Blog

Innovation Efficiency

Posted on 02.05.21

Our society values efficiency. We use drive-through banking and automatic light switches to save time and energy. Operations managers measure task efficiency to increase production with reduced labor and materials inputs.

But how does “efficiency” impact innovation? Is efficiency a positive metric that drives customer satisfaction? Or does “efficiency” de-humanize the work of product development?

What is Innovation?

First, let’s take a step back and define “innovation”. Innovation is a new way of doing things that results in profit for a firm and increased utility for a customer. Innovations come from the application of new technologies yet are also derived from new combinations of existing products and services. We call the latter case business model innovation.

An innovation may deliver a new technology to an existing market or it may introduce an existing technology to a new market. As product development professionals, we seek to balance risk of technologies and markets with the needs of our customers, the opportunity for profit, and growth. Typically, we measure the success of a product innovation through sales volumes, market share, and financial return.

What is Efficiency in Innovation?

We can define efficiency as how much output we get per unit of input. Waste is the opposite of efficiency ‑ what gets scrapped cannot serve to increase customer satisfaction, sales, or profits. The biggest waste we have in innovation is wasted knowledge. Some examples of wasted knowledge are:

Lack of technology transfer,
Too many meetings,
Project handoffs,
Poor definition of product requirements,
Lack of cross functional communication, and
Chaotic work environments.

In classical industrial engineering studies, efficiency is measured by “stopwatch studies”. Sometimes, people are asked to record the percentage of time they spend on a task. Certainly, for assembly line work, such time studies can be valuable to increase factory throughput, improve production rates, and identify opportunities for automation. However, in a creative process (like innovation) how can we measure task time or efficiency? I recommend the post-launch review and burndown charts.

Post-Launch Reviews (PLR)

Post-launch reviews should be (though often are not) conducted as a new product is commercialized. The PLR-1 addresses team activities, templates, and procedures. If you are using a staged-and-gated new product development (NPD) process, the PLR-1 is the opportunity to record how much time was spent on each stage and how many resources were used for tasks within those stages. Then, the next time you do a similar project (e.g. add a feature, extend the market), you can get a better estimate of both the time and cost of the innovation effort.

While this is not a perfect textbook definition of “efficiency”, it addresses our greatest concern of wasting knowledge. If the discovery stage is taking twice as long as similar projects have in the past, what might be the bottleneck? Check on issues like customer feedback, team member workload, and quality expectations.

Read more about post-launch reviews here.

Burndown Chart

The burndown chart is a tool from the world of Scrum and Agile. Instead of estimating how far the project needs to go to completion, the burndown chart documents how much is left to do.

One of the disadvantages of Agile systems in new product development is the definition of “done”. When we couple Agile processes with traditional staged-and-gated systems in WAGILE, we are disciplined to define both the product and task completion. Burndown charts are essential to making progress on a WAGILE project without getting bogged down and “gold-plating” the product.

The burndown chart shows how many individual tasks must be completed prior to the next gate review or product commercialization. As tasks are completed, the chart reflects fewer tasks to do in the future. Using our time estimate from historical projects (the PLR), we can estimate a piece of work – or efficiency – to design a new product innovation. Interestingly, teams respond positively to countdown of tasks over consumption of budget which “counts up”.

Innovation Efficiency

It’s always a bit tricky to discuss efficiency in the realms of knowledge work and creativity. Yet even the greatest authors and painters set a standard of number of words to write or hours to hold the brush. Efficiency includes dedication to our craft and is measured by a lack of waste – wasted knowledge and wasted time.

An Invitation

Join me in other innovation professionals at the Creative Cafe on Friday, 5 February 2021, at 10:00 am CST. It’s a free and open form to talk about all things innovation. We meet about every other week so join as you are able! Last time our topic was “Setting Achievable Goals” – one metric for efficiency! This week our general theme is “Are You Creative” remembering that creativity requires discipline. Get the free Zoom link here.

You can also catch a discussion of creativity, design thinking, and innovation at the Houston ATD general meeting on Tuesday, 9 February 2021 at 11:30 am. REGISTER HERE.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

About Me

I am inspired by writing, teaching, and coaching. I tackle life with an infusion of rigor, zeal, and faith. It brings me joy to help you build innovation leaders. Teresa Jurgens-Kowal is an experienced innovation professional with a passion for lifelong learning with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Computer and Information Decision Making. My credentials include PE (State of Louisiana), NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM, and I am a DiSC® certified facilitator. Contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or area code 281 + phone 787-3979 for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

What is WAGILE?

