Let’s dive in!<\/p>\n
What is idea screening?<\/h2>\n
Idea screening is the process of evaluating and vetting product or feature ideas against pre-defined criteria, like market demand or technical feasibility.<\/p>\n
It aims to choose and prioritize ideas<\/a> that resonate well with the target audience and allow the organization to achieve its business goals.<\/p>\n Idea screening takes place early in the new product development process<\/a>, during the ideation <\/a>stage and just before concept development.<\/p>\n Both idea generation and idea screening take place during the product ideation stage.<\/p>\n Idea generation is the initial phase where teams define problems and produce ideas, solutions, or concepts to address them.<\/p>\n The purpose of idea generation is to generate as many ideas as possible without evaluating their viability or feasibility.<\/p>\n Idea screening follows.<\/p>\n It involves filtering the generated ideas to identify those with the highest potential for success.<\/p>\n Its primary goal is to narrow down the list of ideas and focus on those that align with the organization’s goals<\/a>, resources, and market needs.<\/p>\n There are several reasons not to skip idea screening.<\/p>\n First, the process helps you ensure that your ideas are aligned with your product vision<\/a> and strategic goals.<\/p>\n Second, it’s an effective risk management tactic. By assessing ideas against predetermined criteria, you can identify risks and challenges. Based on that, you can develop adequate mitigation strategies or shelf the idea, for example, if it’s not financially or technically feasible.<\/p>\n Moreover, idea screening allows you to allocate your resources to ideas that are most likely to succeed<\/a>. Thanks to it, you avoid investing money, time, and energy in ideas that won’t help you achieve your goals.<\/p>\n Last but not least, evaluating ideas against market criteria helps SaaS businesses identify concepts that are likely to meet customer needs and preferences<\/a>. This is crucial for developing products or services that have a strong market demand.<\/p>\n Overall, idea screening isn’t a complex process. However, as always, the devil’s in the details. To make the process effective, you have to approach it in a structured and methodical way.<\/p>\n Here’s how you do it, step by step.<\/p>\n The first step is gathering ideas for screening.<\/p>\n They can come from different sources, like customer requests or customer-facing teams.<\/p>\n Or idea-generation sessions.<\/p>\n Popular idea-generation techniques<\/a> include:<\/p>\n Choosing relevant criteria is essential for successful screening. This will reflect your product goals and organizational culture.<\/p>\n Some examples include:<\/p>\n To make reliable idea screening decisions, they need to be data-driven.<\/a><\/p>\n To get valid and objective data, use a range of customer research <\/a>techniques.<\/p>\n Interviews and focus groups are an excellent source of qualitative feedback.<\/a><\/p>\n Even when conducted remotely, they allow researchers to develop a connection with the participants and give them the flexibility to drill down on ideas that come up.<\/p>\n The challenge is recruiting interviewees and scheduling the sessions.<\/p>\n If you already have a product in place, use your analytics tool<\/a> to select a user segment<\/a> with a relevant use case and reach out to them with an in-app message<\/a>, like a modal<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you’re only starting, lean into the tester database that comes with your testing tool. Hotjar, Maze, UX Army, and UserTesting all offer this feature.<\/p>\n In-app surveys<\/a> are another way to collect screening data from your current user base.<\/p>\n Again, pick a specific user segment that will find the idea relevant and target them with a survey.<\/p>\n Ideally, trigger them contextually. For example, when screening an idea for a new feature, trigger the survey at the moment when the users experience the problem that the feature solves.<\/p>\n To run surveys, you don\u2019t need a dedicated idea screening solution – your product adoption tool, like Userpilot<\/a>, will do the job just fine!<\/p>\n Apart from segmenting users, you can use product analytics<\/a> to gather valuable insights.<\/p>\n For example, funnel tracking<\/a>\u00a0can help you verify how many users are experiencing the problem that your new feature is going to solve.<\/p>\n You can also use them to track relevant metrics <\/a>and set a baseline so that you can evaluate the impact of the ideas after their implementation.<\/p>\n Market research <\/a>is another crucial aspect of new idea screening.<\/p>\n For example, a competitive analysis can reveal how successful similar ideas are or how easy they are to monetize.<\/p>\n Tempting as it may be, you don’t want to be the first mover. If there’s no similar product or feature around, it’s not because nobody has thought about it before but because they’ve tried and failed.<\/p>\n How else can you assess market demand?