Qualitative Market Research: Consumer research conducted with a very small number of consumers, either in groups or individually. Results are not representative of consumers in general or projectable. Frequently used to gather initial consumer needs and obtain initial reactions to ideas and concepts.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD): A structured method employing matrix analysis for linking what the market requires to how it will be accomplished in the development effort. This method is most valuable during the stage of development when a multifunctional team agrees on how customer needs relate to product specifications and features which deliver those By explicitly linking these aspects of product design, QFD limits the chance of omitting important design characteristics or interactions across design characteristics. QFD is also an important mechanism in promoting multifunctional teamwork.

Quantitative Market Research: Consumer research, often surveys, conducted with a large enough sample of consumers to produce statistically reliable results which can be used to project outcomes to the general consumer population. Used to determine importance levels of different customer needs, performance ratings of and satisfaction with current products, probability of trial, repurchase rate, and product preferences. These techniques are used to reduce the uncertainty associated with many other aspects associated with product development.

Rapid Prototyping: Any of a variety of processes which avoids tooling time in producing prototypes or prototype parts and therefore allows (generally non-functioning) prototypes to be produced within hours or days rather than weeks. These prototypes are frequently used to test quickly the product product's technical feasibility or consumer interest.

Reposition: To change the product positioning, either on failure of the original positioning or to react to changes in the marketplace. Most frequently accomplished solely through changing the marketing mix.

Resource Matrix: An array that shows the percentage of each non-managerial person's time that is to be devoted to each of the current projects in the firm's portfolio.

Resource Plan: Detailed summary of all forms of resources required to complete product development, including personnel, equipment, time and finances.
Return on Ideas: Reflects the potential value of an idea.

Return on Investment (ROI): A standard measure of project profitability, this is the discounted profits over the life of the project expressed as a percentage of initial investment.

Services: Products, such as an airline flight or insurance policy, that are intangible or at least substantially so. If totally intangible, they are exchanged directly from producer to user, cannot be transported or stored and are instantly perishable. Service delivery usually involves customer participation in some important way, cannot be sold in the sense of ownership transfer, and have no title.

Short-term Success: The new product's performance shortly after launch, well within the first year of commercial sales.

Specification: A detailed description of the features and performance characteristics of a product. For example, a laptop computer's specification may read as a 90 megahertz Pentium, with 16 megabytes of ram and 720 megabytes of hard disk space, 3.5 hours of battery life, weighing 4.5 pounds, with an active matrix 256 color screen.

Stage: One group of concurrently accomplished tasks, with specified outcomes and deliverables, of the overall product development process.

Stage-Gate Process: A widely employed product development process form managing product development that divides the effort into distinct time-sequenced stages separated by management decision gates. Multifunctional teams must successfully complete a prescribed set of related cross-functional tasks in each stage prior to obtaining management approval to proceed to the next stage of product development. The framework of the stage-gate process includes workflow and decision-flow paths and defines the supporting systems and practices necessary to ensure the process's ongoing smooth operation.

Strategic Balance: Balancing the portfolio of development projects along many dimensions such as focus versus diversification, short versus long term, high versus low risk, extending platforms versus development of new platforms.

Sponsor: An informal role in the product development project, usually a higher-ranking person in the firm who is not personally involved in the project (compared to the champion) but ready to extend a helping hand if needed, or provide a barrier to interference by others.

Subassembly: A collection of components that can be put together as a single assembly to be inserted into a larger assembly or final product. Often the subassembly is tested for its ability to meet some set of explicit specifications before inclusion in the larger product.

Support Service: Any organizational function whose primary purpose is not product development, but whose input is necessary to the successful completion of product development projects.

Systems and Practices: Established methods, procedures and activities that either drive or hinder product development. These may relate to the firm's day-to-day business or may be specific to product development.
Systems and Practices Team: Senior managers representing all functions who work together to identify and change those systems and practices hindering product development and who establish new tools, systems and practices for improving product development.

Task: The smallest describable unit of accomplishment in completing a deliverable.
Target Market: The group of consumers or potential customers selected for marketing. A market segment of consumers.

Team: That group of persons who participate or manage the participation in the product development project. Frequently each team member represents a function, department, or specialty, and together they provide the full set of capabilities needed to complete the project, in which case they are referred to as a multifunctional team.

Team leader The person leading the new product team. Responsible for ensuring that milestones and deliverables are achieved, but may not have any authority over project participants.

Technology-Driven: A new product or new product strategy based on the strength of a technical capability. Sometimes called "solutions in search of problems."

Test Markets: The launching of a new product into one or more limited geographic regions in a very controlled manner, and measuring consumer response to the product and its launch. When multiple geographies are used in the test, different advertising or pricing policies may be tested and the results compared.

Time to Market: The length of time it takes to develop a new product from an early initial idea for a new product to initial market sales. Precise definitions of the start and end point vary from one company to another, and may vary from one project to another within the company.

Tone: The feeling, emotion, or attitude most associated with using a product. The appropriate tone is important to include in consumer new product concepts and advertising.

Total Quality Management (TQM): A business improvement philosophy which comprehensively and continuously involves all of an organization's functions in improvement activities.

User: Any person who uses a product or service to solve a problem or obtain a benefit, whether or not they purchase it. Users may consume a product, as in the case of a person using shampoo to clean their hair or eating a potato chip to assuage hunger between meals. Users may not directly consume a product, but may interact with it over a longer period of time, like a family owning a car, with multiple family members using it for many purposes over a number of years. Products also are employed in the production of other products or services, where the users may be the manufacturing personnel who operate the equipment.

Utilities: The weights derived from conjoint analysis that measure how much a product feature contributes to purchase interest or preference.

Value-added: The act or process by which tangible product features or intangible service attributes are bundled, combined or packaged with other features and attributes to create a competitive advantage, reposition a product or increase sales.

Voice of the Customer (VOC): A process for eliciting needs from consumers which uses structured in-depth interviews to lead interviewees through a series of situations in which they have experienced and found solutions to the set of problems being investigated. Needs are obtained through indirect questioning by coming to understand how the consumers found ways to meet their needs, and more importantly, why they chose the particular solutions they found.