Posted on 01.28.21

WAGILE is an emerging approach to product innovation. You might ask, “Why do we need yet another, new approach to managing product development?” The answer is that every system has advantages and that over time, we can recognize process improvements. A secondary answer is more data-based. Studies indicate that revamping and revitalizing your new product development (NPD) process can not only enhance participation but yield improved results, such as creative solutions, time-to-market, and profitability.

Traditional NPD Processes

Organizations implement NPD processes to manage risk. Risk in innovation is more loosely defined than in traditional project management. Innovation professionals encounter risk from two perspectives: understanding the product or project requirements and developing the required technology. These are identified as “requirements uncertainty” and “technical uncertainty” in the figure.

A traditional NPD process, such as the staged-and-gated process, is designed primarily to manage investment risk. Each stage of work involves more resources but as the project advances through the various stages, technical risks are addressed. Each subsequent stage of work encounters less uncertainty. In this way, financial risk is minimized because there is little investment for small-scale experiments during initial stages and as more knowledge is gained, the investments will grow but with reduced uncertainty in the outcomes. Sometimes these processes are called “waterfall” since each step flows to the next; however, there is no easy way to go “backward” in the system.

To counter the bureaucracy that many large companies incorporate alongside traditional NPD processes, the Agile methodology intentionally leaves the overall requirements uncertain. Theoretically, the customer provides feedback after each incremental development step (called a “sprint”) so that the requirements uncertainty is reduced. A drawback of Agile is that real customers are often not included in the process. Further, it is difficult to determine when a project is “done” in terms of meeting market requirements.

What is WAGILE?

WAGILE is a hybrid process that blends the best of the traditional waterfall systems with Agile philosophy (“W” + “Agile”). The rigor of a staged-and-gated project management approach is coupled with required customer feedback in each phase. Incremental and iterative work within a stage allows innovation teams to adequately address design and development needs. Yet repeating a phase of work is done only when necessary. The WAGILE philosophy incorporates key ideas from these innovation approaches.

Move fast
Practice discipline
Understand risks
Engage customers
Provide autonomy

You can read more about the WAGILE Philosophy here.

WAGILE Roles

Roles and responsibilities are defined clearly for Agile processes, such as Scrum, as well as in traditional project management. Many of these roles are similar to those utilized in WAGILE. Some key roles and responsibilities for WAGILE are described below. You can read more about the WAGILE Roles here.

Project Leader: Somewhat like a traditional brand manager, the Project Leader in WAGILE is responsible for the overall product life cycle and drives product innovation.
Customer Representative: In Scrum, the product owner represents the voice of the customer. In WAGILE, the Customer Representative carries out this responsibility and helps to translate or articulate customer needs for the innovation team.
Team Leader: In many ways, the team leader in WAGILE is similar to a traditional project manager with tactical and operational responsibility for the execution of the project. Team leaders are servant leaders yet maintain autonomy for project decisions within the scope of the project.
Cross-Functional Team: Like all new product development teams, successful innovation under a WAGILE approach requires participation from all relevant departments and functions. Team members are generalist-specialists, as in an Agile approach and the core team maintains continuity throughout the project effort.

Some WAGILE Tools

WAGILE tools are based primarily on Design Thinking to incorporate customer feedback at each stage of development. Each individual WAGILE project will use several complementary tools to complete the work of a given phase. Depending on the scale, scope, and breadth of the innovation work, several tools are used at multiple points during development. A fundamental decision point in selecting feedback techniques is to use the data gathering, testing, and experimentation tools that provide the highest density of customer information. Read more about WAGILE Tools here – a list of some of my favorite tools follows.

Customer empathy map
Customer journey map
Affinity diagrams
Product Portfolio Management
Scrum board
Business model canvas
Paper prototypes

Benefits of WAGILE

Again, you might be asking, “Why do I need a new system to manage product development?” Often the NPD process becomes stale and the links to customer feedback become broken. You need WAGILE if you find your innovation teams bogged down in idea generation stages or if recent product launches are met with “ho-hum” market responses. The biggest benefit of WAGILE is that it is a flexible, risk-based process to get new products into competitive markets. We measure success of product innovation in WAGILE via market success: customer satisfaction, market share, and profitability.

What’s Next?

If you’d like to learn more about WAGILE, please join our WAGILE class on 18 and 19 February. We will dig deeper into each of these concepts. Your homework during the course allows you to begin transitioning to a more flexible and adaptable approach to innovation within the governance of a risk-adjusted process. For personalized problem-solving or customized training, contact me at info@globalnpsolutions.com for innovation consulting.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

About Me

Unless otherwise indicated, images used under Creative Commons.

What Word Will Describe 2021?

Posted on 01.07.21

I think we can all agree – with a giant sigh of relief – that 2020 is behind us. Yet, to succeed with personal and professional growth, we must look ahead. What will 2021 bring for you?