<\/p>\n Feasibility is normally one of the main criteria in idea screening.<\/p>\n The fact that there’s a market gap <\/a>that you can fill and there are enough users willing to part with their hard-earned cash doesn’t mean your idea will be successful<\/a>.<\/p>\n For starters, do you have the expertise and manpower to develop the solution?<\/p>\n And if yes, is it financially viable? Is the time and money investment justified? How does it stack up against other opportunities you could pursue instead (and will have to miss)?<\/p>\n All of this is essential to ensure that the idea contributes to your business objectives.<\/a><\/p>\n Once you’ve gathered all the insights, it’s time to evaluate the ideas.<\/p>\n Involve your whole team at this stage as well as key stakeholders and representatives of other functions. In this way, you will gain different perspectives and it will be easier to secure their buy-in going forward.<\/p>\n For most objective evaluation, consider creating a scoring model<\/a>. That’s when you assign a numerical value to an idea on each of the criteria.<\/p>\n If some of the criteria are more important than others, assign a weighting value first to reflect it. This will make it more complex, but the results will better reflect your priorities.<\/p>\n Idea screening is only one step in the idea validation<\/a> process. Let’s look now at how to conduct concept <\/a>and prototype testing to further reduce risk and increase your chances of success.<\/p>\n Concept testing<\/a> occurs after the idea screening stage and involves gathering feedback on specific concepts. Its goal is to validate assumptions, identify potential issues, and refine the concept before investing resources in full development.<\/p>\n The process involves creating wireframes, mockups, and other low-fi prototypes and collecting user feedback<\/a> via interviews, surveys, and product analytics.<\/p>\n For example, fake door testing<\/a> is a common technique used in concept testing. You make your users believe the new feature already exists by adding it to the menu and using product analytics to track user interest.<\/p>\n If you’re working on a new product, you create a landing page<\/a>, and a video demo and use paid ads to drive traffic to the site.<\/p>\n Once you concept test the idea and the user reception is positive, use the feedback to build more complex prototypes <\/a>and iterate on them.<\/p>\n For example, you could only create the product front end and do things manually in the background in what is called the Wizard of Oz experiment.<\/p>\n This will help you refine the UI design and further validate the demand for the product or feature before committing resources to build a fully functional version.<\/p>\n Idea screening helps you weed out ideas that are not feasible to build or not likely to help you achieve your business goals. In extreme cases, it can help you avert complete product failure.<\/p>\n If you want to see how Userpilot can help you screen your ideas, book the demo!<\/a><\/p>\nIdea screening vs. idea generation<\/h2>\n
Why is the idea screening process important?<\/h2>\n
How to incorporate idea screening in the new feature and product development process?<\/h2>\n
1. Brainstorm feature and product ideas to develop<\/h3>\n
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![\"Mindmap](\"https:\/\/images.storychief.com\/account_6827\/mind-mapping-miro-idea-screening_02f08297be9d05a373d5a935fc7cadc0_800.jpg)
<\/picture>2. Define the criteria for effective idea screening<\/h3>\n
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3. Conduct qualitative and quantitative research on your target audience<\/h3>\n
Interviews\/focus groups<\/h4>\n
![\"Modal](\"https:\/\/images.storychief.com\/account_6827\/interview-modal-idea-screening_79977cf3d324df5fe7b1af278f96aaaa_800.jpg)
<\/picture>Idea screening surveys<\/h4>\n
![\"Feature](\"https:\/\/images.storychief.com\/account_6827\/survey-idea-screening_8c695c9639405f4a511e31d9b3b1e747_800.jpg)
<\/picture>Product analytics<\/h4>\n
![\"Idea](\"https:\/\/images.storychief.com\/account_6827\/trends-analytics-idea-screening_38f673fb0c5b80aa324344e2ae36ef4f_800.jpg)
<\/picture>4. Carry out market research to screen ideas<\/h3>\n
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![\"Google](\"https:\/\/images.storychief.com\/account_6827\/google-trends-idea-screening_cb78332aa3b14dd2d4942bdb41f1290e_800.jpg)
<\/picture>5. Analyze the feasibility of the product idea to align with business objectives<\/h3>\n
6. Evaluate ideas based on the insights collected<\/h3>\n
Next steps: What to do after screening the most promising ideas?<\/h2>\n
Perform concept testing on your selected ideas<\/h3>\n
![\"Feature](\"https:\/\/images.storychief.com\/account_6827\/in-app-survey-idea-screening_cc144360f6a27785f7d13a73c4ef3c4a_800.jpg)
<\/picture>Develop a prototype and test it on your target market<\/h3>\n
![\"Modal](\"https:\/\/images.storychief.com\/account_6827\/beta-testing-idea-screening_26874e268f6c7d96c14592102a951a02_800.jpg)
<\/picture>Conclusion<\/h2>\n