Product Development Life Cycle and its Stages

The Product Development Life Cycle is a framework used for managing the development of the Product. PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle) is an iterative approach based on feedback to ensure that all the requirements of stakeholders are satisfied. PDLC can be further divided into 7 Stages.

Product Development Life Cycle and its Stages

Product Development Cycle Stages

These 8 steps have a major impact on the quality of the product developed in Product Management. Depending on the cost, time, and size of the team these steps can be modified accordingly.

Stage 1: Develop the Idea

• The first thing in PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle) is about developing the idea. This step involves a lot of brainstorming between the various group members to decide what product they want to develop. Group discussion plays a vital role in this step.
• A proper idea decides the whole direction of the PDLC (product development Life cycle), so choosing the right idea is very crucial in any PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle).

Stage 2: Validate the Idea

• After stage 1, the team will have a list of features the product should contain. The goal in this stage is to check which features or product concepts are the best suited to the Product.
• Validation of an idea can be done through different methods such as setting a set of criteria to validate the idea and give the scores to the idea respectively.
• Taking reviews or feedback from consumers should also be part of validating ideas. Because the end users are consumers only, so their opinion also plays a vital role.

Stage 3: Build a Prototype

• Among all the steps in PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle), the prototyping phase is one of the most important prerequisites for the development stage. Based on the requirements gathered from stages 1 and 2, the planning of the product and implementing them to make a basic prototype is done in this step.
• In this stage, the given idea will be implemented in the real world with an MVP(minimum viable product ) also known as a prototype to check if the given idea will work in real life.
• Prototyping the product will give a clear idea about what product should be developed. Prototyping can fix various issues and loopholes in a product before it is developed which can result in saving time, energy, and cost.

Stage 4: Create the Messaging

• Figuring out what makes your product special: Why should people buy it? Creating the value of a product in people’s lives is very important for making a product successful. So the reason why people should buy it should be very clear.
• Equipping your sales team: Creating materials like brochures and presentations to help them sell your product. Product information should be introduced to the consumers through advertising.
• Spreading the word: Building marketing and advertising campaigns to get people excited. Before realizing the product, the product should be well marketed so it can attract more and more users.

Stage 5: Build the Product

• The most important phase in PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle) is the development stage. In this phase, the actual product is developed. The development team makes sure that all the requirements given should be implemented properly.
• Developers divide the given product into various parts or components and distribute it among each other to work simultaneously on the product based on each one’s specialization. Developers are responsible for creating the user-friendly UI(if required in the project).
• In this phase, the development team follows different techniques to get the product developed based on the retirements of the product. If some set of rules are there in the requirements, the development team needs to follow them while developing the product.

Stage 6: Test the Product

• The next stage in PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle) is Testing. The developer team and testing team will work together to check if a given functionality or product works according to requirements. The QA (Quality Assurance) team will do different types of testing to make sure the given product works correctly.
• The development phase and testing phase work hand in hand. Testing depends on the development techniques, if specific functionalities are developed testing team will check the specific functionality only and will give feedback to the development team. But, if the whole product is developed then the testing team will make sure all functionalities are working correctly.
• The testing team will also check the security aspects and user-friendliness of the given product before passing it to the next stage.

Stage 7: Release the Product

• One of the last stages in PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle) is the Deployment of the product. In this stage, the final product is made available in the market for the users. In this stage, depending on the end users different techniques are used for relating the product.
• If the product is for the mass audience then strategically commercializing the product is also required while releasing the product. Because the product should reach the targeted audience to make it a success.

Stage 8: Improve the Product

• After realizing the product, collecting feedback from the users of the product is also very important. Based on the feedback received, improvement is made in the product and then the product is updated or re-released again.
• Feedback plays a crucial role in making a perfect product because, despite intensive testing, it provides us with crucial inputs of the product which can make a product more accessible and easy to use for the users.
• Improvement of a product is a never-ending process throughout the lifetime of the Product. To fit in a continuously changing market, product improvements are required in a time-to-time manner.

Conclusion:

These are the 8 main stages present in the Product Development Cycle. These phases can be further converted into various sub-phases based on the requirements of the project. This framework should be followed while developing the product to maintain industry standards.