Product Leadership: Pathways to Profitable Innovation

As we learned from New Coke, Pets.com, Apple's original handheld device, the Newton, and the reissued Ford Thunderbird, all the promotion in the world won't save a product that somehow isn't right. Robert Cooper is the world's leading expert on making sure your new-product introductions are more like Apple's iPods and less like Newtons.Cooper invented what's called the "stage-gate" process of new-product development-a process used by 60% of all businesses today. For this second edition Cooper has completed a major new study-the largest study of product development practices and results ever undertaken. He analyzed thousands of new success and failures from hundreds of companies, with a particular emphasis on high-technology products and services. Product Leadership won't just tell you what things are helpful to your company's success. Now it will tell you how and how much they help.

Based on a major new study, a revision of the leading guide to new-product development for senior management, by the inventor of its most widely practiced approach

Robert G. Cooper is a professor of marketing at McMaster University. Founder of the widely employed StageGate product development process, he lives in Oakville, Ontario. Scott J. Edgett is associate professor of marketing at McMaster University and director of the Product Development Institute. He lives in Ancaster, Ontario. Elko J. Kleinschmidt is professor of marketing and international business and director of the engineering and management program at McMaster University. He lives in Ancaster, Ontario.