While I believe that some world events and forces engulf us in ever-growing avalanches of events, we do have much control over our everyday lives. We make choices – to keep or change jobs, to invest in new technology or to adapt existing systems. The selections we choose help us to achieve our goals.

Each year, I choose a single word to help me guide my decisions and choices throughout the year. I ponder my word of the year on a daily basis and I consider my short-term and long-range goals in light of my word of the year.

Outreach

For 2019, I chose the word outreach as my word of the year. I spent a lot of time developing new relationships and making the effort to rekindle old relationships. Reaching out to others was my mantra for the year – how could I help my family, friends, and clients?

I used the word outreach to guide decisions for my business and to increase my network of professional colleagues. Each day I considered how I could reach out to others and help them increase their success in innovation and management?

Economical

In December of 2019, I chose the word economical for my word of the year in 2020. As I described in another post here, I never imagined that “economical” would mean searching for toilet paper at the supermarket. As 2020 dawned, I wanted to optimize (economize) my use of all resources.

In the end, the word economical served me well in 2020. I optimized both business and personal relationships, streamlined processes and systems, and added new time management programs to my daily routine.

In my personal life, my husband and I temporarily moved to an apartment much smaller than our house, so I have learned to economize space as well. (Though, the local Goodwill employees started frowning when I showed up – I guess they didn’t want to sort through another hundred items of my barely-worn shirts and skirts…)

Willingness

So that brings us to 2021. I learned a lot about myself in 2020 with the relocation in the middle of a government lockdown causing shortages at the supermarket. Economizing was important. But I also learned that I needed to be patient, flexible, and continue to optimize my time. Thus, my word of the year for 2021 is willingness.

Willingness will help me focus on goals and objectives. This year, my business goals include expansion of course offerings – check out my 1Q 2021 classes here. I also want to continue growing my network and helping others connect. These goals lead to the initiation of the Creative Cafe.

Creative Cafe

In the Creative Cafe, we can share ideas on innovation, leadership, and engineering management while growing our networks. We’ll meet about every two weeks for an hour for a completely open discussion. Our first introductory session of the Creative Cafe is Friday, 8 January 2021 at 10:00 AM CST. Here’s the Zoom link. Join the fast-paced hour-long conversation at no cost.

What is Your Word for 2021?

Share your word for 2021 in the comments and come to the Creative Cafe on Friday, 8 January to share your word. My goal is to go above and beyond your expectations this year – willingness!

See you soon!

To define yourself as a transformative innovation leader, you need to sustain continuing education. Innovation is learning! For more information on open courses and customized learning for innovation best practices, please contact me at info@simple-pdh.com or area code 281, phone 787-3979.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

About Me

Selecting Innovation Team Members

Posted on 01.05.21

As engineering, project, and product managers, we often struggle with identifying the right people for innovation teams. Of course, there is a need to match skill sets with the required deliverables of the project. There is also a need to match the organizational structure with the level risk acceptance for radical innovation.

Safi Bahcall presented an interesting theory on organizational structure for innovation (Harvard Business Review, Mar/Apr 2019). He argues that organizational risk tolerance for radical innovation is a direct function of project skill fit relative to return on politics. Let’s look at these variables a bit more.

Project Skill Fit

All innovation team members have choices to make on how they will spend their time. Should they invest in design and experimentation or should they invest time in promoting the idea to an influential manager? When the technical investment pays off the most, the team members will spend their time working out new technologies.

To increase innovativeness in an organization, you must accept some risks and encourage innovation teams to learn. Learning comes through experimentation. High project skill fit occurs when employees are stretched to learn – but not stretched too far and not too little. If a staff member feels his skills are not good enough to technically support the project, he will spend his time “politicking”. When team members are more vested in building their personal reputations with bosses, the risk tolerance for the organization drops precipitously.

Return on Politics

Another factor that drives radical innovation is the span of management control. If there are lots of levels for advancement and salary increases are significant for each promotion, an employee will spend her time on self-promoting politics. A big raise is valued more by individuals than generating project outcomes in this case.

Flattening the organizational hierarchy helps to reduce the “return on politics”. Moreover, as Bahcall notes in his HBR paper, decreasing the hierarchy of an organization increases the opportunities for collaboration across functions. Multi-disciplinary teams have the highest rates of success with innovative product development.

Overcoming Organizational Barriers to Innovation

To overcome structural barriers to innovation, organizations must encourage reasonable risk-taking and experimentation. Organizational reward systems, including non-financial recognition, can encourage team members to focus more on project outcomes than politics. Consider rewarding innovation team members with opportunities to present their research to senior management or peers at international conferences. (Incidentally, I have presented at several different conferences in the past year with the virtual environment expanding our opportunities for presentations. Check out my speaking page here – I’d love to present to your group.)

