improving NPD Process

I know that a company I used to work for was heavily into sign offs before they signed off on a new product release and so it really doesn't matter if the new product is an internet product or if it isn't, but what usually matters far more is to flow chart the entire process end to end and then try to focus on the bottlenecks.

So maybe you should also look at processes outside NPD to get alternative ideas on how to improve the process. That may even include looking at books like The GOAL: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox as well reviewing actual NPD Processes.

Also review consultant sites that offer NPD services because by understanding what they think they can do for companies it may lead you to see where you can make an impact in improving your company's processes.

Hope this helps.

-- Mark Zorro (zorromark@consultant.com), October 09, 2000.