New Product Development and Disciplined Experimentation

Abstract

The process of developing new products always contains an element of uncertainty. This uncertainty translates into a significant risk for companies investing in the development of new products or services. The risk in new product development (NPD) can be based on ‘disciplined experimentation’: a structured process designed to rapidly identify the ‘vivid’ needs of the customer, test whether the main features of the new product or service will satisfy these needs (fast prototyping). ‘Disciplined experimentation’, in particular, addresses assumptions about value (how the initiative will produce outcomes that outweigh the effort involved), growth (how the initiative can be scaled up beyond the first group of customers) and sustainability (how quickly the organisation can adapt to the new initiative and how easily competitors will be able to replicate it).