Stage 4: Begin Development Effort

Resources

Primary findings

Secondary findings

Primary findings

Barriers

Material-related failures are multi-faceted and include mechanical failure, corrosion, material interaction, material chemistry and bio-compatibility. While the mechanical aspects are considered, issues related to fundamental material properties are often neglected. Even simply failure modes can cause major disruptions to a project if left unaddressed or discovered too late.
Case studies and author experience.
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Placing creative people in NPD roles as analysts without providing them with proper training and coaching in disciplined NPD processes is only getting it half-right and likely destroy value rather than creating it. Forcing business discipline on the creative mind is a necessary element to consider.
Interview Survey. Study of 69 analysts evaluating 267 early-stage NPD projects.
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The knowledge intensive nature of NPD makes cognitive processes such as knowledge creation, knowledge transfer, codification and learning very critical. In particular, interpretive barriers can emerge among actors that are involved in the NPD process.
Semi-structured interviews and case study observations.
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Carriers

Care is taken to insure that acquisition specialists “buy-in” early during technology development so that the likelihood of the “not invented here” (NIH) syndrome is minimized. This also helps overcome the barrier of “lack of appreciation”. Achieving buy-in and counteracting the NIH syndrome implies the need to “co-locate.” That is, someone from a particular functional area is assigned to the team responsible for transition; as a consequence, the team has the expertise it needs to accomplish the task.
Lessons from empirical study.
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Cognitive maps are graphic tools used to represent concepts and ideas that individuals associate with some specific issues and the relationships among them. The analysis of cognitive maps is a means to identify different perspectives and interpretive differences that emerge during the NPD process. The cognitive maps provide a common basis for establishing a shared understanding among NPD team members.
Semi-structured interviews and cast study observations.
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Early stages of NPD require creativity because early ideation requires revision through branching thought processes. Identify people with high levels of creativity (reliably measured with standard instruments), and train them the Stage-Gate methods. The overall speed and productivity of typical NPD processes can be increased nine-fold over standard activity by people with low levels of creativity. Forcing business discipline on the creative mind is a key combination.
Interview survey. Study of 69 analysts evaluating 267 early-stage NPD projects.
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Subject experts, such as material scientists, can screen different material technologies and select the best solution for the intended device. Interactive and parallel material-device design strategies are advantageous in the Concept Phase.
Case studies and author experience.
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Three elements that did not appear on any academic NPD plans appeared on all five corporate NPD plans: 1) Define the market and its growth potential; 2) Actual versus planned cost evaluation; 3) Determining of changing customer needs/market requirements. Perhaps the Technology Transfer Offices (TTO's) could support academic inventors by providing these elements. In fact, 51% of TTO's support #1, 10% support #3 but none support #2 at present.
Eleven structured interviews involving five academics, five corporate and one hybrid approach, where each mapped their individual approach to NPD drawing from a set of Stage and Step activities.
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When small businesses co-locate in a university research and development setting, it can help them to become more focused and strategic in their planning and draw on university-based expertise in order to do. The companies can also gain a better appreciation of strategic planning and focus their business activities. This can translate into a greater emphasis on business planning at the strategic level (the future development of the business) as well as a more sophisticated understanding of knowledge transfer as a two-way process and an increased interest in the social and political impact of collaborative efforts.
Literature review and longitudinal case study results.
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Models

