Insights & Strategy

Design Strategy

One of the biggest pains for product team managers is the timeline. You've got to move fast. While there are a number of methodologies out there to help the team hit milestones on time, it's not always easy to know which approach will work for your project. 
In this article, we’ll share an overview of these methodologies and the underlying principles they have in common, then share more best practices we use to accelerate product development with our clients.

Delve's experts in insights, strategy, design, and engineering can guide you through an end-to-end innovation process that delivers results.

Our Services Page: Product Design and Development (text only)

Click a link below to jump to a particular section: 
<ul><li><a href="#methodologies">Four Key Methodologies to Help You Go Fast</a></li><li><a href="#approach">Which Approach Is Right for You?</a></li><li><a href="#problems">Use These Approaches to Solve Specific Business&nbsp;Problems</a></li><li><a href="#principles">Three Core Principles at the Heart of Enabling Speed</a></li><li><a href="#other">Other Principles and Behaviors That Help&nbsp;Teams Go Fast</a></li><li><a href="#slow">To Go Fast, First Go Slow</a></li></ul>

2024 02 16 Speeding Up Product Development INLINE1

<h2 id="methodologies">Four Key Methodologies to Help You Go Fast </h2>
There are many methodologies and tools out there to help product development go faster, but trying to get up to speed on all these tools and methodologies can be overwhelming. How are you supposed to move faster if you need to spend days and months reading and evaluating methods?
Good news:&nbsp;If you were somehow able to read through the thousands of books available on the many different approaches to innovation, product development, and problem solving, you would find that four key methodologies are most commonly used and discussed. Here’s an overview of what you need to know:

It doesn't matter how innovative your new product is if your competitors beat you to market.

Don't Miss: How to Get Your Product to Market Faster

<ul><li>Agile Development. Agile is an umbrella term that refers to an iterative approach that breaks development down into one- to two-week sprints. Its goal is to help projects be more customer- and people-centric. The approach originates from software development and that's typically where it's used, but it's also used in many other applications and industries. </li><li>Lean Startup. Lean Startup is an approach to product development and commercialization that draws inspiration from the scientific method, Lean Manufacturing, and Agile Development. The approach aims to be as quick and as efficient as possible by going through what's called build/measure/learn loops. It became really popular via the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898" target="_blank">book by Eric Ries. </a> </li><li>Design Thinking. Design Thinking is often used in product development, but it's also used for innovation and problem solving. It’s human centered and also takes an iterative approach to problem solving. </li><li>Design Sprints. Popularized by Google, this five-day, highly structured process guides stakeholders and teams through design prototyping and testing ideas with users. Sprints are like bite-sized pieces of Design Thinking–an iterative approach to innovation that relies heavily on prototypes to test ideas and learn.</li></ul>
For descriptions and links to some good resources for more information, download our Going Fast&nbsp;Resources below.

Download: "Design Minds on Going Fast" Resources

Perhaps now you’re thinking, “But I’m not a startup.” “I work in manufacturing, not pixels”. “My industry is too regulated.” “Legal will never let me.” We hear this a lot. But even if you're not a start-up, you probably don’t have unlimited resources. And even if you don't make digital products, you can still use these approaches in other types of product and service development. 
Here are&nbsp;some highly regulated industries and relatively conservative organizations where these approaches are being used to help teams go faster: 
<ul><li><a href="https://leanstartup.co/resources/articles/how-lean-startup-is-changing-high-school-education/" target="_blank">School districts</a> all around the country are using Design Thinking and Lean Startup approaches in education to improve student outcomes. </li><li><a href="https://www.fbi.gov/" target="_blank">The FBI</a> is using the Agile approach for a major initiative to help them empower teams that are on the field and solve cases faster. </li><li><a href="https://www.fda.gov/" target="_blank">The FDA</a> is incorporating Lean principles to speed up their approvals. They realize that if they don't start going faster a lot of these breakthroughs won't make it to patients and providers, so they’re trying something different. </li><li><a href="https://www.ge.com/" target="_blank">General Electric</a>, a huge corporation, has been using Lean Startup for a few years now as part of their Fast Works program. </li></ul>
If these organizations can use these approaches to achieve innovative outcomes, chances are, your company can benefit by putting them into practice as well.

2024 02 16 Speeding Up Product Development INLINE2

<h2 id="approach">Which Approach Is Right for You?</h2>
The truth is, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. There are many ways to get to an end point and many ways to go faster.
Let's talk about how to find the right approach for you.
<ol><li>Look inside. Think about how much faster you want to go. Why do you want to go much faster? How closely do different approaches mirror what you're already doing? If you already have more of a Waterfall approach, there might be one approach that's a little bit closer to what you're doing versus switching to something like a Google Design Sprint to go faster. </li><li>Think about what the challenge is. What question are you trying to answer? Where are you in the NPD process? There are different starting points or better starting points for these different methodologies. It's important to start in the right place otherwise you won’t actually be able to go any faster.</li></ol>
As an example of how this might work, consider a particular&nbsp;problem.&nbsp;Let's say you need to lose 20 pounds by May.&nbsp;Each of these four approaches would have a different way of getting you there—and each can be successful.