Another way to overcome structural barriers in organizations is to provide training. Training has multiple benefits for innovation teams. First, training creates opportunities to enhance cross-industry knowledge so team members generate more ideas. Next, people want to practice what they’ve learned; thus, increasing the focus on project outcomes over politics. Finally, training helps keep staff sharp with their technical skills.

How Do You Select Innovation Team Members?

One key conclusion from Bahcall’s work is that innovation team member selection cannot be “gut feel”. He recommends neutral assessments by third parties to identify project skill fit, for instance. A great tool that can be used for identifying project skill fit is the Team Dimensions assessment. Team Dimensions can help you identify skill matches between jobs and project personnel. You can read about Team Dimensions here and listen to my podcast interview on Team Dimensions here. Feel free to contact me at info@Simple-PDH.com and we can develop a plan for your team to use this versatile assessment.

Next Steps

After you complete an assessment of team members and encourage an emphasis on project outcomes over company politics, you will want to continue developing your teams for effective innovation. One place to start is New Product Development (NPD) Fundamentals. Join me for one or all four short courses to establish innovation best practices in your organization. Learn more and register here. We are offering NPD Fundamentals at a bargain basement price because we are passionate that innovation gets a great start in 2021!

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

Defining Innovation Leadership

Posted on 12.17.20

Innovation is inherently risky. Yet, the old adage “innovate or die” requires leaders to continually invest in new product development (NPD). Success depends on rigorous processes, committed resources, and confident leadership. Transformative innovation programs include a clear vision for today and for the future. Innovation leaders guide and govern an ecosystem for NPD success.

The Innovation Framework

At the heart of innovation is strategy. An organization needs to clearly and succinctly describe its vision, mission, and values. The strategy of a firm drives its decision-making processes based on risk tolerance and a chosen business model.

Executing an innovation strategy with efficiency builds short-term and long-term success. Product portfolio management (PPM) comprises a set of executive decisions to select the highest value-added innovation projects for the organization to implement. (Please join our hands-on implementation of 100 Days to PPM in 2021 here – you will transform your innovation program! Use discount code goodbye 2020 before 20 December 2020 to save 20%.)

Hand-in-hand with project selection is the NPD process by which an individual project moves from idea to commercialization. A great number of project management tools are available today to streamline project execution in parallel with the innovation strategy. If your firm is not already using PPM software, you should resolve to find an appropriate system in the new year!

Of course, all products and services have a limited lifetime. Customer tasks and market forces change the demand curves for new products overtime. Product life cycle management matches innovation and marketing strategies with the maturity of a product. Innovation leaders are successful when their life cycle decisions align with the organization’s strategic direction.

Next, these critical elements of innovation are supported by both internal and external organizational functions. Teams and leadership are the people that do the work of innovation. The best leaders understand different working styles while engaging and motivating teams with autonomous project work. Check out a case study of success from the Team Dimensions profile in the podcast here.

NPD tools and metrics provide supporting frameworks to ensure implementation of best practices and continuous improvement. Successful innovation leaders adopt and adapt NPD tools from a variety of industries to enhance idea generation, customer interactions, and process improvement. The emerging WAGILE product development process is a way to integrate a hybrid NPD process with Design Thinking tools for active customer engagement. Register here for the February 2021 WAGILE short course.

Finally, market research directly links customer satisfaction in a feedback loop to the business strategy. Market research teaches an organization about customer needs, emotional drivers, and transient competitors. You must have both primary and secondary market research tools in place to gather customer insights for existing and new products.

Why You Need to Define Innovation Leadership

First, 60 to 80% of CEOs believe that innovation is crucial to the long-term growth of their business. Yet, key stakeholders have marginal opinions of the new products and services offered in the marketplace. About one-quarter of customers do not believe new products are innovative. Executives and senior leaders struggle with repeatable innovation that drives top line growth.

Defining innovation leadership is based on our Flagship Innovation Leader program that transforms individuals and organizations from struggling individual contributors to a high-performance innovation machine. Understanding and acting upon your organization’s innovation health will breathe new life into your NPD programs. Take the Innovation Health Assessment™ here and benchmark your performance with industry.

For anyone wanting to learn more about innovation best practices, please check out our full list of courses including NPDP Certification and Innovation Best Practices starting on 14 January. Please use discount code goodbye 2020 for a 20% discount on any single course at Simple-PDH.

Another important resource for you as you define innovation leadership is The Innovation ANSWER Book. This book has simplified the content from the PDMA Body of Knowledge so that you can use The Innovation ANSWER Book both as a study guide for NPDP certification and to guide practical industry implementation of innovation best practices. Get your copy at Amazon (paperback or Kindle).

