What Kind of New Product Development Process Do You Need? An effective New Product Development process combines robustness and discipline without becoming bureaucratic. The process provides the roadmap for consistently translating innovative concepts into successfully released products.   Key Components of an Effective NPD Process Clearly defined phases with decision points (often called Phase Gates): Specificed deliverables at each stage  Knowledge management activites embedded within the development process   Management review and monitoring at predictable milestones Particular focus on the front end where management can have the greatest impact on project success, at the lowest cost Empowered, cross-functional teams Design for re-use to leverage core competencies and reduce risk Monitoring of released products, triggering revenue enhancing improvement initiatives and collecting real-time market data fed back to R&D   As the business grows, the NPD process is expanded to include:   Strategic Business Planning resulting in detailed market roadmaps covering a  3 – 5 year horizon Portfolio Management ensuring a balance of new product development projects aligned with business strategy. Portfolio goals typically reflect varying levels of risk/innovation, product maturity and market segmentation  Pipeline Management methods to ensure distribution of projects by phase is known and managed, thereby avoiding bottlenecks and famines