Focus on Quality of Design: Does it Help or Hinder Time to Market?

The ability to deliver high quality products on time has become increasingly important in today's competitive environment. Speed and time to market, are the new competitive weapons. The ability to accelerate products from concept to production, and ahead of the competition, is more than ever central to success.So, what is the shortest path from concept to production? One school of thought is to focus on total quality along the way with an aim to ensure that the first product is fully functional and as close to production worthy as possible. This usually means following systematic product development processes with detailed quality check points and gate reviews built-in at every stage.On the other hand, some view this as too much of bureaucracy, rules, and restrictions that slow down and hinder the first introduction of the product to market. This point of view believes in getting the product out as soon as possible to get the necessary technical and marketing validations early, and then continue on improving and polishing the product to make it production worthy.