Consider adopting the NexGen Stage-Gate process, where the NPD process has been streamlined by removing all the non-value added activities. This NexGen process is also more flexible and adaptable, where steps and stages overlap.
Authors' research experience. This new process has been borrowed from lean manufacturing.
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Keep the formal structured NPD process for effective new products while adding improvisation within stages, in order to avoid chaos.
Survey. Conclusion of the study
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NPD project teams have a tendency to get immersed in the product's underlying technology during the Development Phase, and sometimes even bypass understanding of market conditions and commercialization requirements until technical success is assured. Not addressing all three early and often leads to negative consequences in the NPD process.
Conclusions drawn from case studies and experience.
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Practice spiral development, where a virtual prototype is created very early in the process to get immediate feedback from consumers. The build-test-feedback cycle is done quickly and often creating a loop type process.
Authors' research experience. Top performing companies use spiral development.
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Reduce NPD cycle time by overlapping activities performed in different stages
Survey. Conclusion of the study
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Stage/Gate Model — Authors substantiate the value of a Stage/Gate model for conducting NDP processes.
Survey. Authors conclusions drawn from analysis of Project Manager self-reports (n = 392)
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Use improvisation particularly at development stage as it benefits speed (reduces product cycle time).
Survey. R squared = .026 for the interaction: (development x improvisation)
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Methods

