There are various 3rd Party Encumbrances that do demand product features either by law, by regulation, by an industry/market standard or by crackie! These demands most certainly will have some effect on the business and product.

Examples of 3rd Party Encumbrances are regulatory agencies, municipal and federal groups (laws, regulations), brotherhoods (usability expectations), industrial standards (market expectations) and corporate standards ⁴.

Following are a few examples of how 3rd Party Encumbrances may interact with other product mentors to affect your product's definition:

• Required safety features, required environmental protection features and processes, required quality demands - this definitely will affect the Product Utilization (safety features, added robustness), Business Model (compliance testing and labeling costs, anticipated legal expenses) and Product Market (added literature, warnings and - perhaps - restricted markets).
  
  
• More stringent performance and reliability constraints - this will affect the Business Model because of added design and testing processes.
  
  
• Insure interoperability with after-market and ancillary products, legal protection of proprietary features and processes - this will affect the Business Model by adding product features, testing costs and legal costs.
  
  
• Worldwide regulations restrict use of non-hazardous materials - this will affect the Business Model and Infrastructure costs since many standard components are being changed to comply with various international regulations (e.g., European RoHS Directive). Thus the product design will need to use these new components and implement internal processes to track their compliance.⁵
  
  
• Product testing (e.g., life, regulatory, environmental) - if products are not initially designed to comply with such regulations, laws and standards then re-engineering and re-testing will affect the Product Market (regulatory restrictions may limit the market), Product Utilization (design changes could alter the product's use) and Business Model (extra costs and on-going regulatory testing will affect revenue).

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⁴ What Every Product Development Manager and Executive Need to Know About Product Safety.

What Every Product Development Manager and Executive Need to Know about Product Testing for Unexpected Wear & Tear

What every Product Development Manager and Executive Need to Know About EMC

⁵ The Effect of Environmental Laws, Policies and Standards On the Product Development Lifecycle