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Innovation Team Trust

Posted on 08.08.19

Innovation is naturally risky. We are not sure of the technology, markets, or product design – especially at the outset of a project. Then, we throw people into the mix and it might seem that we are lucky to ever see new products make it to market.

Successful innovation teams share several characteristics. Companies like Google and 3M offer unstructured time-on-the-job for individuals to pursue ideas. Other firms focus on improved project management skills to manage the scope, schedule, and budget. In my experience, it really is the people that make the difference between a successful innovation project and one that is so-so.

Read on or watch the short summary video!

Trust

Successful, high-performance teams build on a foundation of trust. Trust is essential to communication and it is communication that allows us to share ideas for new product development (NPD).

Trust means being not afraid to share an opposing view but also being open and receptive to listening to new ideas or concepts. There’s a story that President John F. Kennedy nearly went to war in Cuba over the Bay of Pigs because his advisors were afraid to offer alternate ideas. Everyone on the team, regardless of status, must trust one another in order to openly and honestly communicate.

Intellectual and Emotional Trust

For innovation teams we must manage both intellectual trust and emotional trust. Intellectual trust is established when we recognize the credentials and experience of a colleague. Knowing that a team member was an accounting degree establishes intellectual trust that he can conduct the financial analysis accurately.

Emotional trust, on the other hand, is established when we know someone else will support our position and stand up for us. We can only build emotional trust when we have built relationships with others. It is emotional trust that allows us to take risks – especially important for radical innovation.

Leadership

Of course, intra-team trust is built only if the leader is trustworthy. But what makes a trustworthy leader? A person keeps her commitments, treats others fairly, and asks questions makes a good leader. My philosophy as a first-time pilot plant supervisor was that I’d never ask my technicians to do something I wouldn’t do. That included staying after hours (even though I was salaried and they were paid hourly). It meant watching gauges and monitoring process variables in the sweltering heat or cold, rainy winters of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It meant building a relationship and building emotional trust.

Stability

Successful innovations often follow a tortuous path of development – starting with one technology and target market and ending with different technical specifications and customers. While it might feel chaotic to change direction in the middle of a project, the best innovation leaders and teams draw stability from processes throughout the NPD life cycle. Understanding the mission and strategy of the project is foundational to success.

Senior executives and project leaders demonstrate trust during a project by offering tools for stability. Project team members should be aware of expectations in their work assignments, anticipated deadlines and milestones, and follow standardized design and development processes. By establishing stable and predictable steps in the innovation process, leaders demonstrated capability to build relationships and emotional trust.

Trust for Innovation Teams

Innovation teams need foundational trust to create risky new technologies and products. Without trust, organizations are limited to incremental innovations that suffer from intense competition and low profit margins. Accepting risk, by building trust within a team, leads to more radical innovations and longer-term profitability.

Intellectual trust is enough if you want to fight competitors on the incremental innovation front. But, to take new risks, teams need to build cohesive teams founded on emotional trust. Leaders demonstrate the characteristics for successful NPD by being open and honest in communication, treating all stakeholders fairly, and listening to all perspectives. Furthermore, leaders generate a trustworthy reputation by providing stability and predictability for the team. Creating a project charter with roles and responsibilities, deadlines, and expectations allows a risky innovation project to follow a more predictable path to commercialization.

Learn more

There are lots of ways to learn more about building successful teams and leaders for innovation. Here are few. Give me a call at area code 281 phone 280.8717 for more information or send me an email at info@globalnpsolutions.com. Enjoy your innovation journey!

New Product Development Best Practice Workshop
Building Cross-Functional Teams
Innovation Master Mind
Virtual Team Training
Individual Coaching (please call)

Learn firsthand how establishing trust can improve cross-functional NPD team effectiveness. REGISTER NOW – spaces are filling fast!

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

3 Team Lessons from Biking

Posted on 07.23.19

I like to bicycle. I enjoy riding either my mountain bike or road bike. Since I recently bought a new road bike, I’ve been riding it as much as I can – and as fast as I can!

But I have a few pet peeves about cycling that have analogies in the work world. Specifically, I observe that what bugs me when I’m cycling are traits and characteristics that drive people away from effective teamwork. Watch the video for the 30-second solution or read on.

