Part Three : Ready for Product Development?
Technology commercialization is delivering exciting new products in just about every industry and market segment. Savvy entrepreneurs and enterprises are leveraging new technology to disrupt traditional product landscapes. In the race to be first to market with an innovative product, some product managers place their bet on a cutting-edge technology that is not quite ready for prime time. Technology readiness is a tricky decision, but with some tools, a product manager can limit some of the subjectivity of the decision and improve their likelihood of success.
EVEN THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST DON’T ALWAYS GET IT RIGHT
The Apple Newton was an innovative product concept that integrated several digital productivity tools into a portable tablet device form factor that were previously only found on a computer. This computing platform provided an early glimpse into the potential of modern-day tablets and iPads. The Newton relied on the user to provide input using a handheld stylus. This user interface incorporated an insufficiently mature character recognition system that was clunky and frustrating for many users. While the Newton enjoyed some success, its high price and early problems with its handwriting recognition feature, limited its sales. Current day tablets have overcome this deficiency and offer excellent user interfaces, including character recognition. This key technology has come a long way.
Apple Newton was ahead of its time.
But..
VALIDATE THE TECHNOLOGY
At Diatomic Product Development, we encourage our client partners to focus on completing three core tenets of technology development prior to starting product design and development. They are:
Technology Assessment – Establish the technology approach. Develop a high-level system architecture for your product vision and identify all critical supporting technologies.
Technology Feasibility – Prove that the technology works. Integrate critical technology elements into a breadboard to demonstrate, through testing, that these critical components work.
Demonstrated Embodiment – Verify the technology works in a representative configuration, form factor and intended application environment.
This aligns closely with the approach taken by the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA. Wherein the technology readiness level (TRL) criteria is used to assess readiness for start of development, with the critical gating item being that the technology is demonstrated to work in the configuration, size and environment anticipated for the final product.
DEFINE THE PRODUCT
In addition to technology readiness, we have found that a thorough and complete understanding of the following three key elements contribute mightily towards a successful product development initiative:
Intended application, user experience and use case(s)
Mature and prioritized set of product requirements
Well-defined business plan and go-to-market strategy
Requirements creep and changing business goals move the goalpost for design-engineering teams. This can result in design churn that increases development time and cost considerably.
ROADMAP TO SUCCESS
The following diagram shows an idealized roadmap from concept idea to technology discovery through product development and finally to commercial launch of a product that relies on new technology.
This article defines TRL1 through TRL9. The best-case scenario for starting product development is:
Technology has been demonstrated (at or above TRL 6).
Product requirements are defined and stable.
Business objective is well defined and understood.
It is not uncommon to have some overlap between technology development and program planning, requirements finalization and architecture development. This should be done with eyes wide open and the understanding that lower technology maturity (low TRL level) results in higher risk during product development. Sometimes organizations will attempt to bridge this gap with risk management and mitigation plans. Risk management plans and judgement are necessary for managing any product development effort. However, as stated in a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report:
“without a framework and common language such as TRLs that allow transparency into program decisions, these methods allow significant technical unknowns to be judged acceptable risks because a plan exists for resolving the unknowns in the future. This is a major fallacy. TRLs are based on ACTUAL DEMONSTRATIONS of how well technologies actually perform.”
TRLs are very well suited for commercial product development for the same reasons that they have proven to be indispensable for NASA and the Department of Defense. It is a tool that provides a common language and measuring stick that crosses technology and engineering disciplines. We have found that the TRL levels align well with most technology development efforts. If they don’t there might be cause for a deeper review of the technology status, planned product development roadmap and go to market strategy.
TECHNOLOGY MATURITY | PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT SUCCESS
Entrepreneurs, start-ups and product development organizations in large Fortune 500 corporations face a similar siren-song of new technologies as they vie for investor funding, look for a disruptive advantage or just want to stay ahead of the competition. All of these organizations would benefit from an honest self-assessment of the technologies that they plan to integrate into their product. TRLs are an excellent and proven tool for performing and communicating this technology assessment. With this knowledge, decision makers and stakeholders are better able to plan and execute their product development roadmap. TRLs provide a common language for having open and honest discussions with stakeholders and investors. Their strength lies in the fact that they characterize knowledge that exists rather than plans to gain knowledge in the future; they are, thus, less susceptible to optimism. Identifying risks is the first step to managing it. TRLs are a very useful tool for identifying risks. This tool and approach aligns very nicely with Agile development, which leverages quick design iterations to prototype, test, update design and repeat to rapidly evolve and evaluate a design using modern day prototyping tools.
TECHNOLOGY | GO FOR IT
There is considerable benefit to be gained by continuing to leverage new technology in products.
New technology increases the value proposition of the new product and increases the likelihood that it will get support from funding organizations.
New technology might be disruptive and enable a product to leap-frog over products being offered by competitors.
We encourage entrepreneurs and enterprises to continue to push the envelope and leverage new technologies to create great and compelling products, but that they adopt a disciplined and knowledge-based method for assessing technology maturity. TRLs serve as an excellent tool and language for this.
Please let us know if we can help you leverage technology towards your new product vision and business goals.
Diatomic Product Development is a team of talented engineers, designers and business professionals with years of experience designing, developing and commercializing innovative and exciting new technology-based products.
We can help your team achieve your technical and business goals. LETS TALK