A Strategic Guide involves clear definition and communication of NPD project goals. It facilitates Time Performance by reducing the level of uncertainty among staff, and enhances the influence of other drivers such as pre-development tasks (Stages 1 — 3), project-manager use, and supplier and customer involvement.
Survey of 85 firms manufacturing industrial goods for the mechanical and electronic sectors.
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Based on manufacturer's policy, the CORE instrument can be applied at different stages including design, fabrication or product assembly.
Conceptual model, instrument creation and application in case study settings.
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Best Practices concerning quality of market information at the point NPD is initiated: 1) Information on customer needs, wants and problems. 2) Competitive information (products, pricing and strategies). 3) Information on the customer's reaction to the proposed product (degree of liking or purchase intent). 4) Information on customer price sensitivity for the new product. 5) Data on expected non-revenue performance of the product. 6) Data on market size and potential. 7) Expected sales revenue from the new product.
A quantitative survey of 105 business units, supported by team's experience in NPD modeling, consultation, application and analysis.
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Best Practices concerning the requirement for a sharp, early product definition prior to initiating the NPD process: 1) The benefits to be delivered to the customer — the value proposition — clearly defined. 2) The target market defined — the segment at which the product will be targeted. 3) The positioning strategy defined in the eyes of the customers versus competitive products. 4) The product concept defined — what the product will be and do. 5) Establish firm product specifications to avoid unstable specifications and scope creep which can extend time and cost of NPD process. 6) The product's features, requirements and specifications defined. 7) Using a teaming contract between the project team and management to define the product, the project and corporate expectations before the NPD process begins.
A quantitative survey of 105 business units, supported by team's experience in NPD modeling, consultation, application and analysis.
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Companies involved in NPD partnerships with universities share three traits: 1) Internal R&D facilities; 2) Collaborate with other firms in their industry; 3) Investment of time in the academic interactions. They also correlate positively with high patent counts and geographic proximity to university resources.
Pilot survey of 63 manufacturers.
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Comparing Academic and Corporate inventors, each identified the process elements within three categories: 1) Most Critical: Academics — none/Corporate — customer needs analysis. 2) Most Time Consuming: Academics — documentation of design work in technical memos/Corporate — Beta testing. 3) Most Problematic: Academics — technical problems arising during development; testing, data analysis, evaluation, and reporting/Corporate — Defining the market and its growth potential.
Eleven structured interviews involving five academics, five corporate and one hybrid approach, where each mapped their individual approach to NPD drawing from a set of Stage and Step activities.
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Critical Success Factor in Design — Having prototypes tested by users and involving them in product definition.
Survey of 87 manufacturers.
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Cross-Functional Teamwork — In the Business Case and Development Planning stage, Manufacturing should serve as the broker for communication between the three teams. In fact, two different cross-functional pairings are effective: 1) Pairing the R&D and Manufacturing teams, because they need to jointly define a set of producibility rules and agree on NPD procedures and schedules before development begins. 2) Pairing the Marking and Manufacturing teams, because they need to resolve conflicts between the competing goals of satisfying customer needs, and optimal production efficiency.
Survey of 236 managers at 16 firms.
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Exxon/Mobil lists a key lesson as: Include significant marketing resources early in the NPD cycle. This helps avoid commercial failures that were championed only by the technical side of the company.
Industry experience.
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ExxonMobil evaluates in detail nine elements at each successive stage of the NPD process: 1) Strategic fit of the project with the company's objectives and strengths; 2) Market attractiveness; 3) Technical feasibility; 4) Supply and entry point (there must be an idea of how to supply this new product); 5) Sources of competitive advantage; 6) Legal/public policy/safety, health and environmental aspects; 7) Financial attractiveness; 8) Killer variables — which are those events or changes in market conditions or new technologies that could dramatically alter the situation for the project; 9) Plan to proceed, at least to the next Stage/Gate.
Industry experience.
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Four Best Practices in the NPD process are: 1) Emphasis on pre-Development homework. The fuzzy front end of NPD is considered most problematic. This is where the new product idea is fleshed out into a clear product definition; that the magnitude of the opportunity is assessed, and the business case constructed, and the action plan for the NPD process is mapped. How much homework is enough? On average, twelve percent of the project's total cost (labor, material, equipment) is spend on Up-front Homework before the Development begins.
A quantitative survey of 105 business units, supported by team's experience in NPD modeling, consultation, application and analysis.
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In general, the earliest four stages of the NPD process are done the least well and provide the greatest opportunity for improvement. These include the vision and strategy development, as well as the pre-development NPD activity where the initial concept is shaped, along with the preliminary and detailed analysis.
Interview survey. Study of 69 analysts evaluating 267 early-stage NPD projects.
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Integrated Product Design supports four related dimensions within product development: 1) Integration of business processes (concept-design-manufacturing); 2) Integration of the work flow and applications that support tasks; 3) Multiple projects that must be coordinated in a program addressing the entire assembled product; 4) Integration of the organizations that participate in the implementation of the IPD system, including suppliers, vendors, customers and the manufacturer.
Authors experience and as applied within a case study.
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Knowledge gaps in the NPD project team directly influence the quality and efficiency of its deliverables. Even small changes in the design can introduce weaknesses or failure points, even when all materials are kept the same. It is critical to ensure that the team is comprised of people with the appropriate variety of skills and experiences.
Case studies and author experience.
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Make sure that the team is led by persons with significant decision making responsibility (power), cognitive ability to creatively handle multiple factors and adequate management skill in order to improve product concept effectiveness.
Authors report significant and robust link [link 4+ link 3] in the integrated model, between this method and product effectiveness and thereby to financial success. Actual results not reported.
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Market Information Processing — incremental changes in new products generate low demand for market information processing, since the market is fairly well defined and known based on prior analysis. Market information processing demand is highest for moderately innovative new products where teams require customer needs information to guide development and to validate their concepts. Radically new projects lack a frame of reference for customers, so there is now demand for market information processing and instead NPD relies on intuition and exploratory integration of available information.
Survey of 166 firms.
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NPD Project Team and Functional Group — information disseminating, engendering ownership, creating discipline, information seeking, facilitating cross-functional planning — This communication is a combination of the uncertainty reduction activities as well as the engagement capabilities. When the members of the functional groups have a sense of ownership, they are proactive in seeking information they require, and providing information that will be necessary in advanced stages.
Case study analysis.
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Physical models are the single presentation format that is readily understood by most customers, to ensure that the evolution of a product's design is kept consistent with customer requirements. Creating a visually accurate prototype is not sufficient. It must display a high level of realism and represent every characteristic of the product. Rapid prototyping is a method for achieving the required level of accuracy and completeness.
Case studies in industry.
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Recognition of technical risks in the project planning stage with a clear discussion of acceptable and unacceptable consequences, can improve methodology in the Development Phase, and the probability of achieving NPD goals.
Conclusions drawn from case studies and experience.
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Substantial research on user-orientation in NPD is concerned with understanding user preferences, analyzing how preferences are formed, and how end users perceive quality in products or services.
Literature review.
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Survey of 236 managers at 16 firms. Cross-Functional Teamwork in NPF — The study considers the relative value of various combinations of three organizational groups: 1) R&D; 2) manufacturing; 3) marketing, in cross-functional teamwork. Results show success depends on function-specific and stage-specific patterns of teamwork in five ways: 1) Different NPD stages suggest different combinations of teams; 2) The importance of a given function in integration depends on the stage; 3) Joint involvement between pairs of groups is generally more beneficial than among all three; 4) Effective cross- functional integration requires attention to paired communication between hub and non-hub functions; 5) The integration patterns suggested here do not generate conflicts across objectives or between groups.
Survey of 236 managers at 16 firms.
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Ten methods used in various Stages of the NPD Process are listed in the Appendix and discussed in the paper: 1) Brainstorming; 2) Morphological analysis; 3) Synetics; 4) Delphi Method; 5) Focus Group; 6) Product Life Cycle; 7) Concept Test; 8) In-home Use Test; 9) Quality Function Deployment; 10) Limited Roll-Out. While most manufacturers are familiar with many of these methods, they report using them in various and sometimes wrong stages — so they are not applying them properly and in a focused manner.
Literature review and survey of forty-five manufacturers.
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The communication that occurs between the NPD committee and the NPD project team is an uncertainty reduction activity. This means that it is essential that the NPD committee provide as much information as possible to the NPD project team in order for them to function effectively. The more communication that occurred in terms of providing information, in response to information sought, the more smoothly the NPD process went.
Case study analysis
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The basic idea of participatory ergonomics is that the workers/users themselves actively partake as designers, generate ideas and design their (own) working environment or living space. By being engaged in the process of change, people can actively contribute to the solution of their own problems.
Literature review.
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There is a gap between awareness and use of tools supporting NPD development activity. Four external factors are identified: 1) Project — type of project ranges from incremental to radical changes; 2) Organization — support from top management, team cohesiveness, and technical competence. 3) Industry — different industries adopt different NPD processes which might indirectly affect choice of tools. 4) Culture — cultural differences such as Eastern versus Western.
Case studies in industry.
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There is a gap between awareness and use of tools supporting NPD development activity. Six internal factors are identified: 1) User friendliness — ease of use and ease of learning; 2) Usefulness — provides certain value to user. 3) Time — training, implementation and maintenance time; 4) Monetary cost — cost to train and use, cost to employ consultants, cost for software and cost for implementation support; 5) Flexibility — extent to which a tool can be used effectively even if some guidelines are not followed; 6) Popularity — extent to which the tool is widely or commonly used and accepted by similar industries.
Case studies in industry.
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To capture the actual activities of product innovation, it is necessary to distinguish between two types of planning: 1) Pre-decision business planning and 2) Post-decision project planning. At the beginning of the NPD process, information is gathered with the aim of evaluating the innovative idea and developing an initial understanding of the business case. This early-stage planning involves a number of scanning and analyzing activities that can be subsumed under the term business planning.
Analysis of data collected from 132 NPD projects.
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To ensure compliance with the FDA's Quality System Regulation, medical device manufacturers should use a structured product development process to instill discipline in the product life cycle. A hierarchical approach arranges activity from Stages (phases) to Steps to Activities and finally to Tasks. Each Stage has a unique theme and set of deliverables. For example: Stage 0 — Concept Research. This stage identifies new market opportunities, determines customer needs and conducts high-level evaluations of the opportunity and its strategic fit. This activity concludes with the management approval of an integrated business plan for the project, which is then updated at the conclusion of each subsequent stage.
Summary of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's regulations for the research and development process underlying Medical Device manufacturing.
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To ensure compliance with the FDA's Quality System Regulation, medical device manufacturers should use a structured product development process to instill discipline in the product life cycle. A hierarchical approach arranges activity from Stages (phases) to Steps to Activities and finally to Tasks. Each Stage has a unique theme and set of deliverables. For example: Stage 1 — Definition & Planning. This stage initiates design and quality control activities, where the whole product is defined and the remaining process is planned. Key deliverables include the formalization of the customer requirements and the product requirement specifications.
Summary of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's regulations for the research and development process underlying Medical Device manufacturing.
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e-R&D: More than one third of businesses use cyberspace for everything from finance to virtual prototyping. Penetration in corporate research is greater with 80% of engineers using the Internet for gathering procurement information, and 95% of researchers use the Internet to improve their design and development work.
Literature review, author's experience and case studies.
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Measures

