Product Concept Metrics: a Preliminary Study Working Paper

Abstract

Metrics for product concept evaluation and screening is a relatively unstudied topic of product development. Having a clearly documented set of metrics for concept screening decisions is a prerequisite for an educated and traceable decision making process. Measuring product concepts and comparing the results of pervious products and their success rates to the metrics documented for their screening provides a basis on which to improve the efficiency of product development work. In this study a list of product concept screening metrics, or issues if you please, is put forth. This list is priorized according to the importance of the metrics. The relative importance of the metrics is determined for a number of different groups, including academia and industry, along with geographical samples from Finland and the USA. Furthermore a brief study on published product concepts is presented to show that some of these metrics are indeed researched by companies and to determine the information that companies seek to obtain by publishing product concepts. Finally the realtion of the results of these studies is discussed in terms of theirimplications to the management of research and development in corporations.