The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development

13.5. Choosing the Right Technique

Armed with this range of techniques, a new product development team should select the most suitable research tools for their situation. The tools selected should reflect the level of understanding of the market the team currently has and the stage of development for the value proposition. Figure 13.4 depicts the best application of these tools based on the current market understanding.

Figure 13-4. BEST PRACTICE APPLICATIONS OF MARKET RESEARCH TOOLS.

Figure 13.5 shows a typical application sequence of these market research tools. At the onset of a development effort, a team might choose to conduct an early broad survey as a means to first characterize the market and its needs. For some of the emerging areas, this might be coupled with an ethnographic study to better understand user behavior and unmet needs. Following this early exploration, a series of focus groups might be arranged to seek input on specific issue areas uncovered in the first round of research. The team then uses this information to form a series of new product concepts. The concepts then need to be tested using varying levels of survey research, potentially extending into a designed survey instrument that can be analyzed statistically. Finally, with a sound product concept in hand, the team will often choose to conduct in-market research with the nearly mature product or service. ...