A sample of measurement items for new product development proficiency and organizational integration are shared. All items are rated on a seven-point Likert scale. See tables within the text for actual measurement items.
Survey of 45 firms in heavy construction industry.
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Customer Optimization Route and Evaluation (CORE) evaluates and estimates customer satisfaction level regarding product attributes. It is designed to assess the quality of the design from the customer's point of view, and deliver a scale and decision-making aid for the manufacturing/service designers to evaluate the complexity of customer preferences towards a proposed design solution.
Conceptual model, instrument creation and application in case study settings.
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Idea Generation in NPD applies multiple tools including three creative (Brainstorming; Synectics; Morphological Analysis) and seven non-creative (Focus Group; Interview/Survey; Observation of Users; Delphi Method; Scenario; Expert Opinion; Product Life Cycle).
Literature review and survey of forty-five manufacturers.
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Stages 2 & 4 — Plan & Specify involves a very lengthy checklist of steps and activities, covering the entire range of market, technology, manufacturing, legal and personnel issues, which reinforces the need for comprehensive multi-functional team planning. See Table 3 for the checklist.
Conclusions drawn from case studies and experience.
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Table 2 (page 146) lists five categories of intertemporal integration activities, and three levels of NPD performance. Table 2 goes on to list sets of measures appropriate for each.
Conceptual model creation based on literature review.
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The execution of various test protocols is of great important during the early stages. These tests are necessary to evaluate novel technologies, make appropriate design decisions, and gather data to support submissions to regulatory bodies. It is necessary to involved subject experts to define test strategies. Poorly designed test strategies can obstruct the NPD process.
Case studies and author experience.
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Tips

