In product development, a consumer need is a problem that the consumer would like to have solved. It is also what consumers would like a product to do for them.

NPD Jargon Buster: Consumer Need

The consumer market is the market for goods and services purchased by individuals and households rather than businesses.

NPD Jargon Buster: Consumer Market

In the context of product development, a consumer is defined as the most generic and all-encompassing term for a firm's targets.

NPD Jargon Buster: Consumer

Conjoint analysis is a market research technique in which respondents are systematically presented with a rotating set of product descriptions.

NPD Jargon Buster: Conjoint Analysis

Concurrent Engineering (CE) is a methodology used in product development that emphasizes concurrent development of the product and manufacturing process.

NPD Jargon Buster: Concurrent Engineering (CE)

Concept screening evaluates potential new product concepts during the discovery phase of a product development project.

NPD Jargon Buster: Concept Screening

Concept generation generates new ideas or concepts for products or services; this can be done individually or in groups.

NPD Jargon Buster: Concept Generation

A product concept is a description of a new product idea that includes its primary features and consumer benefits.

NPD Jargon Buster: Concept

Competitive intelligence (CI) is a broad practice of collecting, analyzing, and communicating the best available information on competitive trends externally.

NPD Jargon Buster: Competitive Intelligence

Commercialisation is the process of taking a new product from development to market. I

NPD Jargon Buster: Commercialisation

Co-location refers to the physical act of locating project personnel in one area; this enables more rapid and frequent decision-making and communication among them.

NPD Jargon Buster: Co-location

Collaborative product development (CPD) is when two or more firms work together to create and bring a new product to market.

NPD Jargon Buster: Collaborative Product Development

The circular economy is an economic system that is restorative and regenerative by design.

NPD Jargon Buster: Circular Economy

A checklist can be used to help identify all of the necessary steps in the development process, and to ensure that each step is completed properly.

NPD Jargon Buster: Checklist

In product development, a charter is a document defining the context, specific details, and plans of a project.

NPD Jargon Buster: Charter

A champion is a person who takes a passionate interest in seeing that a particular process or product is fully developed and marketed.

NPD Jargon Buster: Champion

A Center of Excellence (CoE) is an organizational or geographic unit with an acknowledged technical, business, or competitive competency.

NPD Jargon Buster: Centres of Excellence

Cash cows are products with a high share of a market with low overall growth.

NPD Jargon Buster: Cash Cow

Carbon credits are a type of offset that can balance out emissions from businesses and other entities.

NPD Jargon Buster: Carbon Credits

Capacity planning is a technique used in product development to ensure that the right mix of resources is available to develop a product on time.

NPD Jargon Buster: Capacity Planning

Cannibalisation is the portion of the demand for a new product that comes from the erosion of the demand for (sales of) a current product the firm markets.

NPD Jargon Buster: Cannibalisation

A buyer is the person who purchases a product, whether or not they will be the ultimate user.

NPD Jargon Buster: Buyer

Business-to-business (B2B) can be characterized as a business model that involves one business entity selling products or services to another business entity.

NPD Jargon Buster: Business-to-Business (B2B)

A business case is the result of the market, technical, and financial analyses conducted during the product development process.

NPD Jargon Buster: Business Case

Business analysis is the process of reviewing the business situation surrounding a proposed project and developing a financial plan for the project.

NPD Jargon Buster: Business Analysis

Breakthrough projects are those that strive to bring a new product to the market with new technologies; and depart significantly from existing organizational practices.

NPD Jargon Buster: Breakthrough Projects (aka Radical or Disruptive)

The breakeven point is the point in the commercial life of a product when cumulative development costs are recovered through accrued profits from sales.

NPD Jargon Buster: Breakeven Point

A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that identifies a seller's product or service as distinct from those of other sellers.

NPD Jargon Buster: Brand

Brainstorming is a group method of creative problem-solving frequently used in product concept generation.

NPD Jargon Buster: Brainstorming

The bottom-up approach to portfolio selection starts with a list of individual projects and narrows it down through a process of evaluation and screening.

NPD Jargon Buster: Bottom-up Portfolio Selection

A bowling alley is a type of early stage business strategy that emphasizes focused growth in specific niche markets.

NPD Jargon Buster: Bowling Alley

The Bill of Materials is a critical tool in product development. Essentially, it is a list of all the subassemblies, intermediate parts, and raw materials that are needed

NPD Jargon Buster: Bill of Materials (BOM)

There's no magic formula for developing successful products, but there are certain best practices that tend to improve the odds.

NPD Jargon Buster: Best Practice

In product development, a benefit is an attribute expressed in what the user gets from the product rather than its physical characteristics or features.

NPD Jargon Buster: Benefit

If you want to develop a new product, you'll need to benchmark its performance against similar products. This process is known as benchmarking.