What Are Your Plans for 2021?

About Me

I am inspired by writing, teaching, and coaching. I tackle life with an infusion of rigor, zeal, and faith. It brings me joy to help you build innovation leaders. Teresa Jurgens-Kowal is an experienced innovation professional with a passion for lifelong learning with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Computer and Information Decision Making. My credentials include PE (State of Louisiana), NPDP, PMP®, and CPEM, and I am a DiSC® certified facilitator. Contact me for more information on coaching for entrepreneurs and innovators.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

Lessons for Creative Leadership

Posted on 12.09.20

I love to travel. I enjoy seeing new places and trying different foods. It is fun for me to learn what is unique about a city or town. I also enjoy visiting familiar places – in Seattle, I have a favorite coffee shop and in Phoenix, I must go to a special place for tacos!

Travel incorporates the lessons of creative leadership. As innovation professionals we trial, test, and enjoy both the new and the familiar. The three common themes between travel and innovation are: vision, learning, and decision.

Vision

When you visit a new place, you see it differently than if it is familiar. You may notice that street names change every few blocks or that the city has a lot of billboards. When you are familiar with the town, these elements fade into the background.

As an innovation leader, you must envision your products and services with fresh eyes. Imagine that you have never considered buying your own product. Does the packaging strike you as interesting or is it boring? Does the product name describe what it does? Is the product unique or are there lots of competitors?

A drawback of working within one brand or category is that we become too familiar with our products and services. We need to see features and benefits as if we’ve never seen the product before. One way to get a fresh vision for your products and services is through a focus group or lead user group. Real customers provide the feedback that an internal new product development (NPD) team may miss.

Learning

And with vision comes learning. When I first visit a new place, I like to get a road map. I’m old fashioned and like to have a paper street map. It gives me the whole view of a town or city instead of turn-by-turn directions. I get a sense of what is to the north or east, as well as how far away different attractions are.

But as I walk around for a few hours (or days), I find that I don’t need the map anymore. I have learned where to turn and how long it takes to get somewhere.

Innovation leaders also focus on learning – not simply to transfer a vision into the boring and familiar. Yet, learning as a method of transforming customer needs into features and attributes brings satisfaction to consumers and profits to companies.

Learning, in innovation, is crucial. They say that whoever is not innovating is dying. A harsh statement. What it means is that successful leaders are constantly identifying needs and pain points while working to resolve them. It is easier and quicker to navigate without a street map – when the route is familiar. Our job, as innovation leaders, is to make product selection and use as quick and as easy as possible for our customers.

Decision

Vision and learning are important, yet without action you don’t go anywhere. I often daydream about where I want to go on vacation. I research places on the internet and buy travel books to learn about parks and attractions in a new area. But, until I buy an airline ticket, I have not committed to the travel. When I book my air travel, I demonstrate a decision to visit one place over another. Effective decisions are crucial for innovation leadership. One arena in which I see a lot of failure in NPD is a failure to make a decision. Many, low-value projects linger on the books. These projects consume valuable (and scarce) resources. Worst, ho-hum projects do not invigorate your customers or your team members.

The best way to make new product decisions is through portfolio management. Join me in 2021 for a special hands-on, interactive course to streamline your product innovation portfolio – 100 Days to PPM. You will learn to make the critically important decisions necessary to compete effectively. Join as an individual leader or bring your whole team!

The Traveling Innovator

Whether you love to travel (like me), or you’d rather be a hermit, innovation professionals must practice the three critical skills: vision, learning, and decision. With vision, you view a product or service from your customer’s perspective. You learn what is easy, or difficult, for consumers so you can improve new product designs. And, finally, you act by making prudent and efficient decisions with product portfolio management.

Don’t forget to register here for 100 Days to Effective Product Portfolio Management. Space is limited.

About Me

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

What Innovation Leaders Do Differently

Posted on 11.19.20

In a lot of ways, innovation is a mystery. It does not happen spontaneously, but it occurs in an instant. Innovation is not the work of a lone genius, but it requires independent hard work. It is not easy, but it is rewarding.

Because it is so hard to characterize, innovation is also hard to define. Is innovation just something new? Or is innovation only a new use for something old? Does innovation make life easier for some and bring profit to others? Can innovation happen on the micro-scale as well as in the macro-environment?

The answer is “Yes” – yes, to all these questions and more. Innovation is the art and science of creating a new product, service, or technology that brings value to both customer and provider. Innovation is leading greatness.

