Idea Screening

The purpose of idea generation is to make a big number of ideas. The purpose of the succeeding stages is to decrease that number. First idea-reducing stage is idea screening, which helps spot good ideas and drop weak ones as soon as possible. Product development costs rise highly in later stages, so the company wish to go ahead just with the product ideas that shall turn into profitable products. As one marketing typical suggests, "Three executives sitting in a room may get 40 good ideas ricocheting off the wall in minutes. The challenge is obtain a steady stream of fine ideas out of the labs and creativity campfires, through and manufacturing and marketing, and all the way to consumers."

Various companies need their executives to write up a new-product ideas on a standard form that may be reviewed by a new-product committee. The write-up explains the product, the competition, and the target market. It makes some irregular estimates of, product price, market size, development costs and time, manufacturing costs, and rate  of  return. Then the committee evaluates the idea against a set of common criteria such as these: Is the product really useful to consumers and society?  Is it good for our specific company? Does it mesh well along the company's objectives and strategies? Do we have the, skills, people and resources to make it succeed? Does it deliver more value to customers than do competing products? Is it simple to advertise and distribute? Various companies have well-designed systems for rating and screening new-product ideas.