It follows that establishment of a common (and ultimately agreeable) understanding of a product's design and a critical review of that design is vital to the product and project's success.
The design process, which creates the blueprint to be reviewed, is not the subject of this article. It is the review of that blueprint that is our subject. So we will assume that a product design has already been completed by the 'chosen design faction' via whatever design process is desired. Check the Web, as it's full of various suitable approaches to the design process.
A product design review basically must validate a vision for a product and establish a common 'playing field' for all following development activity. It should provide a means of deciding between different design solutions and may, in some cases, be used to eliminate those solutions which obviously do not satisfy the stated criteria. It's also important to anticipate the product's target costs during the design review; however, the review should not limit or constrain the resulting implementation solutions, subsequent development project strategy, tactical processes or roadmap. These will be dealt with after the product design is approved - as outlined below.
There is another cost benefit from doing an appropriate product design review. There is an invested cost at every stage in a product development project4 (see the red numbers in Figure 3) that can grow exponentially by phase. Thus, any re-spin of previous phases can cause (1) a partial to total loss of the invested funds expended in those phases, (2) a delay in the project and market entry, (3) additional invested costs and (4) irritated customers and corporate officials. So, it's imperative that the design of a product be resolved by all stakeholders as best as feasible at the beginning of the development process in order to minimize re-spins.
4 http://www.techmankanata.com/ar-62-pg-1/On-Good-Product-Engineering-Practices.htm
