| Practical
tools for navigating the 'fuzzy front end' Product development is often treated as a
purely engineering activity rather than as a key business
process. Many companies rush into the design phase
without sufficient exploration of vital front-end issues.
This course aims to provide a fun
and thought-provoking review of the general principles of
product design and development, with an emphasis on
practical tools and a ‘hands-on’ approach.
Design capability audit
Participants perform a design capability audit for their
individual companies before embarking on a series of
exercise intended to follow the course of a hypothetical
product through the 'fuzzy front end'.
The objective is to end up with a
couple of product proposals which have been developed
through the use of a number of simple tools and
techniques.
Market segmentation
The participants are split into teams, each of which is
given the task of developing one or more product
proposals.
Teams 'inherit' a product range and
are briefed on the characteristics of the market for
their products. They then have to make some sense of this
information to start identifying opportunities for new
product development projects.
A number of market segmentation
tools are introduced at this point.
Understanding users
Requirements capture methods are discussed followed by an
exercise in user observation, using 'video ethnography'.
This is followed by application of interview techniques.
Each team creates an image board to
capture some aspect of the values of the product or
characteristics of the user.
Front-end process
The need for some structure in the 'fuzzy front end' is
explored and teams develop a simple 'process on a page'
to control these activities.
Teams feedback progress through
mini 'presentations to the board' and the results are
discussed.
Feature definition
Feature definition is further explored through the use of
the Kano model and associated interviewing techniques to
understand which product features are more or less
essential, and which might produce that 'wow' factor. An
exercise is used to give the teams an opportunity to
apply the Kano method.
Product architecture and
product platforms
Product architecture considerations are introduced as a
prelude to concept generation and selection. The relative
advantages of integral and modular architectures are
explored and the value of a product platform approach
illustrated by several examples.
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selection
There are usually several solutions to a given problem
and the first one is not always the best. An overview of
methods for concept generation and selection is
presented, including the use of simple 'lo-fi'
prototyping methods, and the 'rules' for effective
brainstorming are reviewed. An exercise is then used to
generate a number of alternative product concepts which
are refined and filtered through the use of Pugh's
controlled convergence method.
The Product Proposal
Finally the teams put together the results of all the
exercises in the form of a final 'presentation to the
board', outlining the product proposal along with
supporting evidence, gathered in accordance with their
own self-generated front-end process.
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