Be effective in using certain types of information and different information sources and use cross-functional integration between functions and departments. These practices will lead to higher NPD performance.
Claim was stated based on responses from case studies and the literature review.
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Effectively retrieve information from past product development projects and maintain high levels of functional integration to achieve proficiency in product prototype development and product launch.
Survey. Significance found for interaction between functional integration and retrieving for prototype development proficiency (F=6.74, p<.01) and product launch proficiency (F=4.18, p<.05)
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Interdepartmental conflict is negatively related to the acquisition of market information and time/cost efficiency. Companies should therefore focus on reducing interdepartmental conflict.
Survey of 166 NPD firms.
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Maintain a strong Research & Development department and the new product advantage will likely be greater.
Survey. Positive correlation between the strength of R&D and new product advantage (p<= .01)
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Maintain contact and involvement with consumers
Survey.
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Most of the methods have been developed to deal with specific problems of NPD and thus are meant to be used in specific Stages of the NPD process. Out of ten methods reviewed, all one (Limited Roll-Out) are used in stages for which they are not intended.
Literature review and survey of forty-five manufacturers.
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Secondary findings

Barriers

Centralization and senior-level involvement may positively impact NPD by providing supervision for project uncertainties, yet centralized decision-making tends to repress the creativity, brainstorming and experimentation acknowledged to promote innovation.
Source: Damanpour (1991). In: Harmancioglu, N., McNally, R.C., Calantone, R.J., & Durmusoglu, S.S. (2007)

Having separate functional departments (“thought worlds”)
Source: Dougherty, 1992. In: Brown, S.L. & Eisenhardt K.M. (1995)

Some findings suggest that the retention of knowledge leads to better NPD performance. However, retained knowledge has also been considered a barrier to NPD activities, especially when organizations rely too heavily on organizational memory, to the exclusion of external sources of knowledge.
Source: Moorman & Miner (1997). In: Marsh, S.J., & Stock, G.N. (2003)