Leadership and Innovation

While companies often struggle with repeatable innovation success, I argue that success with innovation is bound by leadership. True leaders recognize and nurture the growth of innovation in their teams. Innovation leadership is more than funding R&D or designing a clever marketing program. Leadership in innovation requires an in-depth understanding of the organization’s culture, your customers, and even of yourself. There are four levels to building innovation leadership: learning, adopting, transforming, and sustaining.

Learning

A learning organization is one that recognizes the importance of long-term, sustained innovation. Yet, they don’t know how to get there. These organizations inherently appreciate that standing still and hoping for our “old normal” isn’t going to happen. But they don’t know what to change to take advantage of the next phase of economic growth.

Learning organizations focus on strategic development, opportunity identification, and market insights. Strategy integrates vision, mission, and values of the organization. Where do you want to go, how will you get there, and what are your common beliefs? Market insights mean you have an in-depth understanding of customers, trends, markets, and competition in your industry.

Adopting

Once you understand the market space and your unique approach to customer needs, then you – as an innovation leader – make decisions about projects and pathways to achieve goals. We all have more ideas than time, resources, and money. Adopting innovation leaders apply tools, like new product development (NPD) processes, to frame decisions for generating value. Great leaders are willing to accept calculated risk. Winning the war is more important than 100% success in every small battle. Failure in innovation is treated as learning and not as a time to blame or punish. (Note that NPD processes cover a wide range of frameworks and approaches. Read more in The Innovation ANSWER Book, Chapter 3.)

Transforming

Many organizations stop once they have systems and processes in place to manage product innovation projects. That’s okay but it’s not leadership. Innovation leaders seek to transform the organization to drive higher level creativity and more satisfaction with customers. Again, this is a decision-making process, but instead of focusing on each step in executing a project, transformative leaders aim to drive change in the culture and behaviors of team members. Open cultures that tolerate constrained risk and defined exploration tend to be more innovative. Train your teams in creative processes (like design thinking) and allow them freedom and autonomy to discover new and interesting relationships among customer needs, technologies, and market trends. (Join our virtual Design Thinking workshop here.)

Sustaining

One success is good. Two or three successes is great. Repeatable innovation success is terrific! The way to achieve fantastic results in satisfying customers with continued innovation is by sustaining learning and growth. Innovation leaders and teams need ongoing support and challenge for continued success.

Because product innovation is often an isolated role within companies, many innovation leaders use a master mind or other peer support group to challenge their growth and curiosity. Master mind groups allow innovation leaders to share with like-minded peers to speed learning for implementation success. Trust among members allow you to go beyond your own constraints and boundaries as you both give and receive help.

Innovation Leaders are Different

Operational managers and functional department heads are judged on hitting easily measurable targets, such as cost of production or number of widgets manufactured. Success of innovation leaders is not as clear cut and success is defined by strategic objectives and customer satisfaction. Thus, the goal posts are constantly moving.

However, innovation leaders can build success for themselves, their teams, and their organizations by creating a framework for long-term change. Innovation cultures learn from the opportunities presented to them, adopt industry best practices, and transform their organizations with defined decisions. Truly successful innovation leaders continue the journey by sustaining growth and learning to establish cultures and relationships that support creativity and freedom.

What is Your Level of Innovation Maturity?

Take the Innovation Health Assessment™ to identify your organization’s innovation maturity level. (Free registration here to maintain integrity of the database.) If you are a learning organization, what is your strategy? If you are an adopting organization, what are your decision-making processes? If you are a transforming organization, how can you further build teamwork and creative collaboration? If you are a sustaining organization, how do you give your innovation leader support?

One way to gain cross organization knowledge of product innovation is through the New Product Development Professional (NPDP) certification. Register here for our next course in January 2021.

About Me

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

This was first published on the blog at www.Simple-PDH.com. Follow me on Twitter @globalnpd.

Conversations for Innovation Leaders

Posted on 11.05.20

Over my career, I have been rewarded by many interesting conversations about innovation. These discussions have covered the full gamut of why, how, and what. I think, though, the most important question is who.

Why Do We Innovate?

The “why” of innovation is the easiest question of all. We need new products and services to compete in a global marketplace. Our customers demand new features and technologies. Manufacturing becomes more automated and offers new approaches to serving the needs of customers. Competition is accelerating.

We also pursue innovation because, as humans, we are curious. We want to find better ways to produce goods and services, and we want to improve the quality of the products we already offer. Curiosity and quality go hand-in-hand as we seek enhancements that will lower costs and increase benefits.

How Do We Innovate?

The question of how we innovate is a different discussion. Some people are deeply wedded to particular processes or frameworks. Especially for risk-averse organizations, the “how” of new product development (NPD) can become rigid and bureaucratic.

