Product Development Life Cycle
Every successful project, idea, or business you know at some point certainly went through the following stages: Ideation, validation, strategy development, and finally, execution. And today, the aim of this publication is to break these down to bitesize understanding.
The Ideation
In the process of design thinking, ideation comes as third in the process after empathizing and definition. It’s the point where all necessary ideas are scribbled and doodled for a set topic or goal, this process doesn’t involve critiquing or any form of evaluation, it’s the simple sketches representing the options on how to go about certain things. To really simplify the definition of this stage. This is where your Innovative thinking comes alive and wild which should help you find that ground-breaking result required to win the entire project. When done correctly, ideation assists in focusing on your consumers, accumulating the distinct views and creativity of various individuals to notice varied ideas, and eventually, innovating in ways you never imagined possible. It will also help you as the right questions, move beyond the obvious, put together the best fit team, uncover blindsides, provide multiple options, get beyond the simple, and gear more towards the innovative.
The Validation
Now that your idea has been thought and developed, the next step will be to validate the said idea. It’s a manageable process of proving the value of this idea and what it offers to its intended user. It involves asking research questions to know if the idea is already existent, its improvement on needs and requirements, determination of demand if your idea is deemed new and unique and a market gap is then determined and validated by your customers. Customer validation is often carried out by talking to the people closest and immediate to you for their candid feedback on your ideation. In this process, if you’re the only person who seems to see the upside on this idea, then a reassessment of the idea is advised. Once your idea scales through this public validation phase, then you start building and developing your brand, it is important to move quickly as we live in a fast-paced ever-evolving world and economy. A viable idea could become obsolete in a matter of days and weeks. Only in a situation where your idea is proprietary and uses proprietary new tech, someone might have already gone to market with a similar idea somewhere and somehow and you wouldn’t even know it, I say this to help you get rid of the fear of someone stealing your idea because even though it’s a valid fear, you need to understand that it probably already exists or will be better developed and iterated. So, you need to get beyond the noise and focus on getting to the market first and staying ahead with constant evolvement and innovation. Craft a very thoughtful customer acquisition plan accompanied by a killer marketing strategy that you can communicate effectively to investors, and anyone interested in your idea.
The Planning and Strategy
This is where you take the information determined from the validation stage and essentially build a model for the next and final stage before rinsing and repeating the process as an entrepreneur. A Project Plan and strategy document need to be developed as it tells the story of your brand goals and deliverables. It should contain scopes and goals and then be represented in a Gant Chart. The lack of this stage makes most people result to putting out fire in their business due to the absence of a framework and repeatable process. When developing this process, you need to set clear priorities, collect and analyze data, maintain communication, and evaluate progress.
The Execution
This is where you make a collection of interconnected operations carried out by you to make your plan and strategy function. However, it is frequently difficult to translate your concept from thinking to action. Only when you transform thoughts into actions do you have anything that you can watch, measure, and manage. Once you can get to this phase it gets simpler by sharpening your focus and having clarity while keeping things simple. Build competencies and constantly deliver quality.
You sow the seeds of winning when you continuously refine your concentration, increase your expertise, and fire your enthusiasm. If you don’t notice visible effects right away, keep in mind that development occurs beneath the surface initially. As you persevere, momentum increases, resulting in a self-reinforcing cycle of success. Thank you for reading this.