Carriers

Boundary Spanning — external integration can impact innovation speed and frequency by facilitating coordination with boundary groups.
Source: Parthasarthy & Hammond (2002) p.79. In: Koufteros, X., Vonderembse, M. & Jayaram, J. (2005)

Creativity is seen as an important personality trait for NPD analysts because a lack of meaningful product uniqueness has been found to be the number one reason why new products fail.
Source: Crawford (1977). In: Stevens, G., Burley, J., & Divine, R. (1999)

Have cross functional personnel and facilitate an interactive and iterative process
Source: Dougherty, 1990, 1992. In: Brown, S.L. & Eisenhardt K.M. (1995)

Models

A formal new product development process necessary for product success with five key stages (initial screening, business analysis, development, pre-testing, and launch) or 13 equivalent key activities. 
Source: NASA (no specific citation); Cooper, 2001; Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1986; Song et al, 1998. In: Samra, Y.M., Lynn, G.S. & Reilly, R.R. (2008)

A literature review found two differences between studies of the early R&D Stages (3,4,5) and the later NPD Stages (6,7,8): First the R&D project studies cited a larger number of factors listed as critical to success, than did the NPD projects. Second, studies with a marketing orientation put more emphasis on internal organizational factors (e.g., launch & marketing) as critical, while studies with a technical orientation put more emphasis on external environmental and market factors as critical.
Source: Calantone & di Benedetto (1988). In: Balachandra, R., Friar, J.H. (1997)

An NPD Model shows that technical and marketing activities complement each other at each stage of the NPD process, which takes place within an environment defined by the firm, the marketplace, and the nature of the project itself.
Source: Cooper (1980). In: Calantone, R.J., diBenedetto, C.A. (1988)

Consider increasing speed to market as a way to increase product success
Source: Cooper, 1994; Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1994; Ridderstrale & Nordstrom, 2000. In: Samra, Y.M., Lynn, G.S. & Reilly, R.R. (2008)

Consider increasing new product development proficiency level as a way to increase new product success
Source: Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1987a. In: Samra, Y.M., Lynn, G.S. & Reilly, R.R. (2008)

Improvise as you go along with no formal and structured new product development process(improvisation school of thought) 
Source: Moorman & Miner (1998). In: Samra, Y.M., Lynn, G.S. & Reilly, R.R. (2008)

Knowledge sharing in a collaborative environment has been found to positively affect innovation performance, as it facilitates problem solving and reduces the inefficiency of re-inventing already existing solutions.
Source: Nonaka (1991), Leonard-Barton (1992). In: Swink, M., Talluri, S., & Pandejpong, T. (2006)

NPD can be modeled with an understanding of consumer quality perception as the starting point. Specifically, quality to be perceived by consumers is the starting point, and the concrete attributes to be built into the device — those to be communicated to the prospective buyer — should be derived from the quality perceptions.
Source: . In: Grunert, K.G. et al (2008)

Use a structured new product development process to ensure new product success (structured school of thought) 
Source: Cooper & Kleinschmidt (1986, 1987a & b, 1991); Mllson & Wilemon, 2002; Shepherd & Ahmed, 2000). In: Samra, Y.M., Lynn, G.S. & Reilly, R.R. (2008)

Using a flexible and structured new product development process (with fuzzy gates) skipping or combining stages (flexible school of thought) 
Source: Cooper & Kleinschmidt (1995). In: Samra, Y.M., Lynn, G.S. & Reilly, R.R. (2008)

Methods

Companies that can draw on a network of customers, suppliers, research institutions and competitors are more likely to have high product and process innovation success. A company's network competence — the ability to exploit inter-organizational relationships — requires four antecedents: 1) access to resources; 2) network orientation of human resource management; 3) integration of intra-organizational communication; 4) openness of corporate culture.
Source: Ritter and Gemunden (2003). In: Grunert, K.G. et al (2008)

