The MRD now contains a complete list of the project and product's requirements. The product-engineering group (design and manufacturing engineers and experts) is involved in further analysis in this phase so that enough detail is gathered to be certain that the product can be actually made and produced. They will analyze in detail the product features, performance, use, risks, testability, regulatory requirements, environmental robustness and safety, serviceability and financial goals.

The technical group should refine and eliminate assumptions during this phase. Also, the refined design concepts are constantly reviewed with marketing and financial people to make sure the market, user and business requirements are maintained.

Architectural concepts are generated in this phase. The design, testing, manufacturing, distribution and support are also considered in some detail here, and 'build vs. buy' investigations can be investigated to a limited extent.

It's very important to analyze the intellectual property (IP) issues in the beginning stages of product development so that contingency plans are defined for legal protection or possible defense of encroachment into new technologies, concepts or processes which are developed. IP problems are becoming more of an offensive prerequisite for high-tech businesses, since the U.S. Patent Department is being left further in the dust of innovation and is allowing patents for commonly used processes and techniques, which a developer may think can be used with impunity.

Make any necessary assumptions to cover all possible unanswerable issues; these will be refined as the process moves forward. All of the product information created in the MRD must now be turned into technical language for the PRS. This will be used to drive the design, implementation and verification of the product in the following phases.