Search

Article Information


From Preliminary Ideas to Corroborated Product Definitions: Managing the Front End of New Product Development
Floren, Henrik , and Johan Frishammar
54/4  (Summer 2012): 20-43

Front-end activities largely influence the outcomes of new product development processes, because it is here that firms create new ideas, give them direction, and set theminmotion. We show that the front end can be understood as comprising three core activities: idea/concept development, idea/ concept alignment, and idea/concept legitimization, which allow firms to create corroborated product definitions. This article provides important implications for managers interested in frontend management. It devotes specific attention to the differences between incremental and radical front-end development and to the front end in the light of increasingly open innovation processes.

 

California Management Review

Berkeley-Haas's Premier Management Journal

Published at the University of California for more than sixty years, California Management Review seeks to share knowledge that challenges convention and shows a better way of doing business.

Learn more
Follow Us