What are the key components of a product R&D framework?

Hours of bums on seats is not the focus here; an atmosphere of freedom, and the security to make mistakes must be fostered in order to achieve the environment required for innovation. This can be a contrary concept for those with MBAs. Structure and “framework” becomes possible during the development phase, once the breakthrough has been conceived, and initial concept proofing undertaken. Remember you will still be dealing with the ground breakers, the technical professionals from the pure research phase; yes they can do disciplined structured validation work as well, but try to remember the freedom and the environment created for the innovation to take place in the first place. (Continued)

As the saying goes precision is something and something is not precision. You have to have a clear vision of your requirement , brain storming within and with team on the inputs like technical non technical . Analysis of the brain storming to the possible out comes and feasibility check. Make SMART frame work and work , there should be check point at each stage gate such that we donot loose focus. We need to be serious and passionate about the innovation. Finall One Job at time , too many or multitasking may lead loose focus and end no where

Keep it SHORT, but sweet. Too many PMs go into essay mode and fill pages no one will read. Approach this part of your framework as an iterative section, engage early and often with your leadership to make sure you are staying aligned with the company. This section serves as a FRAMING that will help your readers understand the product decisions described in the rest of your framework.

A clear and short vision helps the team to move forward with agility during the prototyping stage. Ok my opinion strategy is something that is created as the early phases of prototyping moves forward. This way you balance well giving the team a vision and therefore guiding them in the right direction and giving the team freedom to operate without a rigid strategy, but one that evolves together with the product or project

Vision should be achievable based on the understanding the goal and purpose it strives to achieve. The strategy should be to communicate the vision to team that will execute the project . After you convince the team than evolve a plan and time frame for execution looking at various aspects including funding and keeping the team motivated to develop a prototype for testing .The vision and strategy should be simple and focussed to achieve success

The discovery and validation phase in a product R&D framework is like the investigative chapter in a thrilling mystery novel. It's where you dig deep, ask questions, and follow the clues to unravel the secrets of your customer's world. This phase is all about understanding the pain points, needs, and desires of audience. It's about putting your assumptions to the test and ensuring your product ideas align with reality. The arsenal of methods and tools available, from interviews to experiments, acts like a detective's toolkit to uncover insights. Ultimately, this phase guides you towards informed decisions and the right product direction. It's where hypotheses are born, opportunities are unearthed, and your product's roadmap takes shape.

The most painful and long-lasting mistakes a PM can make, will happen at this step. Avoid them by: - Having a crisp initial set of HYPOTHESES on users needs or pain points - Design a user interview script that doesn't explicitly mention the pain point, nor your solutions ideas. - Your goal is to see whether or not your hypothesized pain point will come up on its own. - Discuss your users ROUTINES in the problem space, and peel them like an onion with a lot of "WHYs" - Understand how SEVERE and how FREQUENT this pain point occurs, this will give you signal on the likelihood for a solution to this problem to be purchased - Create a prioritized list of potential solutions, based on the severity and frequency it the pain point.

This phase is super critical in terms of understanding customer wants and needs and convert them into functional parameters. Functional requirements leads to balance targets considering multi dimensions and trade off between them. At later stage it helps to verify and validate the product to ensure end customer needs are fulfilled with a UNIQUE OFFERING and standout in the target category.

Early in my career, I was lucky enough to have been introduced by a startup founder to a book that has had a profound impact on my perspective: "The Mom Test" - a game-changing book on idea validation and understanding customers. Since reading it, my mindset has been forever transformed, equipping me with the ability to ask the right questions and gain a true understanding of customers. My favorite type of question is "Please walk me through the last time that you faced the challenge X..."

Few key sub components of discovery and validation are 1. Idea Generation: Utilize techniques like mind mapping, SWOT analysis, and customer feedback sessions to generate a pool of creative ideas. Consider cross-functional ideation workshops to involve diverse perspectives. 2. Feasibility Analysis: Conduct a thorough cost-benefit analysis, evaluating potential financial returns against anticipated costs. Assess the technical feasibility by considering available resources and expertise. 3. Market Research: Employ both qualitative and quantitative research methods, including surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Analyze demographic data, market trends, and competitive landscapes.

Concept of functional breakdown structure is very useful in cascading the higher and most important funtional targets to the very first and simplest building block of design. This will give starting point to initiate the design, block by block, in different design areas and start validating it from ground up. As soon as individual block meets their targets, start putting them together to check for more complex structure and keep moving to the structure which is truly representative to test the final functional targets. This method cam be simply representated by alphabet "V" where first down slop is determing targets of individuals components from functional targets and upward slop represents validation cycle.

This phase is about stamina! The team develops and needs resilience and stamina to go through a successful design phase. It can be fun or it can be frustrating, the way it can be fun is ensuring the teams designing a product have a clear vision and are supported along the way.

I would design the solution first, validate with customers and then start the actual development. Let customers test in your sandbox if possible, release to early adopters and then do a mass release. This way you will get customer feedback fast, can iterate/change fast and meet their expectations.

I follow the stagegate process for new product development. This assures that the ball doesn't fall between chairs. Pls note that the items in the stagegate process needs to be reviewed in detail by all parties and approved by execom before execution commences

Iterate, Iterate, Iterate. Get your designs in front of stakeholders (and customers if practical) in as complete a form as you can, get feedback, and go around again. Never think that you, the designer, know what the product should be.

