Have you ever wondered what key elements can add some of the most important value to your product development project? This question has come up many times in the 17+ years we have been developing products for leading technology companies and our experience has taught us some valuable knowledge you can use to benefit your product development efforts.
At Simplexity Product Development, we work on a variety of complex electro-mechanical products including large medical devices. We also design molecular diagnostics, consumer devices, wearables, and commercial equipment that have electrical, firmware, and mechanical components. These often take multiple years to complete and have inherently complex safety protocols we must adhere to. We also work on small projects for startups that move quickly and may only have a handful of components.
In our experience, whether your project is big or small, there are key elements that you can use when you develop a product that add value.
Four Essential Elements for Successful Product Development Include:
1. Requirements Documentation
Documenting requirements captures exactly what your product needs to do. Understanding what your user needs are, and having stakeholder buy-in from the technical team, the product management team, and the business side ensure that you have a product that is going to be successful.
2. Design Reviews
Doing design reviews throughout the product development is a critical part of the process. Concept reviews, architecture reviews and reviews before you release to fab for prototypes are essential. Design reviews make sure that you confirm documented product requirements, understand performance priorities, have the stakeholders at the table, and decide on whether you’re really on the right track to meet the needs of the product.
3. Defect Management
Really getting to the root cause of any defects that surface, documenting them, and reviewing them with the team ensures that everybody that may be impacted by that issue has an opportunity to weigh in and help resolve it.
4. Good Test Planning and Test Documentation
Going back to the requirements and giving space for people to do testing to identify the weaknesses in the design helps ensure the product meets the user needs.
Employing these four elements as part of your product development process will help you ultimately develop a great product and have a successful program. These elements are an integral part of every project we work on at Simplexity. If you are designing a new product, contact us to discuss how we can help you get to market faster, reduce your product cost, and improve the reliability of your next project.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:
- Root Cause Analysis (RCA): Finding the Root of Problems and Identifying Robust Solutions
- 11 Steps to Performing a Robust Product Risk Analysis
- Download our Product Requirements Document and Template to learn more about the importance of documenting product requirements prior to starting product design work.