Managing complexity in new product development: a framework for assessing and mitigating over featuring

The tendency to develop products and services that exceed user needs, market demands, and organizational resources is recognized as one of the top 10 risks contributing to New Product Development (NPD) failures. This phenomenon, commonly referred to as Over-Featuring (OVF), describes the tendency to introduce excessive or unnecessary features into a product or service during the NPD process. As a result, the process may suffer from scope creep, where the project’s scope expands beyond its initial plan, and feature creep, where additional functionalities are continuously added during development. It can also lead to reduced usability, quality issues, feature fatigue, overdesign, overspecification, and poor project performance. Despite its critical implications for NPD, OVF has received limited academic attention, with a lack of empirical studies and the absence of robust tools to measure and manage its impact. This research aims to address these gaps by first conducting an experimental study to investigate and demonstrate how OVF manifests, analyzing the key actors involved: customers and firms, and their interactions. Once the evolution of the phenomenon is thoroughly assessed, the next step will be the development of a framework and practical tools to support evidence-based decision-making in the NPD process.