NPD Jargon Buster: Benchmarking

The Balanced Scorecard is a comprehensive performance measurement technique that balances four performance dimensions.

NPD Jargon Buster: Balanced Scorecard

A balanced portfolio is one where the proportion of product development projects in specific categories focuses on strategic priorities.

NPD Jargon Buster: Balanced Portfolio

The lead project is the one that's moving ahead in development, while the backup task is lagging (or working in sync) to provide an alternative asset should the lead proj

NPD Jargon Buster: Backup

Technical debt is the term used to describe the extra development work that is caused by taking shortcuts when building a product.

NPD Jargon Buster: Technical Debt

The waterfall product development process is a linear approach to development where each phase must be completed before moving on to the next.

NPD Jargon Buster: Waterfall Product Development

Time to market (TTM) is a measure of the elapsed time from when a product idea is conceived until when it is available for sale.

NPD Jargon Buster: Time to Market (TTM)

The Total Addressable Market (TAM) is the total amount of revenue that a company can generate by selling its products or services to its target market.

NPD Jargon Buster: Total Addressable Market (TAM)

The Triple Bottom Line is a product development philosophy that takes into account, not just the financial bottom line, but also the social and environmental impact.

NPD Jargon Buster: Triple Bottom Line

The Voice of the Customer, or VOC, is an important concept in product development. Simply put, it refers to the needs and wants of your target market.

NPD Jargon Buster: Voice Of The Customer (VOC)

Vanity metrics are those product development metrics that make us feel good but don't necessarily translate into real success.

NPD Jargon Buster: Vanity Metrics

Porter's Diamond Model is a framework for identifying the factors that contribute to the competitive advantage of a nation or region.

NPD Jargon Buster: Porter's Diamond Model

The Ansoff Matrix is a tool used by businesses to help them plan their product development.

NPD Jargon Buster: Ansoff Matrix

The Boston Matrix is a tool used by businesses to help them make decisions about product development.

NPD Jargon Buster: Boston Matrix

A user story is a description of a feature or requirement from the perspective of the person who wants it.

NPD Jargon Buster: User Story

A user persona is a fictional character that represents a specific type of user of a product or service.

NPD Jargon Buster: User Persona (or Avatar)

Acceptance testing is a process in product development whereby a prototype or product is heavy-duty and subjected to realistic environments and conditions.

NPD Jargon Buster: Acceptance Testing

An acceptance test specification (ATS) is a document that defines the criteria that a product must meet in order to be accepted by the customer.

NPD Jargon Buster: Acceptance Test Specification (ATS)

An acceptance test procedure (ATP) is a type of testing that is used to ensure that a product meets the specific requirements of the customer or client.

NPD Jargon Buster: Acceptance Test Procedure (ATP)

Awareness is a key metric in product development, as it helps to gauge how well a new product is being received by the target market.

NPD Jargon Buster: Awareness

An autonomous team is a product development team that is completely self-sufficient, with very little need for input or supervision from the funding organization.

NPD Jargon Buster: Autonomous Team

The augmented product is the core product, plus all other sources of product benefits, such as service, warranty, and image.

NPD Jargon Buster: Augmented Product

An audit of new product development is an appraisal of the effectiveness of the processes by which the new product was developed and brought to market.

NPD Jargon Buster: Audit

Attribute testing is a quantitative market research technique in which respondents are asked to rate a detailed list of product or category attributes

NPD Jargon Buster: Attribute Testing

In product development, an as-is map is a version of a process map that depicts how an existing process actually operates.

NPD Jargon Buster: As-Is-Map

Anticipatory Failure Determination (AFD) is a failure analysis method used in product development.

NPD Jargon Buster: Anticipatory Failure Determination (AFD)

"Analyser" is a term used in the business world to describe a company that follows an imitative innovation strategy.

NPD Jargon Buster: Analyser

The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a decision-making tool for product development and other complex multi-criteria problems where both qualitative and quantitative

NPD Jargon Buster: Analytical Hierarchy Process

A final stage of product testing in which the product is subjected to a series of extreme conditions (e.g., high temperatures or extremely heavy use) to ensure that it ca

NPD Jargon Buster: Gamma Testing

Testing of a product by customers under real-world conditions.

NPD Jargon Buster: Beta Testing

In product development, an alliance is a formal arrangement with a separate company for the purposes of shared risk and reward.

NPD Jargon Buster: Alliance

Agile product development is an iterative approach to product development that is performed in a collaborative environment by self-organizing teams.

NPD Jargon Buster: Agile Product Development

Affinity charting is a "bottom-up" technique for discovering connections between pieces of data.

NPD Jargon Buster: Affinity Charting

The adoption curve is the journey that consumers or a market take when adopting a new product or technology.

