Product Innovation Best Practice Series
Brief Insightful Advice for Busy Innovation Leaders
October 2008
Author: Robert G. Cooper is one of the most influential innovation thought
leaders in the business world today. A sought-after public speaker, prolific author
and advisor to industry, Cooper has assembled the world’s most comprehensive
body of research and knowledge on the topic of Product Innovation. His many
groundbreaking discoveries including the Stage-Gate Idea-to-Launch Process and
Portfolio Management for New Products are widely implemented around the world
and are largely considered industry best practice.
Make your New Product Process Agile & Adaptable with ‘Spiral Development’
Spiral Development makes Stage-Gate® a
much more adaptable development process,
one that is particularly well suited to innovative new products, and one that adapts to
changing, uncertain market conditions. Build
in the concept of spiral or agile development,
allowing project teams to move rapidly to a
finalized product design through a series of
“build-test-feedback-and-revise” iterations.1
Spiral development does this: it deals with the
need to get mock-ups or protocepts in front of
customers early in the process, and seek fast
feedback. Spiral development also allows for
smart-and-fast failures; these spirals are relatively inexpensive, and often the first few spirals
result in negative responses. Not a problem:
revise, rebuild and test again via the next spiral.
Spiral development also bridges the gap between the need for sharp, early and fact-based
Customers or users really don’t know what
they want until
they see it, esSpiral Development is a Series of “Build-Test-Feedback-Revise” Iterations
pecially in case
of very innovative products. So get
something in
front of the
user, fast –
something the
customer can
see, feel, touch
and respond to.
Contact Stage-Gate International for more information +1-905-304-8797
www.stage-gate.com
© 2014 Product Development Institute Inc. Stage-Gate is a registered trademark. Logo for Product Development
Institute Inc. used under license by Stage-Gate Inc. Logo for Stage-Gate used under license where appropriate.
product definition before Development begins
and the need to be flexible, agile and to adjust
the product’s design to new information and
fluid market conditions as Development proceeds. The method thus allows developers to
continue to incorporate valuable customer
feedback into the design even after the product
definition is supposedly locked-in before going
into Stage 3, and could even result in a much
different or more innovative product than
originally envisioned.
How does spiral development work in practice? It’s really a set of “build-and-test, then
seek feedback-and-revise” iterations with the
user or customer. A sample set of spirals is
shown in the exhibit on the previous page.
Note that these loops or spirals are deliberately
built in from the front-end stages through the
development stage and into the testing stage.
The first loop or spiral is the voice-of-customer
study undertaken early in Stage 2, where
project team members visit customers to better
understand their unmet and unspoken needs,
problems and benefits sought in the new product. At this point, the project team probably has
very little to show the customer; and that’s the
way it should be: The purpose of this visit is to
listen and watch, not to “show and tell.”
The second spiral, labeled “full proposition
concept test” in the exhibit, is where the project team presents a representation of the
proposed product. Depending on the type of
product and industry, this representation can
be a computer-generated virtual prototype, a
hand-made model or mock-up, a very crude
protocept, or even a few computer screens for
new software. The product obviously does not
work at this early stage, and in some presentations, is only two-dimensional. But it is enough
to give the customer a feel for what the product
will be and do. Interest, liking, preference and
purchase intent are thus established even
before the project is a formal development
project. Feedback is sought, and the needed
product revisions are made.
Moving into the Development Stage (see
exhibit on previous page), within weeks the
project team produces the next and more complete version of the product, perhaps a crude
model or a rapid prototype. They test this with
customers, and again seek feedback, which
they use to rapidly revise and build the first
working prototype… and then to Spiral #3,
#4 and so on… with each successive version
of the product getting closer to the final
product, and at the same time, closer to the
customer’s ideal.
These loops in the exhibit resemble spirals,
hence the name “spiral development.”
Use a series of “build-test-feedback-and revise” spirals with the customer in your
development process. The result is a better and more innovative product, and one that is
more likely to delight the customer. Employ the spirals to adapt quickly to changing market
conditions and requirements, and to move rapidly to a proven, finalized product design.
1 Adapted
from: R.G. Cooper, “The Stage-Gate Idea-to-Launch Process – Update, What’s New and NexGen Systems,”
J. Product Innovation Management, Volume 25, Number 3, May 2008, pp 213-232.
Contact Stage-Gate International for more information +1-905-304-8797
www.stage-gate.com
© 2014 Product Development Institute Inc. Stage-Gate is a registered trademark. Logo for Product Development
Institute Inc. used under license by Stage-Gate Inc. Logo for Stage-Gate used under license where appropriate.
Stage-Gate International is the world's leading full-service provider of solutions which enable
organizations to improve their Product Innovation and Portfolio Management capabilities and
performance. Our clients include 5000+ organizations of all sizes across all industries.
+1-905-304-8797
www.stage-gate.com
Visit our website and subscribe to receive the latest research, information and
complimentary articles to keep you current in product innovation!