A few tips I wish I knew at the start of my career: 1. Have well-defined success criteria and guardrail, then align with your stakeholders so that you can drive fast decisions when the product is live. 2. Become an expert with your analytics tool BEFORE launching. If you rely on analysts to to get the reports you need, you will move too slow and with too little data. 3. Make sure Customer Success and Support are well informed of your launch, and which accounts/users will have it. 4. Identify EARLY what user segments perform the best in terms of acquisition and engagement, then react to it by refining acquisition or targeting strategies.

One thing I wish I knew earlier: you can't win alone. And even if you think you can - it won't work for the long term. Besides your R&D and design counterparts, which has its own challenges, you need Support, Pre-sales, Professional Services, Management and additional functions to support you in launching and growing your products. You'll need to make sure they have the context. Here's how you do it: 1. Background and Value: what's the problem we are trying to solve, how it connects to the organization's goals, to other initiatives, market trends/competition and why would customers even care. 2. Motivation: How can you connect the initiative's value to other stakeholders' goals? This connection will be their motivation to push forward.

This is for the fun stage the most important part I wish someone pushed me against Is for you and your full team be: - durable towards having a strong well tested product - resilient towards the mis-matchers or non believers - adaptable towards embracing new ideas even ones who seem conflicting the idea is to serve the customers - repeat keep the progress never stop the only enemy you have is you

Comprehensive market research and analysis form the foundation, helping identify market needs, trends, and competitive landscapes. Clear product objectives and specifications must be established, outlining the product's unique value proposition and target audience. From there, effective ideation and concept development are vital, fostering creativity and innovation while aligning with market demands. Rigorous testing and iteration follow, ensuring product quality, functionality, and consumer satisfaction. Throughout the process, cross-functional collaboration and communication are critical, involving stakeholders from R&D, marketing, sales, and operations to ensure alignment and buy-in.

- Sadly it still needs to be said, but a solid analytics infrastructure is a must, there is no evaluation and improvement without it - Build a process of metrics readout in your team, show metrics movements, share your hypotheses, and hear your team's - Beware of statistical noise! If you don't use a tool that can give you signal on statistical significant, you MUST consult with a statistician to understand if a metric movement points to a real user behavior, or just signal noise due to low amount of signal

I completely agree you will need to have an analytical system and you should be data driven don’t just follow your intuition Always keep in mind that numbers are there to help not judge you if it’s bad it doesn’t mean your bad it just means there’s something to improve work on that

Define OKRs & KPIs - that are relevant! Regular customer feedback (watching the customer use the product will be better) will give tons of suggestions. Build dashboards with relevant KPIs - that helps you to make decisions. Collate data to make these KPIs more meaningful. These dashboards must be regularly reviewed - sometimes daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly - on a regular basis (as applicable), so you are able to understand the trend and take rearguard actions! It's a Continuous Improvement (CI) process of improvement for any product!

Just like development of a product defines the vision, evaluation of the developed product can help you validate the vision. KPIs, OKRs and user adoption have always been my modus operandi for any product's success and adoption validation.

Make sure functions like presales, support and other important customer-facing teams are AWARE of what you are working on, and that you're aware of what keeps them up at night. Consider implementing methods like dedicated office hours for specific functions or teams, or even establishing a champion program on a monthly cadence.

DEI plays a major role here. When working globally and cross functionally - DEI is of prime importance! It gives opportunity to learn, adapt & implement for the team members - irrespective of which team they belong to! It also breaks the silo approach!

Culture is the backbone of an organization with its roots in how people perceive the culture to be, and not how organization defines it. Culture can act as a promoter or detonator of an organization in the long run.

Product Lifecycle Management is a great example of what is needed on a product development framework. If that is paired with a Maturity Assessment Method such as Technology Readiness Level (TRL), you can get to the next level of Advance R&D planning because now you can plan considering the lifecycle requirements of the product and also a way to evaluate its maturity.

"Risk Management and Mitigation" It involves identifying potential risks and uncertainties throughout the product development lifecycle. This includes assessing technical risks, market risks, regulatory risks, and more. The role is to devise strategies to mitigate these risks effectively. This may involve conducting thorough feasibility studies and adjusting the development plan as needed to minimize potential setbacks. Also, it's essential to have contingency plans in place to address unexpected challenges that may arise during the product's journey. By proactively managing risks, product developer ensures process remains on track and that the final product meets its objectives while minimizing potential setbacks and costly delays.

Key components of R&D frame work Vision and goals of the product we create , quality of resource allocation . Idea generation and visualize the idea - pro-to type . Create a technology road map & raw material sustainability. Compare to market available similar products . We build product in a scale of incremental changes / radical changes . These changes can be experienced by users or tangible. To build so and so product we need to use existing resource / require collaboration / partnership which of this strategy work best. Project management & risk management Cross functional are play a key role in R&D frame work

Um ponto muito importante a ser considerado na etapa de planejamento do projeto é a infraestrutura laboratorial e tecnológica para desenvolvimento do produto em todas as fases do projeto, como simula??o numérica, caracteriza??o de propriedades físicas, ensaios adequados à avalia??o das características e aplica??o do produto dentre outros. Se n?o houverem todos os recursos disponíveis dentro da empresa, durante o planejamento do projeto os mesmos devem ser buscados em institui??es competentes e parceiras.

Crafting a robust product R&D framework demands a visionary stance, aligning with strategic goals and market insights. Embrace an innovation roadmap, assess risks, foster cross-functional collaboration, allocate resources judiciously, establish feedback loops, and ensure adaptability. Implement performance metrics for continual refinement and success measurement.