"S" Flashcards
S-Curve (Technology S-Curve)
Technology performance improvements tend to progress over time in the form of an “S” curve. When first invented, technology performance improves slowly and incrementally. Then, as experience with a new technology accrues, the rate of performance increase grows and technology performance increases by leaps and bounds. Finally, some of the performance limits of a new technology start to be reached and performance growth slows. At some point, the limits of the technology may be reached and further improvements are not made. Frequently, the technology then becomes vulnerable to a substitute technology that is capable of making additional performance improvements. The substitute technology is usually on the lower, slower portion of its own “S” curve and quickly overtakes the original technology when performance accelerates during the middle (vertical) portion of the “S”.
Scanner Test Markets
Special test markets that provide retail point-of-sale scanner data from panels of consumers to help assess the product’s performance. First widely applied in the supermarket industry
Scenario Analysis
A tool for envisioning alternate futures so that a strategy can be formulated to respond to future opportunities and challenges. (See Chapter 16 of the PDMA ToolBook 1.)
Screening
The process of evaluating and selecting new ideas or concepts to put into the project portfolio. Most firms now use a formal screening process with evaluation criteria that span customer, strategy, market, profitability and feasibility dimensions.
Segmentation
The process of dividing a large and heterogeneous market into more homogeneous subgroups. Each subgroup, or segment, holds similar views about the product, and values, purchases, and uses the product in similar ways. (See Chapters 3 and 4 of The PDMA HandBook)
Senior Management
That level of executive or operational management above the product development team that has approval authority or controls resources important to the development effort.
Sensitivity Analysis
A calculation of the impact that an uncertainty might have on the new product business case. It is conducted by setting upper and lower ranges on the assumptions involved and calculating the expected outcomes. (See Chapter 16 of The PDMA ToolBook 1.)
Services
Products, such as an airline flight or insurance policy, which are intangible or at least substantially so. If totally intangible, they are exchanged directly from producer to user, cannot be transported or stored and are instantly perishable. Service delivery usually involves customer participation in some important way. Services cannot be sold in the sense of ownership transfer, and they have no title of ownership.
Short-Term Success
The new product’s performance shortly after launch, well within the first year of commercial sales.
Should-Be Map
A version of a process map depicting how a process will work in the future. A revised “as-is” process map. The result of the team’s re-engineering work.
Simulated Test Market
A form of quantitative market research and pre-test marketing in which consumers are exposed to new products and to their claims in a staged advertising and purchase situation. Output of the test is an early forecast of expected sales or market share, based on mathematical forecasting models, management assumptions, and input of specific measurements from the simulation.
Six Sigma
A level of process performance that produces only 3.4 defects for every one million operations.
Slip Rate
Measures the accuracy of the planned project schedule according to the formula : Slip Rate = ([actual schedule/planned schedule] -1) * 100%.
Specification
A detailed description of the features and performance characteristics of a product. For example, a laptop computer’s specification may read as a 90 megahertz Pentium, with 16 megabytes of RAM and 720 megabytes of hard disk space, 3.5 hours of battery life, weight of 4.5 pounds, with an active matrix 256 color screen.
Speed to Market
The length of time it takes to develop a new product from an early initial idea for a new product to initial market sales. Precise definitions of the start and end point vary from one company to another, and may vary from one project to another within a company. (See Chapter 24 of The PDMA HandBook)
Sponsor
An informal role in a product development project, usually performed by a higher-ranking person in the firm who is not directly involved in the project, but who is ready to extend a helping hand if needed, or provide a barrier to interference by others.
