You’ve got the inside track, the insight, and the innovation. You know what’s needed. You’ve identified a market opportunity – a gap, a window, an opening – for the right product or technology. Being first to launch could be worth millions and give you a significant lead, even if (or when) competitors catch up. Above all, you need to get to market as quickly as possible.
Yet, the tension between speed and quality is one of the oldest challenges in product development. The wisdom of "More haste, less speed" – or its Latin equivalent, Festina Lente ("Make haste slowly") – still holds true. This principle, famously embraced by Emperor Augustus and the Medici family, reminds us that rushing can lead to mistakes that ultimately slow you down.
In practice, sacrificing quality for speed often creates inefficiencies and delays. The solution lies in balance: think carefully, plan prudently, and act decisively. Or, to put it simply, "think slow, act fast."
To stay ahead, you need to be agile, nimble, and ready to see the possibilities – becoming the team that says, "Yes, if..." At times like these, quality management can feel like a task for later – something to avoid while innovation is in full swing. Checks and balances have their place, but openness and enablement must surely lead the way if you want to move fast. So it’s tempting to focus on removing blockers and bureaucracy, but consider this: though documenting every step may seem slow, it’s far quicker than discovering too late that your product can’t pass a quality review, forcing you to backtrack or start over.
Quality Management is often blamed for slowing down development, but it’s just one of many potential pitfalls. In reality, so many things can go wrong that avoiding all of them is nearly impossible. Instead of trying to anticipate every problem, focus on maintaining maximum flexibility to address challenges as they arise.
Drawing on nearly 40 years of experience, we’ve compiled this guide to help you stay agile, move quickly, and ensure quality – all without compromising on innovation.
Plan for things to go wrong as well as right
One of our colleagues often says that the best way to get a new product to market quickly is, “Don’t do it wrong.” Their point is that you need to be as certain as possible about each step as you move forward if you want to take the most direct path. However, being sure of each step is easier said than done. Product development involves tackling something that either hasn’t been done before or hasn’t been done very often. By its very nature, this means you can’t fully predict what will happen. You might have some idea, of course, but proceeding as though you know exactly how things will unfold could expose you to avoidable pitfalls.
Instead, determine, ideally based on evidence, whether the approach you intend to take is likely to work. Have a plan for how you’ll respond if things need to change, and know when it’s best to make those changes. The time when you have the most flexibility is before committing to a specific design embodiment. Once you’ve done that, flexibility diminishes rapidly, and changes become costly. The secret? Plan deliberately, then act decisively.
Linked to this, you need to understand the project parameters – beyond speed-to-market – and how sensitive they are. For example, depending on the cost of goods and materials, you might decide to rely solely on off-the-shelf parts, or it might be feasible to take a prototype-level development all the way to manufacture. Either approach could significantly impact development costs and timelines and may introduce or reduce risks, depending on the parameters. Ultimately, understanding these dynamics is key to making decisions that balance cost, speed, and risk while ensuring the best outcome for your product and your business.
Brief your Quality Management team early and keep them involved
A big part of quality management is creating the paper trail: documenting what you did, when, and why. However, just writing things down can create inertia. People may become reluctant to make changes because of the additional paperwork it entails. This can be particularly problematic at the start of a project, when designs evolve quickly as the team explores new ideas and approaches. Striking the right balance between establishing solid foundations and maintaining momentum is essential.
This is where making Quality Management your allies pays off. In our article on ‘How to stop quality management blocking innovation’ , we compared the final quality assessment of a new product to the end of a course you have to pass, and if you don’t, you must keep trying until you do. The good news is that you can approach this like an exam or as a thesis developed collaboratively with a supervisor – where Quality Management serves as both supervisor and examiner. We strongly recommend the latter
By keeping the quality team involved, you can explain why you want to prioritise moving fast over documenting every detail of early experimental work. In return, they can advise you on what must be recorded now to ensure final sign–off at the end of the process. Together, you’ll ensure that each step you take lays the groundwork for the next, keeping the entire process on track and aligned with quality standards.
Align your language, especially around quality
Different organisational and team cultures shape language in unique ways. Jargon can become rife, and what might be considered common or universal terms can take on very different meanings. It’s important to establish clarity from the start across all the teams involved, both within the organisation and with your key external partners. Significant misalignment can occur when one team uses a term to mean something entirely different from what another team assumes it means, creating unnecessary delays and inefficiencies.
For example, we typically think of a ‘concept’ as work on paper, but we’ve worked with clients who more often use the word to describe what we might consider to be more of a prototype – as in actual physical object. Similarly, feasibility can have vastly different interpretations. For us, feasibility testing means assessing how likely it is that an idea will work. For others, it might mean designing and building the entire solution, including pilot manufacture.
You can go quite a long way before realising you’ve been talking at cross–purposes, leading to misaligned expectations or unnecessary rework. Taking the time to align terminology early ensures clearer communication, a smoother product development process, and fewer setbacks.
Learn fast and move on
You’ve probably heard “fail fast” as an aphorism for development projects, and managed failure is often celebrated. We prefer to focus on “learning fast.” While failure is an inevitable and valuable part of the development process, it’s the learning that truly drives progress. The real value lies in how quickly you can understand why something didn’t work and apply those insights. Failure is a step, but learning is the outcome that moves you forward.
Learning fast means identifying as early as possible why something doesn’t work – or even better, why it might not work – so you can adapt or pivot without wasting time or resources. It’s not about failing for its own sake but about uncovering insights that guide you to the next step. By focusing on learning, you shift the emphasis from what went wrong to what you can do better, ensuring that each attempt takes you closer to success.