Use Your Indicator

A lot of people driving cars fail to use their indicators. This is bad enough when you’re in another car, but it can truly be dangerous when you’re on a bicycle. It takes a little longer for a cyclist to accelerate, so we use a car’s turn signal (or lack of) to help us judge when to enter or cross traffic.

On teams, you also need to use your indicator. Other team members might know you well and hold expectations about your part of the project, but they can’t read your mind. On top of that, each of us has a preferred work style and we project certain images and personalities to others. One way to ensure proper communication on a team is to raise your self-awareness of your own behaviors and of your teammates’ behaviors.

In Step 1 of Building Effective Cross-Functional Teams, we will describe how the DiSC® work style assessment helps to raise self-awareness. Once you understand your own preferred working style and those of your teammates, you can change work patterns and vocabularies to improve intra-team communications.

Keep Your Dog Leashed

I’m not afraid of dogs generally, but the other day, two large dogs chased me on my bike for two or three blocks. I knew I could win on endurance (and probably speed), yet it still raised my blood pressure to have loud barking dogs pursuing me. And just yesterday, a small dog ran into the road, dragging his leash behind him as his owner made no attempt to control him. In both situations, the dogs and I could have been hurt badly. Their humans were not managing them.

Teams need management and leadership. For successful innovation, team leaders need to integrate different functional viewpoints as well as different work styles. Marketing uses one jargon and R&D another set of terms. Teams must overcome these biases to work together effectively. Instead of using different perspectives as constraints, innovation succeeds when using varied viewpoints as strengths.

In our complimentary webinar on 31 July, you’ll learn Step 2 – team management – of Building an Effective Cross-Functional Team. Team management starts with trust and healthy conflict. When teams assemble tools and strategies for trust and conflict, they can commit to actions and hold each other mutually accountable for project goals. This yields results. Effective cross-functional teams understand and appreciate different work styles, different functional perspectives, and different approaches. Ultimately, these teams outperform in innovation by producing more creative and customer-focused products and services.

Kamikaze Squirrels

When I was growing up, my dad constantly complained about the squirrels in our yard. They stole the walnuts off the giant tree in our backyard and buried them in the grass, the garden, and the flower beds. At the time, I didn’t care because I didn’t much care for my after-school chores of picking up and cleaning the walnuts anyway.

But, as a cyclist, I join my dad in disliking squirrels. The little devils run right in front of your path, dance around, and turn back to cross your path again. It seems like they have a death wish, and I have nearly wrecked my bike more than a few times trying to avoid these kamikaze squirrels.

Some teams have kamikaze team members. They will never be happy and often refuse to do their assigned work. The reasons vary. They don’t agree with the approach, their idea is better, they are stubborn, and so on. Effective teams, just like cyclists must watch out for these people who have self-destructive behaviors that can contaminate the team culture.

In Step 3 of Building Effective, Cross-Functional Teams, we learn processes for working through the life cycle of a project. The Team Dimensions Profile helps team members and leaders to understand strengths of different work styles during different phases of a project. Creatives, for example, are great at generating ideas during the initiation phase of a project, and executors are needed to efficiently conduct the work of the project. An individual who has a work style tendency to plan and schedule detailed tasks may identify the creatives as kamikazes trying to interrupt the workflow.

However, just as the kamikaze squirrels are trying to get back to their “home” tree, different team personalities are focusing on their “home” strengths. We move from identifying team processes in Step 3 of Building Effective, Cross-Functional Teams to Step 4 which involves setting up team processes, like the team charter. Finally, in Step 5, we address how to work with dispersed or virtual teams. You will learn Steps 3 through 5 in Part 2 of our complimentary webinar and will be automatically registered for Part 2 (28 August) when you register for Part 1 (31 July) covering Steps 1 and 2.

Team Lessons from Cycling

Effective innovation teams need guidance and guardrails, just like we do on the road as cyclists. Riding a bike means you must watch out for cars without indicators, dogs without leashes, and squirrels without direction. Effective teams use indicators starting with work style preferences, managing their team relationships, and are wary of kamikaze behaviors.

You can learn more about building and managing successful team behaviors at our complimentary, one-hour webinar on Wednesday, 31 July 2019 at noon CDT. Everyone who attends Building Effective Cross-Functional Teams will receive a free work style assessment ($75 value) and you’ll be automatically registered for Part 2 on Wednesday, 28 August 2019 at noon CDT. Space is limited! Register now!