<ul><li>Agile. If you were going to use Agile, you might ask yourself, “How many weeks do I have? How many pounds could I lose in a week?” Then, based on the math and thinking about what's possible to do in each week, you would put together a plan and you would reach your goal of 20 pounds by May. </li><li>Lean Startup. Because Lean Startup is a highly iterative and testing-driven approach, you might try eating what you normally would eat and running five miles today. You might learn that it doesn’t work because, you discover,&nbsp;you can’t run five miles. So next, you might&nbsp;try to running&nbsp;two miles and eating a little bit less. </li><li>Design Thinking. A Design Thinking approach to this problem would be to think about why you need to lose weight and how you got to this point in the first place. You would pick apart the problem and reframe what you’re trying to solve. After doing that you might discover that the real problem is that you’re bored or maybe there's something else going on, and that insight would drive your solution. </li><li>Design Sprints. Design Sprints take a five-day approach with few very specific activities on each of those days. You might say, “I think if I change my lunch routine that would help me the most,” but first you would check in with others to see what they have to say before you try that. Testing the idea with experts is a key&nbsp;part of this approach. </li></ul>

2024 02 16 Speeding Up Product Development INLINE3

<h2 id="problems">Use&nbsp;These&nbsp;Approaches to Solve Specific Business&nbsp;Problems</h2>
Keeping in mind that each approach has its place, let’s think about three of these methodologies in the context of a large (hypothetical)&nbsp;corporation we'll call Mega Cola.&nbsp; Here are how three employees at Mega Cola might use these methodologies to&nbsp;approach specific business problems. 
<ul><li>McClain uses Lean Startup to verify whether a new product is well-received by target customers. McClain’s R&D team at Mega Cola has been working on a great idea for the next big energy drink aimed at college students pulling all-nighters. McClain thinks the drink is going to be a big hit with this target customer. To confirm this, he designs an experiment. The R&D team makes some samples, and a few team members take them out to accounts to see what they think. After a few experiments, the team learns that students don't seem to&nbsp;like this new drink. So, they pivot to focus instead on early risers who could use the extra energy kick. This is&nbsp;how McClain would use a Lean Startup approach for one of his problem-solving issues at Mega Cola.</li></ul>
<ul><li>Jane uses Design Thinking to discover new opportunity areas. Jane also works at Mega Cola. She's looking for the next big thing in beverages. She decides to use Design Thinking to understand how people consume beverages. She discovers that for customers,&nbsp;beverages are about more than hydration—they are really about socialization. Based&nbsp;on this insight, she reframes the problem.&nbsp;By going through the Design Thinking process, Jane discovers five different opportunity areas. She now has several new prototype concepts that she can put on her product roadmap. Two of those she can put into development right away. </li><li>Elaine uses Design Sprints to arrive at an answer on a tight deadline. Elaine also works at Mega Cola, and she has been working on developing a new coffee for the last few months. Her team is almost ready for the final steps but they're not sure about the packaging, and they're starting to run out of time. Because Design Sprints is a five-day approach, it seems like a good fit for tackling her team's specific problem. So, Elaine’s team goes through a few rounds of Design Sprint to prototype some options. They test some assumptions before making a final decision about packaging. In just a few weeks, they are&nbsp;able to come to a conclusion and a solution. </li></ul>

