ABSTRACT
Product development is a balancing act of competing, and sometimes contradictory, objectives. Over 10,000 new products are marketed in the US every year (Crawford 1994). For those which reach the market (i.e. not including those canceled prior to launch), roughly 30 to 40 percent fail-in fact, some cite figures as high as 80 percent. This failure rate has not changed much in the past 15 years. What is failure? Failure is not achieving success! Product success is typically defined as including one or more of the following: achieving the expected profit; achieving the expected market sales or share; meeting the required quality standards; delivering on the specified launch date; achieving user acceptance; meeting the requirements of the customer.