One common mistake we see is assuming there’s no point in testing until you have a physical object. The truth is, you can test almost anything. Whether it’s a sketch on paper, a competitor’s product, or something quickly cobbled together, every test reveals useful insights that will help you create something that works. When done early enough a test can’t ‘fail’ as long as it tells you how to move forward and improves your ability to learn and make better decisions.
This ties back to our earlier point about flexibility. The more you test – and therefore learn – while changes are still inexpensive and easy, the better positioned you’ll be to adapt, improve, and keep moving forward. Learning fast ensures that even failures contribute to progress, supporting a smoother and more effective development process.
Consider Human Factors Design early on
Human factors typically focus on safety and usability. They address risks introduced when people don’t use the product as intended and aim to make the product effective, efficient, and easy to use. Beyond this, we also consider engagement and motivation: is it something people will actually want to use?
This is particularly critical in regulated markets. In medical devices, for example, the acceptable threshold for adherence (the percentage of prescribed medication a patient actually takes) is 80%. If more than two out of ten patients dislike the device you’ve created to administer their medicine, you have a significant problem.
Adding to the complexity is the challenge of testing for engagement and motivation. Unlike usability, where you can hand someone a prototype, gather feedback, and iterate on the design, engagement and motivation don’t work the same way. People often enjoy interacting with something new at first, but over time, they lose interest. Think of how many apps you downloaded with excitement but rarely, if ever, use now
This makes upfront thinking and modelling essential. Over time, we’ve developed a framework to predict the impact of design changes on adherence rates, helping us make informed decisions. Ultimately, though, it all comes back to testing. Test everything as early as possible and avoid making assumptions about how people will – or won’t – use what you’ve created.
Involve procurement early on
Just as Quality Management can be valuable allies, so can Procurement. Being told at the end of the development process that you need to swap out a component for a similar one already purchased in bulk for another project is a recipe for delays and costly redesigns. However, hearing that same feedback early in the process is invaluable.
If the component fits the requirements, you can design it in from the beginning, saving both time and money and streamlining your path to market. If it doesn’t, you’ve identified the issue early – while changes are still manageable and inexpensive to implement – keeping your project on track and accelerating progress toward launch.
Investigate Parallel Development
Accelerating product development through parallel efforts can be a double–edged sword. Pursuing multiple solutions simultaneously may increase expense due to the need for additional resources, the need to keep different modules interchangeable can be an awkward constraint on design options, the division of attention can build in delay, and the option to maintain parallel paths can become a cover for reluctance to make decisions. Running parallel paths has costs.
However, the potential benefits can outweigh these costs, especially for projects with very risky aspects. For instance, if Concept A succeeds, the resources allocated to Concept B might seem redundant. However, if Concept A fails, having Concept B in development can halve your time–to–market, potentially leading to increased revenue that justifies the initial investment.
A more structured approach to parallel development is redundancy–based development (RBD). This method involves dividing the design into self–contained sections and developing multiple solutions for each. If one solution proves ineffective, an alternative can be rapidly integrated with little disruption to the overall project timeline.
Toyota is a well–known example of best practice in this area, and use its proprietary Set–Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) methodology to great effect. SBCE involves developing multiple design alternatives in parallel and gradually narrowing down options based on rigorous testing and feedback. By considering a broad range of possibilities early, Toyota enables flexibility and informed decision–making, reducing the risk of costly late–stage changes and accelerating time–to–market.
So although taking a RBD method adds constraints and requires more upfront investment, the potential for significant rewards – such as faster market entry and enhanced market positioning – can make it a worthwhile consideration for part or all of your development.
Understand the Role of the Prototype
As we mentioned earlier, there are countless ways things can go wrong in a product development process. So many, in fact, that it would be extraordinary if your first prototype worked perfectly.
This reality can be unsettling for others in the business: the marketers who identified the market opportunity, the CFO who approved the funding, and others. They may view the prototype as the culmination of the process rather than just one stage in a longer journey.
Your best approach in handling this is to be more explicit in how you talk about prototypes: make it clear that there will be many prototypes, and say specifically what each one is for. Eventually you will want a fully-representative, fully functioning prototype, of course – but the first might be a handling prototype with no functionality at all. Perhaps the second is purely a test-bed for a latch mechanism between a durable and a disposable. Recognising each prototype’s true role – as a stepping stone rather than a final product – is critical to maintaining focus on getting to market quickly.
Misunderstandings often arise from the language barrier discussed previously. It’s essential to ensure everyone in the organisation understands what "prototype" means in the context of development. A prototype is not a finished product; it’s a tool for learning and iteration. By embracing this mindset and prioritising fast cycles of testing, discarding, and improving, your team can avoid unnecessary delays and rapidly progress towards a market–ready solution.
Set expectations early: explain the iterative process and its connection to speed. Make it clear that discarding prototypes is not failure but a deliberate strategy to eliminate risks and accelerate development. This way, there are no surprises or disappointments. And throughout the process, as always – test everything.
Find out more about how to balance innovation with quality management in our articles on The blueprint for product development success: strategies that work and How to stop quality management blocking innovation.
In conclusion, speed-to-market is undeniably critical when seizing a competitive edge, but it should never come at the expense of quality. The fastest path is rarely the one paved with shortcuts. While it’s tempting to push quality management aside in the race to launch, doing so often creates more delays than it saves – leading to costly mistakes, rework, and lost opportunities. The key is to integrate quality into your process without stifling momentum. Balancing speed with the diligence needed to deliver lasting success is essential. A clear strategy, supported by a blend of agility and discipline, ensures you can innovate rapidly while building a foundation for long-term success. Plan deliberately, act decisively, and foster a culture of learning. This approach ensures your product reaches the market quickly, performs reliably, and stands the test of time.
You can find out more about our flexible approach to product development programmes here.