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

3 Myths about Innovation Teams

Posted on 07.18.19

As much as corporate leaders talk about the importance of innovation, they still complain about a lack of results. Innovation is not magical nor is it easy. Successful new product development (NPD) relies on deploying the right technology at the right time into the right market segment. Complicating the situation even more is that you count on effective, cross-functional teams to ideate, design, develop, and sell the new products. Yet building productive innovation teams requires leadership skills and temperance.

Of course, lots of managers think that teamwork is easy – just pull together a group of people, tell them what to do, and then sit back waiting for the results. Unfortunately, most of us have learned it’s not so easy to build and sustain effective, cross-functional innovation teams. Let’s look at some myths of team building and how you can invert these assumptions to accelerate your innovation programs.

Myth #1 – All Engineers are the Same

Or we could say all designers are the same and all marketers are the same and all salespeople are the same. This myth is busted as soon as you consider your work colleagues on your existing and previous NPD teams. We all know engineers who are extraverts, designers who are methodical, marketers who are analytical, and salespeople who are quiet and reserved.

One way to better understand the work styles of your teammates and to build open communication is through the DiSC® Workplace assessment. DiSC identifies a preferred work style for each team member: dominant, influential, supportive, or conscientious. While many engineers have a conscientious work style – with a preference for analytical, “heads-down” work – others are also dominant, influencing, and supportive. The same goes for designers, marketers, and salespeople.

When your team completes a DiSC assessment, it opens new conversations and builds camaraderie among the team members. As an innovation team leader, you can match tasks and activities to the work style preferences of your team members. When team members understand what drives motivation for others, productivity improves. And when productivity improves, new products get to market faster spurring profitability.

Myth #2 – Everyone is Equal

Another assumption I see in my work with innovation teams is that managers assume everyone is equal. As a Christian and as an American, I do believe everyone has equal opportunity, but not everyone has equal skill, nor should we populate an innovation team in exact percentages.

Sometimes, managers make the assumption that if there are 100 hours of project work, then each of the five team members needs to 20 hours of work. Unfortunately, this situation is exacerbated by Myth #1 so that all the R&D work is assumed to be done by engineers and all of the marketing work to be done by the marketing department.

Cross-functional teams increase the go to market rate and profitability of new products because the team members are not equal. Each individual brings his or her own experiences to the team. These experiences include successful and failed product launches in similar product categories, global customer knowledge, and lessons learned.

The Team Dimensions Profile model teaches us that innovation projects go through stages of initiation, selling the idea, organizing for implementation, and actually designing and building the new product. We rely more heavily on creative personalities to generate ideas at the front-end and more analytical work styles to organize and execute the project tasks near the back-end. Cross-functional team members will find that as they understand which team members are “idea people” and which are “executors”, they will work together more effectively.

Moreover, using a common vocabulary of our work style preferences can help moderate the pace of work. Creators are tasked to a higher degree when an NPD project is initiated but need to tamp down their style when operations and manufacturing decisions are made. Understanding how each team member is unique – and not equal – enhances communication and improves the quality of new product delivery.

Myth #3 – Teams Don’t Change

Unfortunately, I’ve met some very cynical managers in my time. They assume that they’ve been saddled with a group of people to do work and that no one can change. Carol Dweck describes this as a fixed mindset. (Read my book review of “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” here.)

The fixed mindset assumes talent is given at birth and cannot ever change. Knowledge is like a reservoir that empties over time and cannot be refilled. In contrast, a growth mindset is one that cheers on failure for the sake of learning and praises baby steps because those baby steps will become leaps of knowledge in the future. Great innovation leaders exhibit the growth mindset and challenge teams to find new ways of working. One model of building effective, cross-functional teams is through the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team®.

In Five Behaviors, team members assess their levels of trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results. They learn how their work styles influence their responses in different team situations and how to manage conflict in a healthy way. Applying a growth mindset, teams learn new ways to commit to project goals and to achieve mutual accountability. And over time, the needle moves on trust to demonstrate the building of an effective team innovation team.

How Do You Bust Team Myths?

Innovation is critical to the success of every business. The product life cycle is shrinking so that companies need to launch more and better products faster just to keep pace with global competition. But managers often fail to build the appropriate infrastructure to support and nurture NPD teams.

