Concept Generation & Selection

A product is a concept that possesses form or attributes, based on technology, and provides benefit. Concepts often are developed using the ideas selected and ranked from earlier stages.

• See Activity 3 (Section 3) - Idea Generation & Screen - for an example of converting opportunities into a new product idea, and a new idea into a full-fledged concept.
• Evaluate concepts to assure they meet corporate objectives and are a good fit with capabilities (as outlined in Activity 1: The Portfolio Planning Activity).

Another industry's approach to managing projects from concept development to commercialization.

• Identify user, purchaser, and stakeholders in the purchase/specification decision
  • include building codes
  • establish relative importance and role for each influencer of the purchase decision
• Establish what is important to each stakeholder relative to buying decisions
  • what product/service attributes will cause them to make a purchase
  • do not underestimate the importance of knowing code requirements
  • generate engineering requirements and specifications to meet desired attributes
  • generate viable concept designs
    see for example: TOOLBASE Design and Construction Guides
  • Achieving Sales Empowerment. Arming your sales people to realize success
• Create the right environment for concept development (see below*)
• Evaluate and rank concepts for testing (see for example: a Pugh Matrix)
  • synthesize the best elements of each initial concept into a final optimal concept
  • repeat until the best concept emerges
• Get feedback from the market and industry
  • include relevant stakeholders using:
    • full-scale marketing research
    • focus groups
    • interviews
      (see example of how to contract focus groups and interviews)
    • customer visits
    • field evaluations, etc.
• Conduct market-wide acceptance test
  • a concept test is used to establish likelihood of purchase (trial rates should emerge)
• Concept goes to next stage - business evaluation and development - if it passes
  • show Key Steps content, and scroll down to NEWPROD scoring model

• Business Strategies
• Preliminary Screening
• Assessing Technical Feasibility
• Performance, Budgeting, Price
• Intellectual Property