When a manager invites customers to provide feedback for a new product, which decision-making step is being applied?

Inviting customers to provide feedback for a new product aligns with the step of generating ideas in the decision-making process. This step involves seeking out creative solutions and perspectives that can help inform product development. By engaging customers and encouraging them to share their thoughts, a manager can gather diverse insights and innovative suggestions that can lead to improved features, functionalities, or marketability of the product. This input serves as a foundation for refining concepts and deciding on the most beneficial direction for the product's design and development.

In contrast, the other steps in the decision-making process serve different purposes. Implementing ideas focuses on putting plans into action based on already assessed options, while evaluating outcomes relates to assessing the effectiveness of decisions made after they have been executed. Identifying alternatives involves recognizing different choices available, but this stage comes before the interaction with customers to gather feedback. Thus, generating ideas is the most appropriate classification for the action of soliciting customer feedback in this context.