First, job titles are not reflective of a team member’s work style. Use a DiSC assessment to understand and share work style preferences. Team members learn new skills and can adapt to situations across the NPD life cycle better as they begin to understand each other at a deeper level.

Next, everyone is not equal at all times on every project. Successful innovation teams capitalize on different skills at various points in the NPD process. Creators are great at brainstorming ideas, advancers can sell the concept to executives and customers, refiners analyze and organize relevant processes, and executors design and build the new product. Each unique team member contributes to the project based on his or her experiences in life lessons. The Team Dimensions Profile helps the team recognize how each person can excel and help each other during the different stages of the product development life cycle.

Finally, people can change and want to grow and learn. A fixed mindset will doom any innovation project to failure. Instead, adopting a growth mindset and teaching the team about trust, conflict, and accountability will build cohesiveness, yielding tangible financial results.

Learn more

Act now to improve the effectiveness of your cross-functional innovation teams. Space is limited in our complimentary Q&A webinars on Building Effective Cross-Functional NPD Teams. Part 1 is 31 July at 12:00 noon CDT covering Steps 1 and 2 in the process: team member self-awareness and managing team behaviors. Part 2 is 28 August at 12:00 noon CDT covering Steps 3 through 5 in the process: team processes, team charters, and virtual teams. You will be automatically registered for Part 2 when you register for Part 1. Anyone who attends the Q&A webinar will have access to your choice of work style assessment (DiSC, Five Behaviors, or Team Dimensions).

Learn firsthand how applying a growth mindset can improve cross-functional NPD team effectiveness. REGISTER NOW – spaces are filling fast!

Building Innovation Leadership

This was first published on the blog at www.GlobalNPSolutions.com. 56

Epic Innovation Failures and What to Do Differently (Part 2)

Posted on 07.04.19

Last week in the blog, we talked about some epic failures. Nokia, Sears, and Google all demonstrated huge failures by failing to recognize the competition and failing to understand customer needs. This week we’re going to talk about what to do differently and how to learn from these epic failures.

What to Do Differently

Hindsight is blessed with data and analysis, but as innovators we need to ask what can be done differently. At the key decision points in product development what could Nokia, Sears, or Google have done differently? These companies failed to innovate, and it cost them business. In the case of Sears, the cost has spread to employees losing their jobs and impacting growth in other arenas.

#1 – Don’t Underestimate Changing Trends

Nokia, Sears, and Google+ experienced epic failures because they failed to recognize changing consumer tastes. Moreover, these companies made a classic error of investing in sustaining innovations. Disruptive innovation serves customers with new business models, not just new technology. The iPhone offered conveniences in data transfer, no matter how clunky or slow, that Nokia devices did not.

#2 – Scale of Operations Does Not Translate to Innovation Success

Sears had huge investments in department stores across the country. The back-office operations were hefty in order to manage product purchases and distribution across nearly every household category. On top of that, Sears’ own brands, like Craftsman, required intensive management.

Sometimes, the scale of operations can add cost benefits. If a factory can increase throughput, then the variable cost per unit declines and profits increase. However, innovation suffers when the scale of operations becomes unfocused and the strategy moves to serving everyone all the time. This is the core reason that sustaining innovations slowly drive a business into demise. Focus is a key ingredient for long term innovation success. Focus is something that Sears had lost along the way.

#3 – Market Timing is Important

AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) still emerging, and we don’t yet know how markets and consumers will use these technologies. Lowe’s has had some success to help do-it-yourselfers with AR. Google Glass was probably launched too early in the product life cycle, while Google+ was launched too late to be competitive. Market timing means having deep customer insights and understanding the competition. Innovation depends on understanding technologies, products, customers, and the global marketplace. These skills require that a company look outside-in rather than inside out. Before launching a radical new product, like Google Glass, testing of features, attributes, and end-user acceptance need to be completed in a thorough fashion. Market research data is far less expensive than a failed product launch!

Epic Failures and what to Do Differently

Last week we looked at some major product and brand failures. But failures are only useful to study if we learn from them and then approach future projects with new knowledge. To prevent epic failures and take advantage of the benefits of disruptive innovation, companies need to do three things well.

Understand market needs and consumer trends.
Focus on what you do well and don’t scale outside your focus area.
Time product launches based on customer needs rather than technology availability.

