7 Keys To Success When Developing Your Smart Product Design

Digital Product Strategy is the key to your success in designing smart products that customers want to buy, tapping the power of viable information sources to deliver data-driven insights, improving their everyday lives.

Stating your hypotheses is a critical first step in successful smart product design, using our systematic framework for moving beyond your assumptions about what customers want to buy, identifying what is really going on and how adding more information will solve and prevent the problems they are facing.

Identifying relevant Information Sources is crucial to testing your hypotheses about what’s going on and how to address the problems your customers are facing, delivering valuable new information through your smart, connected product.

Our Data Combinations template is a powerful method for systematically identifying which types of data you should pack into your smart product design, providing customers with maximum information value for understanding and tackling problems.

It’s not always easy to get the information you need, and savvy smart product design places a premium on incorporating feasible data while avoiding problematic information sources.

Our proprietary Data Strategy Matrix is an effective tool for determining which Information Sources you should include in your smart product design, helping you avoid costly mistakes down the road.

In the final DPS 102 module, we show you how to optimize your smart product design, including the right components and functions for creating and delivering the information value you’ve targeted in your Data Strategy Matrix.

Digital Product Strategy is the key to your success in designing smart products that customers want to buy, building powerful digital competitive advantages into your new product launch.

Supercharge your smart product concept by adopting an information-centric business definition, unpacking hidden money-making opportunities your competitors are overlooking.

The key to designing successful smart products is targeting Information Value Opportunities where customers will gladly pay for data helping them understand and address the problems they’re facing.

Our proprietary Information Value Feasibility Matrix takes your smart product design to the next level, helping you gauge how viable it will be to deliver the data your customers need, targeting the Information Value Opportunities you’ve identified in Module #3.

Our Information Value Competitor Matrix takes the next logical step by identifying which of the feasible Information Value Opportunities from Module #4 are more attractive for you to pursue, based on lower levels of competitive intensity.

In the final DPS 103 module, we show you how to position your smart product for maximum Digital Competitive Advantage by leveraging data-driven forms of differentiation and other information value-based tactics, setting you apart from your competitors.

The central core of any business model is creating, delivering, and exchanging value in one or more of the following areas: Economic, Physical, Service, and Information Value.

Understanding how Physical Value and Service Value are created and delivered in conventional business models lays the groundwork for exploring how Digital Business Models support value creation and delivery through smart products and smart services.

The key to designing successful Digital Business Models is paying close attention to which business model elements help you create and deliver maximum Information Value for customers and other stakeholders along the entire journey, providing ongoing support for your smart products or services.

To select the right Digital Business Model, you need to make the right choices on two key factors: (1) Closed vs. Open Information Flows, and (2) Linear vs. Non-Linear Value Pathways.

Module 5 helps you determine if a Porous Pipeline is the right type of Digital Business Model to support your smart product launch.

Module 6 outlines the conditions where a Closed Network makes the most sense as a foundation for your smart product launch.

The final DPS 104 module highlights situations where an Open Network is the best choice for achieving an optimum alignment of digital business model and smart product.

Our Agile Development Methodology combines the best of both worlds— Lean Startup and the Scientific Method— in a data-rich framework for validating which digital design components you should include your smart product solution.

Smart product success starts with what you bring to the table, translating your hunches into testable digital design hypotheses.

Journey Mapping is the next logical step to a more complete set of testable hypotheses, grounding your design thinking in the impacts your new smart product will make on everyday lives of customers and stakeholders.

The only good hypothesis is a testable hypothesis, and our Data Strategy Matrix streamlines your smart product design process by identifying which hypotheses you will actually be able to test.

Our Data Combinations template is a powerful tool for generating multi-factor digital design hypotheses

Module 6 reveals how your measurable hypotheses bridge to information value impacts and digital product functions, establishing critical smart product design pathways you will subsequently test in a field study project.

General prototyping principles and physical prototyping techniques begin the process for translating your digital design hypotheses into tangible forms you can share and test with others.

Digital prototyping techniques cover the ‘soft’ side of smart product ergonomics, using agile development cycles to capture tangible representations of digital functions and interfaces that you’ll share and test with others.

Module 9 identifies key tradeoffs and options to consider when designing a field study to test your physical and digital prototypes.

Our Field Study Feasibility Matrix streamlines your effort in determining which field study design you should pursue, targeting less challenging options you can actually implement

While 80% of new business startups fail, we’ll help you beat the long odds by avoiding predictable pitfalls and mistakes.

Mapping stakeholder actions and outcomes yields mission-critical details for designing smart products that customers will buy, tapping Information Value Opportunities where adding more data helps to prevent or fix their problems.

Our Information Value Feasibility Matrix streamlines your effort in determining which Information Value Opportunities are viable for you to target with your smart product solution.

Building on your Module 3 insights, our Information Value Competitor Matrix takes it to the next level by identifying a short list of Information Value Opportunities that are viable and competitively attractive.

Digital Product Functions— data-driven capabilities for creating and delivering information value— play an important role in bridging the gap from Information Value Opportunities to smart product design.

Our six-factor Digital Feasibility Framework is your foundation for performing a more complete prelaunch feasibility analysis of your smart product concept, avoiding predictable pitfalls and mistakes as a result.

Our Digital Design Feasibility Matrix helps you determine which physical, digital and business model components are feasible to retain and carry forward in the design process, enabling your smart product to perform digital product functions that create and deliver information value to your customers.

We’ll show you the keys to success in hitting all the right notes, when you make your pitch to get the funding your smart product concept deserves.

There’s a predictable recipe for success when pitching your concept to investors, and here we reveal the ‘secret sauce’ ingredients.

Knowing what to include in your presentation—and what to hold back in reserve— is critical when pitching your business model to investors.

Sealing the deal is an art that few have mastered, but here we share the keys to your success in unlocking their vault.

While developing a solid pitch deck is a mission-critical first stage, you won’t achieve full liftoff without the crucial boost from an effective pitch delivery.