Ideas for new products can be obtained from customers (employing user innovation), the company's R&D department, competitors, focus groups, employees, salespeople, corporate spys, trade shows, or through a policy of Open Innovation. Ethnographic discovery methods (searching for user patterns and habits) may also be used to get an insight into new product lines or product features.

Formal idea generation techniques can be used, such as attribute listing, forced relationships, brainstorming, morphological analysis and problem analysis

We have generated following ideas regarding new product. Team of research and development department decided to introduce some innovative product in the market. Team members has generated following ideas through brainstorming technique.