How to Innovate Differently

Knowing what to do and knowing how to do it are two very different skills. You know the stories of epic failures and now you need to implement innovation best practices. Join me for the July online New Product Development Best Practices Training and our August Innovation Master Mind Q&A webinar. Best practices training teaches you how to innovate effectively and the Innovation Master Mind makes you accountable for long-term innovation success. For more information please contact me at info at Simple-PDH.com.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple. �Y�s”

Epic Innovation Failures and What to Do Differently (Part 1)

Posted on 06.27.19

2019 marks the 30th anniversary of “New Coke”

The Apple Newton. BlackBerry. Segway. Blockbuster. New Coke. And the list goes on. We are all familiar with the legendary failures of these brands and products. Yet, the path to a successful, commercial product is littered with failures. We even encouraged fast failure as a way to learn from the rapid prototyping of minimally viable products.

What’s even worse than having a failed product is not learning from the failure. Innovation is about smart failures and establishing a technical and market database that builds knowledge and customer insights. Failures point us in the right direction to design better products and services to meet customer needs. But along the journey, we need to learn from those mistakes and errors.

Epic Failure #1

Nokia was a household name. The Finnish company was first-to-market in developing a cellular network; and through the early 2000s, Nokia was a leading supplier of mobile phone devices. What Nokia failed to recognize was that data transfer was becoming the primary utility of mobile phones, and not voice communications. Partly because of the company’s size and entrenched strategy to serve existing customers, Nokia continued to focus on hardware, eventually losing out to Apple’s iPhone.

Epic Failure #2

Sears had a long and rich history in the United States. In a way, Sears was the Amazon of its day. The Sears catalog was a mainstay in any home. You could order anything from Sears: a car, furniture, farm equipment, and of course, clothing and shoes.

Sears managed the transition to local retail, and many shopping malls were anchored by a Sears department store. Americans purchased washing machines, curtains, and hand tools to fill their homes. Yet today, Sears department stores stand empty and shopping mall owners are actively seeking tenants to fill the large, looming empty spaces.

What happened? Like Nokia, Sears management failed to recognize changes in market trends in customer needs. In particular, Sears failed to respond to the threat of low-cost retailers, like Walmart. Add to that, a failure to keep up with customer trends, and we see hundreds of Sears stores closing across the country.

Epic Failure #3

The behemoth tech company, Google, seems to control every element of our internet experiences from search to email and document storage. Google also has a reputation for testing innovations and pulling products from the market that are unsuccessful.

Google+ was an attempt to pull social media (and advertising dollars) to the platform. Yet, Google+ had few subscribers and paled in numbers compared to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Meanwhile, in 2015, the company launched Google Glass, a venture into hardware providing augmented reality (AR). The devices were expensive, and consumers immediately questioned the privacy of users and those around them that wore the glasses.

We can learn from Google to pull failed products from the marketplace. There is no use throwing more money at Google+ or Google Glass when the market dated does not support product adoption or growth. Yet, Google also made the same errors as Nokia and Sears in assuming they knew what customers wanted and that the competition was of no concern.

What’s Next?

Nokia, Sears, and Google have all had very public failures. Management within these companies thought they had made sound decisions based on existing customer data and assessments of technology. Yet, all three companies left out critical information in their decision-making processes. Innovation requires we focus on the customer and market trends, understanding competition, and scale of operations to time the markets for new product profitability.

Prevent innovation failures by learning innovation best practices and completing your Innovation Health Assessment.

Next week, will wrap up this two-part blog series with a look at How to Do Things Differently so you don’t fall into the same innovation traps as Nokia, Sears, and Google. In the meantime, to prevent epic failures with your own innovations, you should register for Innovation Best Practices training in July. This course teaches you how to avoid product and brads failures by focusing on innovation strategy, customer insights, and successful implementation practices. Register for the July online training here.

Last chance: If you complete all the questions in the Innovation Health Assessment survey by 30 June 2019 and enter code “Blog 19”, you will be entered to win a $15 Starbucks gift card through a random drawing. Instructions for to register your data and to complete the Innovation Health Assessment are here.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

This was first published on the blog at www.Simple-PDH.com.

