What are the steps to manage the Product R&D life cycle?

Given every innovation project goes through these steps and still the proportion of innovation failures far outstrip successes (though airtime is hogged by winners and hence gives a different vibe!), what separates the winner from others is persistence which in turn is a function of capital (and character). So make sure you are paranoid about mitigation of possible risks and have visibility to fund at least 2-3 rounds of iteration and failures.

(R&D) involves a series of important steps. These include generating ideas, conducting feasibility studies, developing concepts, researching the market, designing products, creating prototypes, carrying out development and testing, assuring quality assurance, complying wth regulations, gathering feedback through testing, documenting, process, moving into the production phase, planning,marketing and launch activities, launching the product in the market successfully, providing postlaunch support to customers, evaluating performance and making necessary improvements along the way, it also involves planning for the eventual end-of-life phase. between we need to look it to what are the opportunities for digitalizing and get feedback quickly.

At this stage, it is critical to understand your market especially the socio economic & political landscape as well as the legal & regulatory situation. Is there a gap in this market that you closing? Are you going to just close that gap by following a marketing brief/consumer insight to cater for an existing consumer need, this reactive based R&D approach usually results in short term wins if done right. Are you looking at creating a gap or a need in the market that the consumer is not even aware off? This is a more practive R&D approach for long term, strategic growth & sustainability.

Connected Ecosystem: Embrace the idea of interconnected systems, Agile Development: Implement agile methodologies to adapt quickly to changing market conditions and customer demands. Iterative development and continuous feedback loops are crucial for staying relevant. Digital mockup: Create digital representations of your products and processes, allowing for simulation and testing in a virtual environment. This reduces the need for physical prototypes and accelerates development. Sustainability and Efficiency: Integrate sustainable practices and energy-efficient technologies into your product design and manufacturing processes to align with environmental goals and regulations.

I would add that in this step it is essential to value speed and allow margin for errors. Creating a MVP ( minimal viable product) and having beta testers will teach way more than months of planning.

Ideation and generating solutions / prototypes is key. Adopt an agile methodology to generate multiple ideas fast and seek feedback. The sooner you get inputs, the better the idea can evolve and add value. Having frequent touchpoints with the key stakeholders is very key to avoid surprises later in the cycle. The key thing to note is that a solution need not be "complete". Even if it is a prototype with assumptions, it is still fine.

Dans le cas d’un retour de produit sans a priori comprendre ce qui s’est passé , j’utilise l’outil de résolution de problème avec toutes les personnes des fonctions afin de definite des pistes et de mettre en place les Essais ou autres

You also need to allow for various versions of your product to be developed sequentially. Don't wait to have all the pieces ready to launch a ferrari if you can already launch a skateboard that would allow users to test, give feedback and potentially guide nous in the requirements for this final ferrari. You might also realize that the more feature is not always the better and stopping at the intermediate version is actually better adopted than building the final one.

This is a critical step as your idea is now going to get implemented. At this stage, other people will be involved and while I agree with all the points mentioned, explaining what you want is key. People have to understand what they are trying to do and why. Not having this understanding will result to multiple cycles of development / testing. I have seen that having a clear "acceptance criteria" goes a long way in ensuring that people build what you want them to.

Product Design and Design Control: Pay close attention to product design and adhere to rigorous design control processes. This involves ensuring that the product is safe, efficacious, and suitable for its intended use. Design control is particularly crucial in medical technologies to meet regulatory requirements and quality standards. Further to this - consider how you are going to have traceability and control of all of your design decisions.

another essential part of monitoring a new product success is to define and track the KPIs. Try to track the metrics that align with your end goal. Don’t track metrics just for collecting data. Instead, study why measuring a particular metric would help you to achieve your broader business goals better. More data sometimes mislead you in interpretation so pick a few measurable metrics and stick to tracking them over time.

This phase requires a good amount of planning and information dissemination. Teams like Product Marketing, Pre-Sales, Customer Support etc. need to be involved as once the customer gets to use the functionality, the other parts of the organisation must be ready to support and assist the customer. Also, new propects must be made aware of the new / improved functionality / feature. Tracking "adoption" and "usage" is a key metric in this phase. Without adoption, there is no value generated and this will impact revenue and satisfaction. If we want to see success here, the first step of problem identification must be solid.

Once you launch your product, start working for the next so you can launch next in 2 years max. Don't get emotionally attached to your product or technology. Till the product or technology get outdated, launch new one.

The R&D process should be a continuous cycle of improvement. This involves gathering feedback from customers and stakeholders, identifying areas for improvement, and implementing changes to enhance the product and its market performance.

Post-Market Maintenance and Management: Recognise the importance of post-market activities as integral parts of R&D. This includes managing supply changes, implementing design changes and regulatory compliance, addressing customer complaints, and expanding the product family with new SKUs or entering new markets. Effective post-market maintenance ensures ongoing product safety, efficacy, and compliance, as well as customer satisfaction.

Research: This is the stage where the R&D team identifies the customer needs, market opportunities, technological trends, and competitive gaps. They also conduct experiments, tests, and analyses to generate new knowledge and insights. Development: This is the stage where the R&D team implements the final design and prepares the solution for launch. They also perform quality assurance, regulatory compliance, and risk management activities to ensure the reliability and safety of the solution. Launch and commercialization: This is the stage where the R&D team releases the solution to the market and monitors its performance and customer satisfaction. They also collect feedback and data to identify areas for improvement and innovation.

Implement an appropriate innovation management framework to evaluate and prioritise projects effectively. This ensures that only the most promising projects progress through to launch, maximizing the return on investment. An effective innovation management framework also helps you recognise and manage different types of initiative more effectively. For example, incremental improvements may be managed and measured differently than a longer term disruptive innovation initiative.

Prioritize! There will always be more life-cycle work than you can do, so prioritize the work you need to do. And 'prioritize' has two components - not one. 1) Get the most-important stuff first (obvious). 2) Get all of the sufficiently-important stuff done (frequently omitted). Saying "I'm prioritizing work" is no excuse for not addressing critical issues. The first component of prioritization establishes your work order. The second component of prioritization establishes your work force size.

Encourage a culture in your company that values and supports innovation, experimentation, and risk-taking. It could include encouraging employees to pursue their own interests and providing them with the resources to do so. How to analyze and interpret the results of R&D 1. When you want to analyze results, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of what you set out to achieve and what you expected to see. 2. Collect all relevant data and organize it in a way that allows for easy analysis and interpretation. 3. Use appropriate statistical methods to analyze the data, such as hypothesis testing, regression analysis, or analysis of variance (ANOVA). 4. Based on the analysis, interpret the results and draw meaningful conclusions.