Product Market Fit Frameworks for Lean Product Development

To succeed in today’s dynamic and evolving markets, businesses need to continuously design products that meet the demands of the customer. While such demands can be difficult to fulfil, they offer businesses the opportunity to evolve their business models, deepen their skill-sets and knowledge, expand into new markets, and scale their operations. To stay viable amid accelerating change, businesses need product development frameworks that anchor the mental models for designing products that fit the market. However, evidence suggests that many start-up businesses lack such models. This completed research paper makes two important contributions to academia and practice. First, a conceptual framework that links the concepts of product viability, feasibility, and usability/desirability to lean product development is developed. Second, an evaluation framework that enables businesses to design products that fit their markets is proposed. The frameworks are grounded in design science literature and their utility has been evaluated through the industry engagements of the research team. The theoretical limitations of the lean concept are exposed and its implications for R&D practitioners and academic researchers are highlighted.