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Establishing an Innovation Baseline

Posted on 06.20.19

A few months ago, I changed my cats’ food to only hairball formula. One of my cats tends to get really excited when the food comes out, eats too much, and makes a mess. He also has a tendency to eat things that are not food (like ribbon, yarn, and dental floss) and the hairball formula apparently helps him to digest the organic, non-food items.

When I took my furry friends to the veterinarian for their annual checkup and shots, she weighed them. I periodically weigh my cats, too, so I expected the number she reported. But what I had not expected was her level of concern. They had both last 1-2 lbs. over a one-year timeframe.

My vet gave two conclusions that needed further testing. One was that since they were eating only hairball food, their weight loss could be attributed to the higher fiber content. I guess just like humans, if felines eat more fiber, there not as hungry for treats and snacks. The other alternative she gave was that thyroid conditions – especially at their age – could cause weight loss. Therefore, she ordered a thyroid level test for both cats.

Establishing a Baseline

In all science and engineering, we want to establish a baseline. When we understand the average, current performance, then we can design an improvement plan. The veterinarian had looked at one baseline – cat weight one year ago – and compared it to the current state. Out of a degree of caution, she ordered the thyroid test to establish a baseline in a new measure of their health.

Innovation success depends on knowing where you are today and where you want to be in the future. Innovation, like any science or engineering problem, requires establishing a baseline to design an improvement plan. Or, as in the case of the thyroid test for my cats, the measurement determines if a problem really exists.

Measuring the Innovation Baseline

You can measure the health of your innovation ecosystem with the Innovation Health Assessment. There are two purposes in completing the Innovation Health Assessment for your organization. First, the results establish a baseline for the maturity of your new product development practices. Everyone who completes the innovation health assessment will receive a customized Innovation Health Assessment Report comparing your innovation ecosystem to other organizations in the industry. Thus, a second outcome of completing a health assessment is to benchmark against others, both average and top-tier organizations.

You can complete the Innovation Health Assessment here. We do ask that you register at www.Simple-PDH.com so that we can monitor the database integrity. Rest assured that your information will be kept private, and your name and email will never be given to a third party. Register here – check out the video below for instructions on how to register and answer the survey questions in the Innovation Health Assessment. And unlike the thyroid test (which was very expensive), the innovation health assessment is free to you.

What’s Next?

You need to have a baseline of the current state to understand the health of your system. The cats’ thyroid tests came back in the normally expected range and they seem pretty happy eating the healthier hairball food. Importantly, the thyroid test results provide a specific baseline for these two felines who might be of the general cat species but are definitely two unique bodies.

Likewise, completing the Innovation Health Assessment allows your firm to establish a benchmark for your innovation ecosystem as compared to a cross industry average. Moreover, the Innovation Health Assessment Report provides results specific to your innovation program and new product development teams, lending insight for any appropriate enhancements.

Bonus: If you complete all the questions in the Innovation Health Assessment survey by 30 June 2019 and enter code “Blog 19”, you will be entered to win a $15 Starbucks gift card through a random drawing. If you have questions about the health of your innovation system or want to learn more about New Product Development Best Practices, join me on Thursdays in July for more in-depth knowledge transfer. Please email me for more information at info at Simple-PDH.com

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

How is Your Innovation Health?

Posted on 06.10.19

Recently, a family friend underwent a total hip replacement surgery – at the age of 87! He said he had no pain, but his mobility was becoming severely limited. My friend said he was a “very healthy 87” and after just a few weeks, he is again walking and driving with no apparent restrictions.

What does healthy mean? To my family’s friend, healthy meant mobility since that equated to staying in his home without intrusive care. To me, healthy means I can participate in 5K runs, ride my bicycle as far and as long as I desire, and that I maintain the same weight I was in college. (Thank goodness I don’t wear all the same clothes though!)

Innovation Health

A healthy innovation system is one that produces repeatable new products and services, delivers continuous profitability, and maintains a competitive advantage for the firm. That’s a great list, but it’s not measurable.

Global NP Solutions has designed the Innovation Health Assessment benchmarking tool. By using the short survey, you can quickly assess the strength of your innovation system on seven key measures. These include strategy, portfolio management, processes, life cycle, teams and leadership, tools and metrics, and customer insights.

What is Your Innovation Health?

