Effective project evaluation is critical to successful new product programs and the importance of evaluation gates during the NPD process has been widely recognized. However, many firms still fail in their NPD projects by suffering from inaccurate and/or inappropriate criteria deployment. This study examines the relation between perceived importance and actual implement of evaluation gates for NPD performance, and also investigates what are the most frequently used and appropriate evaluation criteria at
development gates throughout the NPD process under different new product strategies. Based on a survey of 87 successful new product projects, the results show that there exists significant difference between the perceived importance and actual implement in the lowperformance group. More importantly, the aggregated results across new product strategies indicate that some evaluation categories are mainly applied in approving particular stage,
whereas some others are used notably high in approving every stage. Specifically, market criteria are frequently used in pre commercialization testing, and post-launch review gates. Financial criteria frequently appear in decision on business case and post-launch review gates. Technical criteria noticeably figure in the product testing and pre commercialization testing gates. Time criteria emerge only in the pre-commercialization testing gate. Opportunity criteria have no position in the ranked list. Finally, we conclude with theoretical contributions and managerial implications.
Relation:
European Journal of Social Sciences 22(2), pp.165-171