Innovation management suggests several frameworks. You can read about these in Chapter 3 of my book, The Innovation ANSWER Book (available at Amazon). Innovation approaches vary based on the complexity of a project, how much risk is acceptable from a technical standpoint, and the culture of the organization. Generally, we assess the innovation framework according to two variables: team structure throughout the project life cycle and the degree to which the scope of work is pre-planned.

Innovation Framework copyright Global NP Solutions, LLC

Serial innovation uses different teams and team members for each stage of the work with distinct hand-offs between stages. Integrated teams maintain common membership (of at least a core group) throughout the project. Traditional waterfall processes use upfront planning while agile project management approaches assume an evolving scope of work.

What to innovate?

With appropriate customer feedback and market research, we know what products to design and develop. Market research should include prioritization of customer needs and benefit analysis of all features. Sometimes it is best to launch a brand-new, full-featured product for a target market segment. Other times, we choose to commercialize minimally viable products (MVP) and then release next generation products over a subsequent time frame.

Who?

Really the “who” of innovation is twofold. First, we have the “for whom do we innovate” and next, we have the “who does innovation”. Each portion of the “who” of innovation complements the other.

Innovation and new product development are only successful when we are able to match a clearly identified market need with a product technology. Customers must know that they have a problem and that the given product offers the best solution. They must exchange less money to purchase the product than they value that particular solution. That is, the benefit (gain) a customer perceives of a product must be greater than the cost (or pain) of acquiring it.

We must know our customers. We learn what they need, how they feel, and why they behave in certain ways through market research. Every stage or phase of an NPD process (waterfall, agile, or Wagile) must incorporate direct customer feedback. Consumers and end-users yield the interactions and utility that NPD teams build into product design.

Of course, that brings us to the second “who”. The NPD teams and innovation leaders of an organization are crucial to successful product and service development. Innovation teams must have autonomy to practice their trade skills and to make decisions (within appropriate guardrails) on technology, market, and features. In Wagile (read more here), we emphasize that leaders practice discipline and understand risks, while teams engage customers and act freely within their areas of expertise, responsibility, and authority.

Innovation Conversations

Innovation is a dialogue – with your customers, with your teams, with the marketplace. All conversations involve the questions of why, how, what, and who. In NPD, the most important question is who. Always put your customer needs at the forefront and you will be successful with innovation.

Don’t Know How?

If you don’t know how to learn about customer needs or you don’t know how to approach a disruptive market transition (personal or professional), you need the Life Design Master Mind group. Join me on 11 November at 11:00 am CST (noon EST, 9:00 am PST) for a free Q&A webinar. The webinar is about one-hour and you’ll learn why Design Thinking is critical in the Innovation Conversation! Register here.

About Me

Wagile Leadership

Posted on 10.29.20

I became interested in leadership when I was first appointed to a supervisory position. My first exposure to leading a team was negative – from my perspective – but my management saw a different view. I thought that being a manager meant I was not smart enough to continue on the technical ladder. Little did I know that most technical answers are easy compared to motivating a team toward a common goal.

Innovation leadership takes many forms. In all cases, there must be a follower for a leader to exist. Leaders engender willing followers. We want to learn from others who have been successful. We want to take direction from someone who has demonstrated skill at problem-solving. We want to mimic the behaviors of inspiring people.

What is a Wagile Leader?

Before we discuss Wagile leadership, I want to take a quick detour to define Wagile. Wagile is a product innovation process to create and launch groundbreaking new products and services. The word Wagile comes from a combination of the terms “waterfall” and “agile”. Waterfall approaches to project management use upfront planning while agile project management acts on an evolving scope of work.

The Wagile philosophy thus integrates the best of both project management approaches.

Move fast
Practice discipline
Understand risk
Engaged customers
Provide autonomy

Wagile Roles in Leadership

Each Wagile role serves as a leader. Being non-hierarchical and flexible, Wagile does not specify one person, one role, or one organization as a primary decision-maker. Rather, all roles act as leaders to ensure customer satisfaction with new product development (NPD). As described in detail here, the Wagile roles include:

Project leader,
Customer representative,
Team leader, and
Cross-functional team.

Wagile leadership characteristics focus on engaging customers to deliver high-quality products and services that meet market needs while generating profit for the firm. Servant leadership traits of putting the team before self are important as are elements of Emotional Intelligence (such as self-awareness and self-control). I have observed that the most successful teams are mission-oriented to create a common good rather than egocentric to promote a manager’s self-interest.

In my practice of innovation teaching and coaching, I often used work style assessments to drive the leadership conversation. An important starting point for product innovation teams is the Innovation Health Assessment™ to benchmark your organization’s NPD maturity against industry standards. (Take your complimentary Innovation Health Assessment here.)

