What are the 7 stages of product development?
Introduction:
Product development is the process of creating a new product and bringing it to market.It's an iterative process, meaning that you'll go through multiple stages before your final product is ready for release.
The seven stages of product development are:
· Idea generation (the beginning)
· Conceptualization (coming up with ideas)
· Design (making the idea real)
· Testing (seeing if your design works)
· Development (making anything else needed to make it work)
· Costing
· Commercialization
Stage 1: Ideation
· Brainstorming: This is the first stage of product development, where you come up with ideas for your new product or service. You can do this alone or in a group setting where each person contributes their own thoughts and ideas.
· Market research: Once you have brainstormed some ideas, it's time to start investigating whether there is demand for those products or services in the marketplace--and if so, how much?This involves talking with customers and potential customers about what they need/want/like/dislike about existing products or services similar to yours (or even completely different). It also means looking at data from other sources such as industry reports and surveys conducted by third parties like trade associations or universities' business schools
Stage 2: Research
The second stage is research. It's the time to analyze customer needs and develop a business model. In this stage, you need to ask yourself:
· What problem are we solving?
· Who are our customers?
· How do they use the product or service we're creating (and what are their pain points)?
Stage 3:Planning
· Create a product roadmap. A product roadmap is a high-level plan that shows how you're going to build your product and when you'll do it. It can be as simple as a list of features, or it can include more details like timelines and budgets.
· Set goals for each stage of development. Your goals will depend on what type of business you're in and what kinds of products or services you offer, but they should always be SMART--specifically defined, measurable, attainable/achievable within an agreed upon time frame(time-bound), realistic/relevant given available resources along with stakeholder expectations at this stage in their lifecycle (realistic), thorough analysis before making decisions based on facts rather than intuition alone(thorough).
Stage 4:Prototyping
Prototyping is the process of creating a model or mock-up of a product, which can be used to test features and user experience. Prototypes are usually made using low-cost materials that can be easily modified, so they're ideal for testing out ideas early on in development.
In this stage, you'll want to focus on building your first prototype as quickly as possible while still maintaining high quality standards. This will help ensure that your team has enough time to address feedback from users before moving onto the next stage of development.
Stage 5:Sourcing
In the sourcing stage, you'll need to find and select vendors that can produce your product.You may also need to negotiate pricing with them. This is where you'll start getting into more details about what your product will look like and how much it will cost to make.
Stage 6:Costing
Costing is the process of calculating all the costs associated with developing and manufacturing a product. It involves determining how much it will cost to produce your product, from materials and labor to shipping and marketing.\
It's important that you have an accurate understanding of all the costs involved in bringing your idea to life before moving forward with development; otherwise, you may find yourself overspending or underselling yourself on price.\
Costing can be broken down into three steps: budgeting, creating a cost model, and analyzing data from past projects (if applicable).
Stage 7: Commercialization
This is the final stage of product development. It encompasses all the steps involved in launching and marketing your product, including sales, distribution and customer support.
In this stage you'll need to:
· Launch your product into the market by promoting it through advertisements or other marketing techniques.
· Establish relationships with distributors who can sell your products on your behalf; this may involve negotiating contracts with them so that they get a share of profits from sales made through their channels (e.g., retail stores).
Conclusion
You should now have a good understanding of the seven stages of product development.
· Stage 1: Idea Generation - This is where you come up with an idea for your new product or service and write it down in the form of a brief description or sketch, so that you can share it with others.
· Stage 2: Concept Development -This stage involves refining your initial ideas and turning them into something more concrete, such as drawings or prototypes that show how the final product will work.
· Stage 3: Testing - You need to test out your concept by getting feedback from potential customers or users (or even just friends and family!) before going ahead with any further development work on it. This helps ensure that what you're creating meets their needs before spending too much money on development costs later down the line!