You can benchmark your organization’s innovation health at https://simple-pdh.com/courses/innovation-health-assessment/. Registering at Simple-PDH.com will allow you to receive a customized copy of your Innovation Health Assessment, delivered to your inbox within 24-48 hours. We ask you to register as a user to participate in this unique benchmarking survey so we can preserve data integrity and continue to build our large database. Contact me at area code 281 phone 280-8717 or info@globalnpsolutions.com for any questions. We build innovation leaders!

Building Innovation Leaders

This was first published on the blog at www.GlobalNPSolutions.com.

Product Development Fundamentals

Posted on 06.06.19

New product development (NPD) is a set of processes and systems that convert ideas into saleable products and services. Successful NPD means that those processes are simple, repeatable, and lead to profit. Nearly every organization – big or small – creates new products and services in order to stay competitive. But, to win the competition, the business must be successful at continuous NPD. As Peter Drucker said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

Simple

NPD processes and systems must be simple to lead to repetitive success in innovation. As an engineer, I appreciate simplicity. The most elegant systems that humans have ever created are truly the least complicated. And as an engineer, I know that when a system breaks down, it is much quicker and easier to troubleshoot a simple system then a complex one.

Simple NPD processes include traditional staged-and-gated systems as well as emerging agile processes, like Scrum. A typical staged-and-gated system for innovation requires the NPD team to lay out goals and action plans for the next stage of work. A set of gatekeepers, will approve the course of work along with an appropriate budget and by assigning adequate resources. In this way, each stage of work is evaluated for risk and the gate reviews ensure progress on the project as the new product moves from idea to concept to prototype and, finally, to commercialization.

Scrum processes are also simple systems to develop new products. In this case, flexibility in design is valued and product specifications are varied to ensure customer satisfaction. Risk is managed via frequent customer feedback, and prototypes are created in parallel while the NPD team scopes the remainder of the project.

Repeatable

Regardless of whether an organization chooses to follow traditional staged-and-gated NPD systems or more flexible Scrum project management frameworks, innovation processes must be repeatable. Processes should repeatedly eliminate poor concepts early and rapidly advance the most promising ideas. Project advancement decisions are made on a consistent and predictable basis. As a result of repeatable innovation, investment in design and marketing is steady while new products grow in contribution to the overall product portfolio.

Profitability

I recently heard someone say that if you’re not making sales, you are just playing with a hobby. New product development must lead to business profits or the business will suffer. Of course, there is an expected time period in which the investment in design and development will exceed sales, but at some point, every successful product or service turns a profit.

As a kid, I really loved doing plastic canvas needlepoint. I made all kinds of cool items from coasters to tissue box covers and tic-tac-toe games. During the course of a summer, I completely saturated my mom, sisters, and grandmothers with my clever crafts. So, I put the rest up for sale at the shop of a family friend. After Christmas, half of my “wonderful” products came back to me. I made a teensy, tiny profit and learned the difference between a hobby and a business.

Fundamentals of Product Development

New product development requires three facets to be successful: simple processes, repeatable systems, and profitable endeavors. Without these three fundamentals an idea might be converted into a reality but not a commercial, saleable product.

To learn more about product development fundamentals, join our easy online course at www.simple-pdh.com. Learning about Product Development Fundamentals is the first step in your journey to becoming an innovation leader. Contact me for more information!

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple. r

How Does Capital Impact Innovation?

Posted on 05.30.19

I am usually an optimistic person and I truly believe everything will work out okay in the end. Deadlines are always met, even if the team leader has to exert herculean effort. What we worry about today rarely matters in a year’s time.

Yet, I have to admit that I’m often pessimistic when I hear that the economy is different. To me, economic forces (without government intervention) are natural laws, just as are physical laws and the rules of thermodynamics. People “in-the-know” are telling us that the economy is different now, though, so let’s look at how that impacts innovation.

Loose Capital

Interest rates remain very low, so capital is easy to come by. What’s puzzling – and perhaps different – is that many large corporations are choosing to spend their capital on stock buybacks instead of investing in future growth.

From an innovation standpoint, these companies are signaling that they don’t have any good ideas. That is a really troubling thought. But I bet if the executives at these firms asked their R&D, operations, and marketing folks for ideas, they would learn about some great investment opportunities in new product development.

Production vs. Development

When capital is tight, companies focus – as they should – on productivity and efficiency. Investments during economic downturns keep the factories running and will improve bottom-line growth on their income statements.

