Successful Product Development: What Is It and How To Approach It?

As the business environment becomes more uncertain and complex, digital transformation has emerged as a necessity. There is a remarkable shift towards adopting and using digital technologies across all spheres of life. Given this situation, a well-designed and developed product can give your business a competitive edge. However, developing a product is complex and takes time and resources. Therefore, it can be challenging for those looking to know where to start or the right approach. Hence, it is essential to understand what product development is, how to approach it, and what care you should take to ensure that you have a valuable product in the end.

What Is Product Development?

The complexities of the problems and the changing expectations of customers have given rise to innovation. As a result, the last couple of decades saw a tremendous surge in startups attempting to solve these complex problems through creative and adaptive solutions. As a result, there is a wide choice of applications and products available to solve general needs.

However, every business operates in a unique environment. The challenges, opportunities, resources, skills, operational capabilities, and objectives vary. Additionally, similar to the product front innovation, you might introduce their innovative processes and business models that give you a competitive edge.

This uniqueness sometimes results in a situation where the off-the-shelf products are insufficient to add significant value or might not be cost-effective. Alternatively, you might have an idea that no one else has attempted to solve. You might prefer to develop a product from scratch, shaping it the way you want.

How To Decide If Building A Product is Worthwhile?

Building a successful product is a complex endeavor. That’s why it is critical to ensure that you put your energy into creating the right one. While the idea may seem compelling initially, you should consider the practical possibilities. IDEO suggests a popular technique to give you this answer. The method allows you to evaluate your product idea from a human, technology & operations, and business perspective:

1. Desirability tells you whether you are solving the right problem that your users and customers find valuable.
2. The feasibility determines whether you will develop and support the product.
3. The viability tells you whether the product can help your long-term growth objectives.

Together, they give you a fair sense of whether you should move on the product development and if your product goals are valuable for the market or not.

If your idea falls into the trisection of these factors, you have an increased chance of success. In addition, such an evaluation helps you define whether your product idea is worth pursuing or not.

The Product Development Frameworks

Many proven methods, models, and product strategies provide you with a practical framework to adopt for your product development and strategic planning. Fuzzy FrontEnd (FFE) and the Design Thinking framework popularised by IDEO are two of the most popular frameworks designers use to shape ideas. Any product development goes through idea generation, conceptualization, design, and development after the concept is conceived.

There is an increased emphasis on iterative and incremental product development processes, as they allow you to adjust your course according to the actual feedback you get. The popularity of Agile methodologies results from the benefits such an iterative approach provides.

While we won’t go into details of these frameworks in this article, it is sufficient to say that they emphasize understanding the real needs of those supposed to benefit from that product. By uncovering such deep needs, the product team can ensure that the product is optimally usable from the user’s perspective. Such clarity also helps keep the design and development efforts focused on the product’s most critical aspects.

What Are The Product Capabilities That Would Give You Competitive Edge?

While every product needs to fulfill its primary objective, certain qualities set a great product apart from a mere good. Customer Experience (CX) and User Experience (UX) have emerged as the most critical factor allowing organizations and users to derive optimal value from the product. Research suggests that over 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better experience.

The CX or UX is the result of many factors. Aesthetics, information architecture, performance, and security are critical elements. The capabilities that give you an edge are;

• Automation is applicable for both Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) products. The idea is to reduce manual intervention, thereby increasing the efficiency of the process and quality and accuracy. One critical aspect of your product is working with and sharing information with other products and applications. While this is more of a technical topic, considering these capabilities may help design effective information architecture.
•  
• Personalization – Personalization allows the users to connect with your product. It ensures that they get only relevant information and focus on the aspects of the product that apply directly to them.
•  
• Omni-Channel Availability – With multiple devices becoming the norm, your product must provide a seamless experience. While making the product available on various channels is easy, the omnichannel experience goes beyond its availability and how well users can use it. Responsive web applications are already a norm, working equally on mobile devices. Now, product designers extend these capabilities to smartwatches, voice assistants, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and wearables.

Fortunately, the technology is evolving to support such advanced capabilities. It needs a good product designer who can adopt a multi-dimensional approach and focus on creatively incorporating these capabilities as appropriate.

Characteristics of A Good Product Design & Development Partner

While it is possible to undertake product development using your in-house teams, partnering with a capable design agency will benefit you immensely. While the technical skills, knowledge of sound design principles, and experience of delivering proven design are obvious evaluation criteria, there are other critical qualities. Look for the following attributes when it is time to choose;

1. Good designers are curious listeners. Listening is one of the critical behavioral aspects of the empathetic approach, which is the focus area for Design Thinking.
2. They are incredibly patient. Good design needs multiple iterations to arrive at the product your users would like and find valuable.
3. They adopt an empirical approach. Such an approach helps designers validate their assumptions and deal with your biases, which may adversely affect the end-product. By adopting the empirical mindset, they ensure that the product and the development efforts are optimal by taking into account customer feedback.
4. Good development teams know that the customer experience is paramount for business growth and ensures excellence without compromising.
5. They have a focus on simplification and minimalism. The simplification of the user interactions and the process that results from the interactions creates a long-lasting impact. It makes your product more desirable and viable.

Final Thoughts

Product Design and development have assumed critical importance for organizations as they face new challenges amidst uncertainties and changing customer expectations and needs. Automation, Personalisation, Omni-channel access, and Customer Experience are becoming the pillars of the products that would make the difference.

As organizations embark on the digital business journey, they need to consider how to coordinate their digital initiatives to drive business outcomes. Common challenges in this area include lack of coordination between business and IT, siloing digital initiatives, and inability to capitalize on its right digital strategy. This area is where a comprehensive approach to product development becomes essential. A capable partner can help you cover the entire life-cycle, including product ideation, discovery, strategy, and design, effectively. By adopting a collaborative approach, you can benefit from someone who understands how the product development is done and can advise you objectively.