Another work style assessment I use is called the Team Dimensions Profile. As a DiSC-certified management facilitator, I prefer the language of Team Dimensions for innovation team growth. We identify individual working preferences as Creator, Advancer, Refiner, or Executer. Note that these are not the same as ingrained personality because each of us can stretch to different work roles as needed to accomplish the project goals. (Learn more about Team Dimensions here where I spoke with the Everyday Innovator podcast.)

In fact, it is the capability of team members on a Wagile project to stretch and serve as generalist-specialists that make each of us leaders. Generalist-specialists are people who have a deep knowledge and expertise in one arena (specialist) but also a desire to learn and help across the board (generalist).

Learn More

If you want to know more about Wagile and how to apply it in your own organization, join me for a short seminar on 10 November 2020 (2-4 pm CST). Upon completion of this course, you will be equipped with a set of tools to speed product to market for innovation success. Register here. To investigate and expand your personal development style, please join me for the Life Design Master Mind Q&A on 11 November 2020 at 11 am CST (free), followed by subsequent in-depth workshops over the next six months. Register here for the free webinar. Contact me at info@Simple-PDH.com with questions about these workshops.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

About Me

Innovation Workflow

Posted on 10.21.20

Watch the 37-second video summary and then read on for full details!

For several weeks we have been discussing the Wagile product development process.

Wagile is a hybrid project management process that blends the discipline of a waterfall system (“W-”) with the adaptability of an agile process (“-agile”). Customer orientation is a key component of Wagile.

Like all project management approaches, Wagile follows four primary steps that link to team behaviors. You can learn more about Wagile in our upcoming 2-hour course on 10 November (2-4 pm CST) and you can learn more about team behaviors in an article here. The innovation workflow is described below.

Generate Ideas

The first step in any project is to define and describe the purpose of the effort. It may be as simple as “freshen up the garden at my house” to as complex as “build a new petrochemical plant”. Regardless of the scale of the project, we always start with defining the scope of work. In innovation, we must also discover customer needs and identify potential product functions and concepts to address those needs.

When you look around your organization, who is best suited to help generate ideas? In the language of Team Dimensions, we call these folks “Creators”. Creators enjoy coming up with new ideas and can formulate concepts that are interesting and creative. Successful innovation teams balance Creators with other work styles to ensure they capture disruptive ideas.

Build Support

Once we have generated an attractive product concept, the innovation workflow moves to gathering support for the idea. This includes negotiating resources and investing in preliminary testing. Other activities at this stage involve concept testing with potential customers to refine the idea. A set of tools and an approach called Design Thinking is extremely beneficial at this stage. You can learn about Design Thinking at our complimentary Q&A webinar on 11 November 2020. Register here – spaces are limited so we can ensure an interactive discussion!

Team members called “Advancers” are skilled at generating product support at this phase. Advancers split behaviors of capturing new ideas and putting them into a familiar context. This is why we want to have team members that are exceptional at listening and promoting as part of the innovation team.

Create the Project Plan

Some people are really good at planning. Of course, we want these folks, who we call “Refiners” in Team Dimensions language, to layout the required work to accomplish project goals.

As history teaches us, no project plan is perfect. However, we do need to plan the work and convert customer needs into actionable tasks. That is the real purpose in creating a project plan. An added bonus of planning is that we are able to better anticipate risks and building quality to both the process and the product. (Read more about Risk Analysis in a special download for the University of Houston Sustainable Energy Development course materials here.)

Execute the Work

We only earn revenue when we complete a project and commercialize the new product innovation. We need to do the work of the project! Team members will build and test the product at scale during the execution stage.

Folks that are good at executing are usually good at troubleshooting. Their behaviors are methodical and normative. They can convert 2D drawings into functional, working equipment. In Team Dimensions, we call the people that love to get their hands dirty “Executors”.

Work Styles and Workflow

Successful innovation teams match the preferred work style of team members with the phase of the innovation workflow. Employees are happiest – and most productive – when they are working on tasks they enjoy. Each of us can stretch beyond our preferred work style (Creator, Advancer, Refiner, Executor) to do other tasks. Yet we can accelerate the innovation process the most when we match preferences of work styles with workflows.

Learn More

Recently, I discussed the benefits of the Team Dimensions model at the Texas ACMP Conference this year and with Chad McAllister on the Everyday Innovator podcast. You can listen to the podcast here (about 30 minutes).

When you join the Life Design Master Mind group, we will review your work style assessment in a confidential one-on-one coaching session and you will learn to apply Design Thinking skills to personal and professional decisions. Register for the complimentary introductory session here (11 November 2020 at 11 am CST).

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.