2024 02 16 Speeding Up Product Development INLINE4

<h2 id="principles">Three Core Principles at the Heart of Enabling Speed</h2>
If you dig into each of these four methodologies, you’ll find they have a few core principles in common. 
These principles are at the heart of enabling speed. We can all build on these central ideas to go faster. 
<h3>1. Break down problems into smaller pieces </h3>
Instead of trying to bite off everything at once all four&nbsp;methodologies tackle problems in bits, but in different ways. Breaking things down can make things more manageable overall (think, Agile), but it also allows for a better understanding of what a “problem” is (in the case of Design Thinking, especially) or it allows red flags to be seen and addressed sooner than later (Lean Startup, Design Sprints). 
<ul><li>Agile is a very “timebox” process that organizes work into sprints. It breaks down the time available and makes you think carefully about what's achievable in those weeks. </li><li>Lean Startup also breaks things down. It breaks down the vision, then tests it with a Minimum Viable Product. Rather than building the whole product to see if it works, you build the MVP to test different assumptions and hypotheses. </li><li>Design Thinking also breaks down problems into discrete pieces&nbsp;by looking through the lenses of desirability feasibility and viability.&nbsp; </li><li>Design Sprints gets really targeted with what it's trying to solve for. In a design sprint, you spend the first couple of days making sure that you can focus on one customer, one event, and the overall experience, rather than trying to solve for everything. </li></ul>
<h3>2. Keep focus on the end-user </h3>
Whether it be a focus on a “customer” or a “human,” the end-user is at the heart of the process and decisions for all four methodologies. 
<ul><li>Agile. The first principle of the "Agile Manifesto"&nbsp;states that the highest priority is to satisfy the customer. The Agile approach really values customer collaboration as part of the workflow. </li><li>Lean Startup really encourages you to get out of the building and talk to customers firsthand. You don't just sit at your desk; you get out in the world and start validating your ideas with customers&nbsp;as quickly as possible. </li><li>Design Thinking is a deeply empathetic, human-centered approach to product development. Beyond being user-centered or customer-centric, it encourages thinking of people as humans. </li><li>Design Sprints is a user-centered approach that ends with customer interviews on the final day. Everything leads up to that particular moment.</li></ul>
<h3>3. Lead with diverse and empowered teams </h3>
Going faster means having the right people in the room and empowering them to make decisions. While all four methodologies&nbsp;do this, Google’s Design Sprint methodology puts this front and center. 
<ul><li>Agile&nbsp;puts different business people and developers on a team&nbsp;to work together. This&nbsp;is&nbsp;the the heart of how the team is built. </li><li>Lean Startup also focuses on having different capabilities and activities built into the team to make sure that the work can get done. Typically, this means&nbsp;engineers, designers, and the visionary or the founder.</li><li>Design Thinking also pushes for multidisciplinary teams to enable quick and efficient problem solving. It focuses using design methods&nbsp;help bring ideas to life and to think through problems a little bit differently.</li><li>Design Sprints is the most specific about what a team should look like. It prescribes a seven-person team built on different types of&nbsp;expertise and specifically calls out that one of the people in the room working on a design sprint should be a decider so that a decision can be made by the end of the sprint week. </li></ul>

2024 02 16 Speeding Up Product Development INLINE5

<h2 id="other">Other Principles and Behaviors That Help Teams Go Fast</h2>
Here are a few more principles and behaviors that help teams go fast:
<h3>1. Use communication as a driving force</h3>
Kim Erwin, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Communicating-New-Methods-Accelerate-Innovation/dp/1118394178" target="_blank">Communicating the New</a>, says that creating the new and communicating the new are inseparable. We can’t create new things, experiences and products unless we make the effort to communicate what they are to the right people. Think of good communication as the WD-40 of new product development. In the fuzzy front end of new product development, it’s important to&nbsp;consistently share information across the organization—otherwise you can't advance ideas, get buy-in, and continue on to the next step.

An important element of communicating the new is when you do it. Start the conversation early to hit the ground running. If you know you want your new product in the market at a certain time, start talking with your legal team months in advance. Keep the conversation going while the project is in the works to achieve and keep momentum. 
After a project gets underway, it's easy to lose perspective about how important it is to keep all your stakeholders and sponsors included. Plan ahead to avoid this. Schedule regular project updates and milestone meetings.
Communicating the new effectively also requires that you communicate differently. Think beyond PowerPoint presentations and Teams calls. You want to be sure that the message sticks, and that stakeholders are rallied around the conceptual center of your efforts, so consider creating immersive, memorable, and decision-driving experiences. Create big visuals. Get people up and walking around so they can be immersed in all the information and insights you have gathered. Don’t be afraid to use Post-Its and markers, make mistakes, and document visually along the way.

<h3>2. Have a Design mindset</h3>
Design (with a capital D) can mean so many things, but there are two parts of a Design mindset that help teams go fast: 
<ol><li>Deep human understanding.&nbsp;Someone once said, “Want your users to fall in love with your product? Fall in love with your users.” Falling in love with the user also enables you to develop products they love faster. The more you think of the user not just as a problem or as a solution for that problem, but as a person you need to understand, the more room you will have to pivot and to pivot quickly. Invest in empathy and check in with your customers early and often. If you understand why your users do what they do, you will have a lot more to work with if something comes up that you need to change--and you’ll be able to make decisions faster. </li><li>Pushing design beyond “minimal” or “functional.”&nbsp;Another part of having a Design mindset is not taking the term MVP too literally. MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product and it's the heart of the Lean Startup approach. But you can take the term too literally by interpreting what your MVP needs to be as strictly functional. Not over-building can be a way to go fast,&nbsp;but it can also limit you. </li></ol>

A Minimum Viable Product approach to product development can speed things along—if you know what you need to learn.