NPD Jargon Buster: Adoption Curve

Accidental discovery is a new design, idea, or development from unexpected insight; this can be obtained from within the organization or from an external source.

NPD Jargon Buster: Accidental Discovery

It helps you understand what people need from your product, and how you can design something that meets their needs.

NPD Jargon Buster: Use Case

Usability testing is a process in which potential users of a product are asked to use it in order to assess its strengths and weaknesses.

NPD Jargon Buster: Usability Testing

And it's even harder to keep their attention when they're bombarded with advertising from all sides. How can you make sure your product stands out?

NPD Jargon Buster: Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

TRIZ works by understanding the relationships between different elements in a problem and then using that knowledge to find solutions.

NPD Jargon Buster: TRIZ (The Theory of Inventive Problem-Solving)

The next and final document in this list is the Work Package (WP) and this is a document that essentially encompasses a set of project tasks.

NPD Jargon Buster: Work Package

A Quality Register is a document that is produced to record activities that relate to quality. It attempts to control quality and any changes to it.

NPD Jargon Buster: Quality Register

The next document is a Project Product Description, somewhat like the Product Description.

NPD Jargon Buster: Project Product Description

The next document is th Project Initiation Documentation or PID for short. This documentation is arguably the most important of any within the PRINCE2 project management

NPD Jargon Buster: Project Initiation Documentation (PID)

The Product Status Account breaks down the current product status, by communicating information such as test results, current cost status and varying factors.

NPD Jargon Buster: Product Status Account

The next document is the Product Description, and this is relatively self-explanatory. The outputs of the project may be a service, a product, or it could be both.

NPD Jargon Buster: Product Description

Even if you do your research and ask customers what they want, sometimes they can't articulate their real needs. They might not even be aware of them themselves.

NPD Jargon Buster: Unarticulated Customer Needs

MRLs are quantitative measures used to assess the maturity of a given technology, component or system from a manufacturing perspective.

What are Manufacturing Readiness Levels (MRLs)?

In order to make sound decisions about product development, it's important to have a way to adjust for the inherent risk in early-stage projects.

NPD Jargon Buster: Risk-Adjusted Net Present Value (ANPV)

NPV, or Net Present Value, is one of the most common measures of NPD programs and of the portfolio.

NPD Jargon Buster: Net Present Value (NPV)

Additive manufacturing offers an innovative solution that can help companies shorten their design cycles while still producing high-quality products.

NPD Jargon Buster: Additive Manufacturing

Activity-based costing (ABC) is an accounting method for assigning costs of production activities to products based on the consumption of those activities by the product.

NPD Jargon Buster: Activity-Based Costing (ABC)

Active listening is a great way to improve communication in a product development project.

NPD Jargon Buster: Active Listening

ARIZ is a tool for thinking in alternative directions to solve non-standard or complicated problems.

ARIZ: A Method of Problem-Solving by Redefining and Restructuring the Problem

Clients will ask the difference between chemistry and chemical engineering because on different occasions they mean different things to them.

What's The Difference Between Chemical Engineering Services and Chemistry Services?

Idea fixation can be explained as being too attached to one's own ideas.

NPD Jargon Buster: Idea Fixation

A PCB is a printed circuit board. It is a flat piece of plastic or metal with lines on it that are connected to electronic components.

NPD Jargon Buster: PCB Design

Without a structured quality management approach, you're leaving your project open to potential problems and delays down the road.

NPD Jargon Buster: Quality Management Approach

The approach identifies different project risks and helps to identify procedures related to those risks.

NPD Jargon Buster: Risk Management Approach

A risk register is an essential tool for managing risks in a product development project.

NPD Jargon Buster: Risk Register

You're considering a new product, but you're not sure if it's feasible. This article briefly explores what a feasibility study is, and how it differs from a case study.

When You Should Carry Out A New Product Feasibility Study vs Case Studies In Product Development Projects?

Developing a new product can be very risky and companies need to ensure that they have thoroughly considered all the implications and potential pitfalls before launching

New Product Feasibility Study vs Business Plan: What's The Difference In Context Of Developing Your New Product?

A feasibility study and a business case are two different documents that help companies make decisions.

New Product Feasibility Study vs Business Case: What's The Difference In Context Of Planning Your New Product Project?

When you’re starting a new business, it’s important to make sure your products are viable in the market. That’s where a feasibility study comes in.

New Product Feasibility Study vs Appraisal: What's The Difference In Context Of Making Sure Your New Product Is Viable?

Virtual reality is taking over the tech industry lately. With the ability to essentially “live” an alternate life, it’s really not surprising.

3D Simulation vs Virtual Reality

In this article, we will cover the general history of analytical chemistry, its subfields, applications, and the future of analytical chemistry.

What is analytical chemistry?

Capturing lessons learned is vital to successful project management, but it can be hard to do.

Jargon Buster

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