Understand the Problem
Before a company can fix its innovation problem, it must be willing to admit that an actual problem exists. In this case, management must be willing to admit that the innovation theories and practices that it employs fail to deliver an acceptable success rate. And it must want to do something about it.
Since companies exist profitably with the 70–90 percent new product failure rates that are common today, some are content with the status quo. It is true that one success can make up for many failures, but why accept failure as an option? More importantly, why risk failure in situations when failure is not an option – such as when protecting a core market? If companies could develop and launch only winning products and services, billions of dollars could be saved each year in wasted development expense, and market successes would be assured. Companies could then achieve predictable growth.
If you are the person responsible for making innovation improvements in your organization, this is the first challenge you will face – getting your process recommendation team and other managers to agree that your current process is ineffective and that the cost of failure makes this a problem worth solving. To help your organization understand these issues, we have written and gathered articles that offer important insights.
We suggest that you start by reading the the white paper, What is Outcome-driven Innovation? and then distributing it to the process recommendation team, key managers, and others of influence within your firm. Then, gain their agreement that the current process doesn’t work and that improvement is necessary. This is the first step in making innovation a competency of your firm.