Don't Miss: The Core Principles for Creating an MVP

Today’s customers have very high expectations for the products and services they experience. Building beyond pure function and moving up the pyramid to more emotional design is something you can do without over-building, and it makes your customer's experience more meaningful. Design and usability are correlated, and a well-designed experience is more likely to be accepted faster.
<h3>3. Be disciplined but forgiving.</h3>
This is also twofold:
<ul><li>Realize that if you try a new method for your next project, you probably won’t get it right the first time. When trying these new methodologies and tools, it’s easy to be over-ambitious and bite off a little bit more than you can chew. Don’t try a new methodology for the first time with your biggest or most important initiative. Instead, try it with a small project. Expect a learning curve and for the outcome to be a bit rough. Then use the approach again, on another small project. And again. The more you do this, the faster you will be able to move on to apply the methodology to your bigger and more important projects. </li><li>Avoid getting bogged down by the specifics of a given process. As you learn the ins and outs of these methodologies and their associated tools, it will be easy to fixate on what exactly an MVP is, or what design is, or what you want to call an experiment. Having a shared language is critically important, but try not to get so bogged down in the vocabulary that it slows you down. Find a balance. With that said, sometimes you will want to take a step back and think about what some of these words mean for a particular context. For example, what do you mean by going faster? In some instances, going faster might mean going faster by one day. In other instances, it might mean weeks, months, or years. It’s important for your team to define your&nbsp;terms and come to a shared understanding of what they&nbsp;mean, but then be willing to come back to them and redefine them as projects and processes start to take shape.</li></ul>
<h2 id="slow">To Go Fast, First Go Slow</h2>
The last point leads to one of the most important things to keep in mind: There is not a one-size-fits all approach. Every organization and every project requires rigorous pre-work to think about which approach make sense for that particular context--and the answer is probably more than one. This means you should think not just about which approach is right for the problem or the project but also which approach is the best fit for your organization, the decision makers, and the team that will work on the project. Then, be prepared for that approach to take some practice before it truly enables you to go faster. 
Be willing to take a step back occasionally to think about why you want to go fast and what makes sense for your organization. This will ensure that as you move fast, you’re headed in the right direction.
As much as this post is about going fast and all the ways you can get there, it’s also about realizing that sometimes you need to “go slow to go fast.” In the end, slowing down a bit empowers us to go faster.
This article was originally created as a presentation&nbsp;by&nbsp;Amy Lee.

Our experts in insights, strategy, design, and engineering guide you through an end-to-end innovation process that delivers results.

Services Page: Product Design and Development at Delve (Our Services)

Learn more about&nbsp;<a href="https://www.delve.com/services" target="_blank">Product Development & Design Services at Delve.</a>

SEO Text: Our Services

Newsletter Signup: Product Innovation (icon visual)

2024 02 16 Speeding Up Product Development HERO

There are several methodologies available to speed up the development process. Which best fits your needs?

Contact Us | General (Let's build something together)

Startups

Industrial / Commercial Products

Consumer Products

Home

Insights

Speeding Up Product Development

Breadcrumbs

A full-service product design and strategic innovation consultancy.

Delve

There are several methodologies available to speed up the development process. Which best fits your needs?

description

generator

kSwNn6qD4B-4HloWnWMUBWQNpBx2_mPi3nMqgsh6ato

google-site-verification

speed, available, development, methodologies, process, best, fits, needs

keywords

https://cms.delve.com/assets/images/_1200x630_crop_center-center_82_none/2024-02-16-Speeding-Up-Product-Development_HERO.jpg?mtime=1707337634

https://linkedin.com/company/delvedesign/

https://www.delve.com/insights/speeding-up-product-development-4-essential-approaches

referrer

robots

twitter:card

twitter:creator

twitter:description

https://cms.delve.com/assets/images/_800x418_crop_center-center_82_none/2024-02-16-Speeding-Up-Product-Development_HERO.jpg?mtime=1707337634

twitter:image

twitter:image:alt

twitter:image:height

twitter:image:width

twitter:site

twitter:title

{"title":{"title":"Speeding Up Product Development | Delve"}}

Be More Innovative

Privacy Policy

FCOI Policy

Services

Case Studies

Testimonials

What We Do

About Us

Our People

Join Our Team

Careers

Newsroom

Who We Are

Boston

Madison

Philadelphia

San Francisco

Our Studios

Partner with Delve

Contact Us

Contact

Vamsee Pamula, Founder &amp; President, Baebies

Read informative articles from Delve's team of experts. Discover innovative strategies and insights about product design, engineering, and development.

Delve Insights: Product Innovation & Development Blog

innovation, product, design, advice, development

https://cms.delve.com/assets/images/_1200x630_crop_center-center_82_none/Delve_titlecard.png?mtime=1654035558

https://cms.delve.com/assets/images/_800x418_crop_center-center_82_none/Delve_titlecard.png?mtime=1654035558

Speeding Up Product Development

Speeding Up Product Development

Related Insights