Robert G. Cooper’s (2000) article “Perspective: The State of the Art in New Product Development” provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of new product development (NPD) practices. The article highlights key trends and best practices in NPD, including the following:

1. Stage-gate process: The article introduces the concept of the stage-gate process, which involves breaking the NPD process into a series of stages and gates, with go/no-go decision points at each gate. This process helps companies to manage risk and ensure that resources are allocated to the most promising projects.
2. Cross-functional teams: Cooper emphasizes the importance of cross-functional teams in NPD, as they can help to bring diverse perspectives and expertise to the development process.
3. Voice of the customer: The article stresses the importance of capturing and incorporating the voice of the customer in NPD, through techniques such as market research and customer feedback.
4. Portfolio management: Cooper advocates for a portfolio management approach to NPD, where companies manage their product development efforts as a portfolio of projects, with a mix of high-risk, high-reward projects and lower-risk, lower-reward projects.
5. Agile methods: The article also highlights the emergence of agile development methods in NPD, which emphasize iterative development, collaboration, and responsiveness to change.

Overall, Cooper’s article provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in NPD, highlighting key trends and best practices that companies can adopt to improve their NPD efforts.