MarketTools Blog

This is the final of three blog posts following up on a recent webcast on Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Concept Testing, presented with my colleague Michael Conklin, covering:

• Trends in product innovation
• Why conduct concept tests
• Writing effective concepts
• Testing concepts in the real world
• Data quality and concept testing

In the Q&A following the webcast, many members of our audience shared some common questions like the one below.  (To read more of the top questions we received, read Part 1 and Part 2 in this blog series).

Q:  What should be the role of engineering and research and development in concept testing?

A:  As mentioned during the webcast – it is really important to test a range of ideas in your concept test.  Doing this helps overcome one of the common mistakes made when concept testing:  testing concepts that are too similar to each other.  Taking this approach also enables you to create a pipeline of ideas, some of which could be more easily commercialized today while others may be farther out in the future. 

Being able to test a range of concepts is really important, but you also need to ensure that you can deliver on what’s promised in the concept.  That is where cross-functional collaboration comes into play and where you can engage your colleagues in engineering and research and development.  In my opinion, having a cross-functional team work together to create a range of concepts is a critical success factor.  This allows the project team to better embrace the concept test results and to fully understand any technical challenges and/or capital investment that may be required by a particular concept.

Best of luck as you conduct your own concept testing and search for the next big idea!