"A" Flashcards
Accidental Discovery
New designs, ideas, and developments resulting from unexpected insight, which can be obtained either internal or external to the organization
Adoption Curve
The phases through which consumers or a market proceed in deciding to adopt a new product or technology. At the individual level, each consumer must move from a cognitive state (becoming aware of and knowledgeable about), to an emotional state (liking and then preferring the product) and into a cognitive, or behavioral state (deciding and then purchasing the product). At the market level, the new product is first purchased by the innovators in the marketplace, which are generally thought to constitute about 2.5% of the market. Early adopters (13.5% of the market) are the next to purchase, followed by the early majority (34%), late majority (34%) and finally, the laggards (16%).
Affinity Charting
A “bottom-up” technique for discovering connections between pieces of data. An individual or group starts with one piece of data (say, a customer need). They then look through the rest of the data they have (say, statements of other customer needs) to find other data (needs) similar to the first, and place it in the same group. As they come across pieces of data that differ from those in the first group, they create a new category. The end result is a set of groups where the data contained within a category is similar, and the groups all differ in some way. See also Qualitative Cluster Analysis.
Alliance
Formal arrangement with a separate company for purposes of development, and involving exchange of information, hardware, intellectual property, or enabling technology. Alliances involve shared risk and reward (e.g., co-development projects). (See also Chapter 11 of The PDMA HandBook 2nd Edition).
Alpha Test
Pre-production product testing to find and eliminate the most obvious design defects or deficiencies, usually in a laboratory setting or in some part of the developing firmís regular operations, although in some cases it may be done in controlled settings with lead customers. See also beta test and gamma test.
Alpha Testing
A crucial “first look” at the initial design, usually done in-house. The results of the Alpha test either confirm that the product performs according to its specifications or uncovers areas where the product is deficient. The testing environment should try to simulate the conditions under which the product will actually be used as closely as possible. The Alpha test should not be performed by the same people who are doing the development work. Since this is the first “flight” for the new product, basic questions of fit and function should be evaluated. Any suggested modifications or revisions to the specifications should be solicited from all parties involved in the evaluation and considered for inclusion. Since the testing is done in-house, special care must be taken to remain as objective as possible.
Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
A decision-making tool for complex, multi-criteria problems where both qualitative and quantitative aspects of a problem need to be incorporated. AHP clusters decision elements according to their common characteristics into a hierarchical structure similar to a family tree or affinity chart. The AHP process was designed by T.L. Saaty.
Analyzer
A firm that follows an imitative innovation strategy, where the goal is to get to market with an equivalent or slightly better product very quickly once someone else opens up the market, rather than to be first to market with new products or technologies. Sometimes called an imitator or a “fast follower.”
Anticipatory Failure Determination (AFD)
A failure analysis method. In this process, developers start from a particular failure of interest as the intended consequence and try to devise ways to assure that the failure always happens reliably. T hen the developers use that information to develop ways to better identify steps to avoid the failure.
Applications Development
The iterative process through which software is designed and written to meet the needs and requirements of the user base or the process of enhancing or developing new products.
Architecture
See Product architecture
As-Is-Map
A version of a process map depicting how an existing process actually operates. This may differ substantially from documented guidelines.
Asynchronous Groupware
Software used to help people work as groups, but not requiring those people to work at the same time.
Attribute Testing
A quantitative market research technique in which respondents are asked to rate a detailed list of product or category attributes on one or more types of scales such as relative importance, current performance, current satisfaction with a particular product or service, for the purpose of ascertaining customer preferences for some attributes over others, to help guide the design and development process. Great care and rigor should be taken in the development of the list of attributes, and it must be neither too long for the respondent to answer comfortably or too short such that it lumps too many ideas together at too high a level.
Audit
When applied to new product development, an audit is an appraisal of the effectiveness of the processes by which the new product was developed and brought to market. (see Chapter 14 of The PDMA ToolBook 1)
Added: it is a procedure to systematically develop data on the project’s characteristics and performance, as well as analyzing underlying causes of that performance
