Data: Measurements taken at the source of a business process.

Database: An electronic gathering of information organized in some way to make it easy to search, uncover and manipulate.

Decline Stage:  The fourth and last stage of the product life cycle. Entry into this stage is generally caused by technology advancements, consumer or user preference changes, global competitive on environmental or regulatory changes.

Deliverable: The completed end result or outcome of a series of tasks.

Delphi Processes: A technique, which uses iterative rounds of consensus development across a group of experts to arrive at the most probable outcome for some future state.

Discounted Cash Flow Analysis: One method for providing an estimate of the current value of future incomes and expenses projected for a project.

Discrete Choice Experiment: A quantitative market research tool used to model and predict customer-buying decisions.

Distribution: The method and partners used to get the product (or service) from where it is produced to where the end user can buy it.

Divergent Thinking: Technique performed early in the initial phase of idea generation which expands thinking processes to record and recall a high volume of new or interesting ideas.

Early Adopters: For new products, these are customers who, relying on their own intuition and vision, buy into new product concepts very early in the life cycle. For new processes, these are organizational entities which were willing to try out new processes rather than just maintaining the old.

Enhanced Product: A form of derivative product. Enhanced products include additional features not previously found on the base platform that provide increased value to consumers.

Event: Marks the point in time when a task is completed.

Event Map: A chart showing important events in the future which is used to map out potential responses to probable or certain future events.

Extrusion: A manufacturing process that utilizes a softened billet of material which is forced through a shape (or die) to allow for a continuous form much like spaghetti.
Factory Cost: The cost of producing the product in the production location including materials, labor and overhead.

Failure Rate: The percentage of a firm's new products which make it to full market commercialization, but which fail to achieve the objectives set for them.

Feature: The solution to a consumer need or problem. Features are the way benefits are provided to consumers. The handle feature allows a laptop computer to be carried easily. Usually any one of several different features may be chosen to meet a customer need. For example, a carrying case with shoulder straps is another feature which allows a laptop computer to be carried easily.

Field Testing:  Product use testing with users from the target market.
Financial Success: The extent to which a new product meets its profit, margin, and return on investment goals.

First-to-Market: The first product that creates a new product category or a substantial subdivision of a category.

Focus Groups: A qualitative market research technique where 8 to 12 market participants are gathered in one room for a discussion under the leadership of a trained moderator. Discussion focuses on a consumer problem, product or potential solution to a problem. The results of these discussions are not projectable to the general market.

Functional Elements: The individual operations that a product performs. These elements are often used to describe a product schematically.

Functional Schematic: A schematic drawing that is made up of all of the functional elements in a product. It shows the product's functions as well as how material, energy and signal flows through the product.

Functional Testing: Testing either an element of or the complete product to determine whether it will function as planned and as actually used when sold.
Gantt Chart: A horizontal bar chart used in project scheduling that shows the start date, end date and duration of tasks within the project. Sometimes used in conjunction with a network diagram.

Gap Analysis: The difference between projected outcomes and desired outcomes. In product development, the gap is frequently measured as the difference between expected and desired revenues or profits from currently-planned new products if the corporation is to meet its objectives.

Gate: The decision point, often a meeting, at which a management decision is made to allow the product development project to proceed to the next stage, to recycle back into the current stage to better complete some of the tasks, or to terminate. The number of gates varies by company.

Gatekeepers: The group of managers who serve as advisors, decision-makers and resource allocators in a stage-gate process. They use established criteria to review product development projects at each gate. This multifunctional group is generally most visible at these gate meetings.

Growth Stage: The second stage of the product life cycle. This stage is marked by a rapid surge in sales, market acceptance and overall opportunity for the good or service.

Hurdle Rate: The minimum return on investment or internal rate of return percentage a new product must meet or exceed as it goes through development.

Idea Generation: All of those activities and processes that lead to creating new product or service ideas that may warrant development.

Implementation Team: A team, which converts the concepts and good intentions of the "should-be" process into practical reality.

Incremental Improvement: A small change made to an existing product that serves to keep the product fresh in the eyes of customers.

Information: Knowledge and insight, often gained by examining data.
Initial Screening: The first decision to spend resources (time or money) on a project. The project is born at this point. Sometimes called "idea screening."

Injection Molding: A process that utilizes melted plastics injected into steel or aluminum molds which ultimately result in finished production parts.

Innovation: A new idea, method or device. The act of creating a new product or process. The act includes invention as well as the work required to bring an idea or concept into final form.

Innovation Engine: The creative activity and people that actually think of new ideas. It represents the synthesis phase when someone first recognizes that customer and market opportunities can be translated into new product ideas.

Innovative Problem Solving: Methods that combine rigorous problem definition, pattern-breaking generation of ideas, and action planning which results in new, unique, and unexpected solutions.

Introduction Stage: The first stage of a product's commercial launch and the product life cycle. This stage is generally seen as the point of market entry, user trial, and product adoption.

Launch: The process by which a new product is introduced into the market for initial sale.

Lead Users: Users for whom finding a solution to one of their consumer needs is so important that they have modified a current product or invented a new product to solve the need themselves because they have not found a supplier who can solve it for them. When these consumers' needs are portents of needs that the center of the market will have in the future, their solutions are new product opportunities.

Line Extension:  A form of derivative product that adds or modifies features without significantly changing the price.

Long-term Success: The new product's performance in the long run or at some large fraction of the product's life cycle.