Product Definition

Marketing folks know what they want to sell. They typically create a product ‘Shiny Sheet’, which is a couple of pages that describe key features of a product. This shiny sheet is used as the basis for creating Functional Specifications for a product. The Functional Specification is the engineer’s interpretation of the shiny sheet. We at Microprocessor Designs like to be involved at this phase so we can help with the initial design tradeoffs.

Product development issues that need to be resolved early on include:

• Non-recurring costs
• Recurring costs
• Time to market
• Expected Production Volume
• Product growth path

Deliverables after Product Definition phase may include:

• Updated Marketing ‘Shiny’ sheet
• Functional Specifications
• Acceptance Test Criteria