The creation of a brand-new product involves a plethora of people and processes. The lack of clear communication between all the many people and resources involved in a production usually results in setbacks like extra time and money needed to complete a task, or worse. With well-defined and attainable objectives, everyone in charge of a given step in the process may plan accordingly in terms of time, resources, and cost. Setting and reviewing objectives keeps the product development process on course.

Analyze How You’re Doing Right Now
The process through which your organization creates new products should be documented before any new strategic objectives and goals are initiated. You need to be able to keep the parts that are operating while reducing the dangers posed by the less reliable ones. Review old projects carefully to figure out who contributed the most to progress and where you ran into roadblocks. Before setting new objectives for your teams, it’s important to reflect on their previous performance in terms of delivery timeframes and product successes.

Work Backwards
Identify the end result you wish to achieve, which could be customer delivery. Timeliness is a hallmark of well-defined objectives. Establish a definite, workable deadline. Make schedules that work with that delivery date, and then examine the phase before that one, which could be packaging or testing the product. Establish deadlines for each stage of development until you reach the first stage, which may be the goal-setting process you’ve just begun.

Gather The Key Players
Setting goals without any outside input is a bad idea. Goals can’t be realistic without feedback from all managers and developers involved in the project. Set a deadline for yourself as you establish your priorities and schedule milestones. Organize meetings, distribute memoranda, and solicit suggestions from high ups in other divisions. Plan to return to this step multiple times during development to evaluate progress. Make sure to check in with project managers every six months to get their thoughts on how things are doing so far and whether any changes need to be made.

Establish Goals
To ensure that everyone is on the same page, it’s important to lay out your expectations for the duration of each time frame. Include a detailed budget and an explanation of what is expected from each division in addition to the deadline. For instance, you might hand off the project to designers once you’ve established its primary purpose. Their objectives may include defining the ideal buyer, the reason for the new product, and the expected selling price. The project’s overall time goals should be communicated to each division so that they can better understand their role within the overall plan. Managers need checklists to ensure their teams are on track to achieve their objectives.

Product Goals are tangible outcomes that align with the product vision and are measurable, achievable, and action-oriented. Learn how we can help.