Yet, it’s not bottom-line growth that gives a company longevity. Top-line growth – which means finding new sources of revenue – is what sustains a firm through both good and bad times. Investing in new product development (NPD) on a disciplined basis allows a firm to access top-line growth and to sustain a business over the long term.

Learning

At the heart of the matter, innovation is about learning: learning customer needs, learning new technologies, learning about relationships. Many executives forego innovation projects, especially in economic downturns, that are inherently risky. Yet, risk and failure support learning.

In a period of loose capital, investments in learning and innovation are tremendously valuable. Many studies have shown that firms with continuous R&D outperform their competitors. Moreover, companies that work on next generation products during an economic downturn are the best positioned for success when the stock markets recover. An investment in innovation will create an environment of long-term learning that contributes to top line growth period

Capital Investment for Innovation

As firms plan for a predicted, cyclical downturn in the next few years, senior leaders should consider their approach to capital investment in R&D. Stock buybacks signal you have run out of ideas for new products and services. Instead of propping up the stock price by shrinking the number of shares, invest in innovation to grow revenues. New customers in new markets create new opportunities. Your stakeholders will embrace the learning and growth that arises from innovative thinking!

Are you struggling with innovation investment decisions? Call me now at area code 281 phone 280-8717 to schedule a free, 30-minute innovation coaching session through Gold Level Leadership Coaching program. Chief Innovation Officers (CIO) and New Product Development Professionals (NPDP) can learn strategic innovation practices in the Innovation Master Mind (IMM) group. Click here to register for the next innovation Q&A webinar and Join the IMM Now!

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Design Thinking Tools

Posted on 05.16.19

Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting to the South Texas Section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (STS AIChE) for the professional development hour. I love to help people learn how to solve problems more creatively, so we discussed and practiced several different design thinking tools for innovation. My thanks to Babak Rafienia (pictured here with me) for his high-level organizational skills, despite torrential rains and flooding in Houston on the night of the event.

Design Thinking Model

Design thinking is a collaborative and creative problem-solving methodology that helps individuals and teams find the best solutions by focusing on customer empathy. The model is simple – two steps – identify the problem and solve the problem.

However, we do iterate between a Discovery Stage and Define Stage to correctly identify the problem, and we cycle between creating multiple solution alternatives and evaluating them in the solving phase. No new product development (NPD) team should ever go to the lab without clarifying a customer’s problem. It is fun to invent new things, yet unless there is a market need for the technical solution, developers are just playing.

Discovery

In the discovery stage we use tools like a customer journey map and a customer empathy map. These design thinking tools help us to understand how consumers know that they have a problem, what they think and feel about the problem, and how they identify product and service solutions. The customer journey map also involves following end-users past the point of purchase to understand how they feel about the product during use and at the end of its life cycle.

Define

The define stage of design thinking clarifies the customer’s needs into a simple statement. At the STS AIChE meeting, we practiced defining problems using noun/verb matching. This tool increases collaboration and also encourages creative solutions. It’s important to differentiate between complaints and problem statements. You may never make a whiner happy, but you can design product solutions that address clear and simple problem statements.

Create

A fun and useful design thinking activity for an NPD team is to collect the problem statements from the define phase and categorize them using a mind map or affinity diagram. In our practice exercise at STS AIChE, we used the example of disrupting airline travel by employing a variety of design thinking tools, including customer journey maps and noun/verb matching. Our affinity diagram showed some key categories of improving the waiting areas before boarding a flight and enhancing seating on the airplane itself. The next step (Evaluate Phase) would be to generate and test simple prototypes of say, larger and lighter standing seats (one idea from our session).

Design Thinking Tools

You can use design thinking tools to address a lot of different situations and problems. The benefit of design thinking tools is that they are fast and easy to use, they build collaboration, and enhance creativity. You focus on the end-user’s needs from a qualitative perspective ensuring that you build empathy for the customer.

Act now

Our discount rate for Life Design Master Mind ends on 17 May 2019. In Life Design Master Mind, you will learn how to apply design thinking tools to your own situation – whether that is growing the skills of your NPD team or to making a decision to go back to school or change jobs. Give me a call at area code 281 phone 280-8717 if you want to review the Life Design Master Mind Q&A webinar recording from April. Sign up here for Life Design Master Mind 17 May 2019 to get the upfront discount!

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple. deused1 \lsdlo