Introduction
Organizations invest a lot of money to create new products that perform effectively. Nonetheless, firms often struggle to convince people to incorporate these new products into their routines (Arts 2008). For example, it took 18 years for microwave ovens to gain acceptance in Greece (Tellis, Stremersch, and Yin 2003). The ultimate success of new products depends on consumers accepting them (Arts 2008). .
New product
Organizations invest a lot of money to create new products that perform effectively.
Product Evaluation
The term "product" refers to both goods and services. A product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need. When an organization adds a new product, there is both potential benefit and risk. As a result, organizations implement formal systems for evaluating new products. In particular, there is a concerted effort to forecast projected sales and thus reduce some of the financial risk.
While evaluating new products, there is also the possibility of generating innovative ideas that can later go through the testing process. Idea generation is an essential part of marketing strategy and is critical to the success of a company. When such product ideas move further along, a key step is to create a prototype or working version of the new offering. Again, market testing is crucial at every stage in the development process.
Minimum Viable Product
A minimum viable product (MVP) is the "version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. " The goal of an MVP is to test fundamental business hypotheses (or leap-of-faith assumptions) and to help entrepreneurs begin the learning process as quickly as possible.
For example, Ries notes that Zappos founder Nick Swinmurn wanted to test the hypothesis that customers were ready and willing to buy shoes online. Instead of building a website and a large database of footwear, Swinmurn approached local shoe stores, took pictures of their inventory, posted the pictures online, bought the shoes from the stores at full price, and sold them directly to customers if they purchased the shoe through his website. Swinmurn deduced that customer demand was present, and Zappos would eventually grow into a billion-dollar business based on the model of selling shoes online.
Continuous Deployment
Continuous deployment is a process "whereby all code that is written for an application is immediately deployed into production," resulting in a reduction of cycle times. Ries states that some of the companies he's worked with deploy new code into production as often as 50 times a day. The phrase was coined by Timothy Fitz, one of Ries's colleagues and an early engineer at IMVU.
Split Testing
A split test or A/B test is an experiment in which "different versions of a product are offered to customers at the same time. " The goal of a split test is to observe changes in behavior between the two groups and to measure the impact of each version on an actionable metric. A/B testing can also be performed in serial fashion where a group of users one week may see one version of the product while the next week users see another.
Vanity Metrics
Vanity metrics are measurements which give "the rosiest picture possible" but do not accurately reflect the key drivers of a business. This is in contrast to actionable metrics, the measurement of which can lead to a business decision and subsequent action.
Laboratory Tests
Laboratory tests provide information regarding the performance of new products in extreme settings. For example, a new copy machine can be tested at various work loads, like numbers of copies and speed per minute to test the relationship between workload and paper jam.
Expert Evaluations
Expert evaluators can be used at all phases of the new product development process. For instance, experts can be used to estimate whether or not a new product idea will be accepted in the marketplace before a prototype even exists.
Customer Evaluations
In later stages of development, customers can be recruited to evaluate prototypes. There is an attempt to test new products under conditions that are relatively close to actual use.