Creative Product Design – A Practical Guide to Requirements Capture Management

Achieving commercial success through innovation is highly desirable, but difficult to achieve in practice. 50% of product development costs are likely to result in a failed product and in some sectors, such as FMCGs, this figure is more like 75%.

What is the problem?

Typically, out of nine month′s product development cycle, only two weeks are devoted to the generation of ideas and creative design – the "front end". This is the missing link – insufficient idea generation and creativity management, or the pre–development phase, can lead to the failure of the product.

So, what can you do to avoid product failure?

Requirements Capture is the "front end". It is the processs by which the needs, preferences and requirements of individuals and groups significant to product development are researched and identified. Requirements cature defines:

∗ Customer, user and market requirements

∗ Design requirements

∗ Technical requirements

The requirements capture model constitutes three phases:

∗ Information gathering

∗ Information transformation

∗ Requirements generation

In this book, Margaret Bruce and Rachel Cooper present and explain requirements capture in a step–by–step, practical guide that will enable you to plan and implement the process successfully within your organisation. Whether you produce food products or technically complex products, this book will be an invaluable asset in assisting your product development process.