Creative Product Design: A Practical Guide to Requirements Capture Management

Achieving commercial success through innovation is highly desirable, but difficult to achieve in practice. 50% of product development costs are likely to result in a failed product and in some sectors, such as FMCGs, this figure is more like 75%.

What is the problem?
Typically, out of nine month's product development cycle, only two weeks are devoted to the generation of ideas and creative design - the "front end". This is the missing link - insufficient idea generation and creativity management, or the pre-development phase, can lead to the failure of the product.

So, what can you do to avoid product failure?
Requirements Capture is the "front end". It is the processs by which the needs, preferences and requirements of individuals and groups significant to product development are researched and identified. Requirements cature defines:
* Customer, user and market requirements
* Design requirements
* Technical requirements The requirements capture model constitutes three phases:
* Information gathering
* Information transformation
* Requirements generation

In this book, Margaret Bruce and Rachel Cooper present and explain requirements capture in a step-by-step, practical guide that will enable you to plan and implement the process successfully within your organisation. Whether you produce food products or technically complex products, this book will be an invaluable asset in assisting your product development process.

Defining a process of requirements capture as the "front end" or "pre-development" of the product development process is imperative. The front end is a critical phase because once the concept has been defined, then about 80% of subsequent costs will have been committed.

Without the requirements capture process, false assumptions regarding customer, technical and other requirements may be made. Such false assumptions lead to errors in the product specification which may only be uncovered later in the process. It does not take much to imagine the impact this has on time and money.

With the current focus on achieving quick response, managers worry that more effort expended on requirements capture at the front end will increase the time of product development. However, companies with intensive front end activities spend 40% less time on product development than those that ignore this stage. In addition, companies with an effective requirements capture process gain more profits and revenue from new products than those that do not have an adequate requirements capture process.

The writing is on the wall.

Booknews

Requirements capture is the process by which the needs, preferences, and requirements of individuals and groups significant to product development are researched and identified. In this text, Bruce (design management and marketing, UMIST) and Cooper (design management, U. of Salford) describe how to implement requirements capture within any organization. They contend that by devoting more attention to this pre-development phase, companies can save time during product development and avoid costly false assumptions. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Dr. Margaret Bruce is Professor of Design Management and Marketing and Head of Department of Textiles, UMIST. She has written several books and papers on design and innovation and carried out international research programmes in these fields. She has developed courses and run executive programmes in Product Development Management and Design and edits the International Journal of Product Development, Innovation and Management.

Dr. Rachel Cooper is Professor of Design Management and Associate Head of Research in the School of Art and Design at the University of Salford. She is Chair of the European Design Academy and edits the international journal, The Design Journal. She has published several books and papers in design management, new product development and conducted major research programes in this field.