Chapter 2. VoC in the Product Development Process

	"Your opinion, although interesting, is irrelevant..."
	--"Tuned In"

Most organizations have some sort of a process to develop products. Often, it is called a new product development (NPD) process or a new product innovation (NPI) process. Whatever your organization calls it, it is intended to guide the organization and development team from the beginnings of an idea through development, and ultimately, to the launch of the product and revenue generation. In some cases, there are very formalized approaches to this process, such as stage gate, agile, iterative, waterfall, and others. And in some cases, there is nothing more formalized than a spreadsheet or calendar system.

In organizations where VoC is used, most people would accept that VoC is a valuable input to the marketing requirements portion of the development. Far fewer people understand how VoC can be a key input to the product development...