Creating user ownership of the R&D process and its outputs, requires early and continued involvement in the entire R&D process.
Source: Johnson et al (2003). In: Klerkx, Laurens & Leeuwis, Cees (2007)

Literature on knowledge management points out that knowledge transfer efficiency is mainly related to the uncertainty level in the process, whereas knowledge transfer effectiveness is mainly related to the ambiguity level in the process. Since uncertainty is related to the information transfer process, it can be reduced by increasing the amount of information exchanged. However, since ambiguity relates to the interpretation of the transferred knowledge it must be addressed through effective communication based on shared understanding.
Source: Daft & Lengel (1986). In: Carbonara, N., & Scozzi, B. (2006)

Measures

A universal success curve shows that the odds of commercial success for substantially new products averages 1 in 300 at the idea submission stage (or at patent disclosure stage), and 1 in 125 at the small project stage (or after a patent is granted). After the detailed analysis of Stage 4, the odds of success are 1 in 9 (11%). Even when the project reaches the stage of major development, the odds of success are typically no greater than 1 in 4 (25%). At the commercial launch stage the odds of success are still only 1 in 1.7 (60%). This success rate curve has remained essentially unchanged in the last 40 years.
Source: Stevens & Burley (1997). In: Stevens, G., Burley, J., & Divine, R. (1999)

Measures of Organizational Integration, NPD Proficiency and new product success
Source: Price, 1972; Pinto & Pinto, 1991; Ruekert and Walker, 1987a, 1987b; Miller and Friesen, 1982; Souder, 1981. In: Millson, M.R. & Wilemon, D. (2006)

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is adopted at the concept level of the design process, to focus design attention on key customer demands and on competitive differentiation.
Source: Salomone (1995). In: Mousavi, A., Adl., P. Rakowski, R.T., Gunasekaran, A., & Mirnezami, N. (2001)

Tips

Academic knowledge spillovers can be defined as formal or informal movements of new science-based ideas, concepts or technical procedures from university research units to the private sector.
Source: Jaffe (1989). In: MacPherson, A. (2002)

Application of integrative tools for new product development
Source: Hauer & Clausing, 1988; Natter et al, 1001; Hauer, 1993. In: Natter, M. & Mild, A. (2003)

Considerable body of evidence that a good interface between R&D and Marketing is critical for success in NPD.
Source: Griffin & Hauser (1996). In: Zhongqi Jin (2001)

Extensively engage suppliers early on in the process
Source: Gupta & Wilemon, 1990; Clark & Fugimoto, 1991; Imai et al, 1985. In: Brown, S.L. & Eisenhardt K.M. (1995)

Improvisation at the collective or organizational level (vs. individual level) can be achieved by coalescing individuals’ activities by groups, departments, etc.
Source: Chelariu et al, 2002; Moorman & Miner, 1998. In: Samra, Y.M., Lynn, G.S. & Reilly, R.R. (2008)

NPD is recognized as one of the most complex and difficult processes a company must manage.
Source: Clark & Fujimoto (1991). In: Filippini, Roberto Salmaso, Luigi & Tessarolo, Paolo (2004)

Personnel in different departments develop different orientations toward time.
Source: Lawrence & Lorsch (1967). In: Zhongqi Jin (2001)

Provide for Frequent communication – internally to increase amount of information ; externally to increase new information coming in.
Source: In: Brown, S.L. & Eisenhardt K.M. (1995)

There are many tools and techniques which can be applied in new product development process. These include Quality function deployment (QFD), Computer-aided Tools, Customer involvement, Design Coding, Design of Manufacture, Multi-functional Teams, Involving Key Suppliers, Project Management, Four field mapping (Maylor and Gosling, 1998; Maylor, 1997).
Source: Maylor & Gosling (1998), Maylor (1997). In: Liepe, Z. & Sakalas, A. (2008)

Use failure mode and effects analysis to improve the probability of new product success.
Source: Griffin (1992); Hockman& Jenkins (1994); Wasserman (1993). In: Ittner, C. D. & Larcker, D. F. (1997)