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Hybrid Work – Two Views

Posted on 09.07.21

As people go back to the office (or continue to work from home), we are faced with challenges for innovation. A lot of businesses have spent the past 18 months in survival mode – just trying to keep the doors open, regardless of the cost. Many companies had workforce reductions, cut benefits, and did more with less. Now, labor is rapidly becoming available but is expensive and some local regulations continue to stifle growth.

Regardless of the situation that a firm faces from a labor and productivity perspective, leaders cannot ignore necessary innovation. After such a long period of cost-cutting and tight budgets, the winners will be those organizations that creatively adapt to a hybrid workplace while generating novel products and services for their customers.

What is Hybrid Work?

As we wrote about in Bridging Communication Gaps in Virtual Teams (Leveraging Constraints for Innovation, 2018), dispersed teams involve one or more people at different locations. Hybrid work may include one-to-many or many-to-many arrangements. This means every individual is working in a remote office, or some people are in the office together while others are working by themselves in remote locations.

The benefit of hybrid work to product innovation is that new product development (NPD) can address both local and global needs. Effective product design and development from dispersed teams follows the Virtual Team Model with five elements and 16 practices.

Work Tasks

Project teams work on two types of tasks: transactional and relational. A transactional task can be completed by an individual with little input from others. Communication to finish the activity is asynchronous. Transactional tasks include data gathering, analysis and summary. Calculations and many experiments are transactional in nature.

Most innovation work activities involving quantitative evaluation are transactional. For example, analyzing the data from a customer survey uses statistics, can be conducted by a lone team member, and is quantitative in nature. Remote team members can easily complete transactional project activities.

On the other hand, strategic questions and new product design parameters are relational work tasks. These activities require dialogue, shared experiences, and creative approaches to problem-solving. Relational tasks are best accomplished in an interactive environment.

For example, determining if the organization will expand the product line to a new market involves a great deal of discussion to ensure the move will align with the organization’s strategy. Information – including quantitative data – must be discussed, debated, and evaluated in a live (synchronous) environment.

Relational work is best performed in a face-to-face environment. However, it is possible – with a trained facilitator – to achieve desired outcomes of relational work with a hybrid work team.

Creativity in Hybrid Teams

First, teams must have established “emotional” trust. As discussed by Rosenfeld, et al. emotional trust is necessary from team members to take risks. Any innovation work is risky because the outcomes are uncertain. Emotional trust is built through longer working relationships so that each team member knows that others will meet their expectations.

Next, hybrid teams can be creative in relational and strategic planning for NPD. Again, a good facilitator can support a hybrid team to generate creative ideas through guided exercises. A favorite ideation activity is “brainwriting” using an online whiteboard. (For more information, see this post.) These creative endeavors are most successful with both individual and collaborative elements.

Finally, hybrid teams can prepare for innovation work with good planning. Using limited synchronous meetings for relation-building and creative work is beneficial. Save the one-way management communications of schedule and budget for newsletters and email. Both are great for transactional information sharing among dispersed team members. You want to preserve your limited time together for creative endeavors that require deep relationships.

Building a Creative Hybrid Team

You will need to assess which work tasks are transactional and which are relational on your project. Early NPD work needs the creative vibe of synchronous and relational dialogue. Get your team together in one place to diagnose customer problems, align strategic goals, and generate ideas.

Later stages of experimentation and design of a new product or service can be accomplished with dispersed and remote teams. Make sure the expertise of your team members includes individual leadership skills. Task-oriented leaders use one-way communication for project status reporting and reserve live meetings for creative discussion.

Learn More

Join my upcoming presentations at AIChE on 3 September 2021, Texas ACMP Annual Conference on 17 September 2021, and ASQ Innovation Day on 15 October 2021. You can also register for our very affordable (and FUN) creativity workshop on 1 October. You will learn and practice generating new ideas in a remote, live, facilitated 2-hour workshop. Contact me at info@globalnpsolutions.com for details. Register here.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

3 Ways to Supercharge Your Creativity

Posted on 08.18.21

Watch the short video summary and then read on…

Creativity is kind of a loaded word. Everyone wants to be creative, but many people are hesitant to test their creativity. A lot of people conflate creativity with artistry. Yet, we need creativity to design and develop new products.

Innovation and creativity go hand-in-hand. Product solutions must be creative enough to offer alternatives to customers. Product innovation is not only a disciplined process but is also a creative one. Both innovation and creativity thrive within boundaries and constraints yet also need us to consider opportunities from new perspectives.

How can you improve innovation success at your firm? Consider the following three ways to supercharge your creativity.

Gratitude

Creative ideas often come to us when our minds have noodled on a problem for a while. We also design better solutions when we are in a positive frame of mind. Being grateful for what we have can increase our creativity.

A lot of executive coaches and time management experts advise making a list of three things for which we are grateful for at the end of each day. Gratitude reminds us of our blessings and that we are not alone. Often, these gratitude lists describe people and relationships instead of “stuff” and money.

So, instead of approaching your next product innovation project from a position of “what needs fixing,” I suggest you try figuring out what is already working. Be grateful for customer feedback that illuminates quality issues and show generosity to customers who highlight improvement opportunities. Ask your customers what they like about a product.

Practice gratitude to increase your creativity. Before you go to bed tonight, jot down three things for which you are grateful. Then, consider how you can enlarge and enhance opportunities tomorrow. Be creative!

Recharge

Because our subconscious mind does much of our “creative” work, we need to give our brains a rest. A lot of people say they get their best ideas in the shower. Why? In the shower, there is no television news, there are no housekeeping chores, and there are no looming work deadlines. Our brains are resting – and roaming.

I recently took a two-week vacation to go hiking in the desert southwest. We only turned on the television twice during that time, I rarely checked the “news” (or national debt) on my phone, and checked email only for urgent issues on weekdays. I totally unplugged (except for my presentation to a developer’s conference on the topic of … creativity).

Unplugging allows us to recharge. When you unplug, you can suddenly hear the birds and the wind. You see the world through fresh eyes. Colors are more vibrant, and your dreams are clearer. These are the elements of creativity. You must find the time to unplug and recharge to build your creative muscles.

Sleep

Of course, being on vacation means waking up without an alarm clock. Most adults need about eight hours of sleep, but we get only five or six due to work, family, and other commitments. My vacation allowed me to recharge by getting enough sleep. A long day of hiking with sun and fresh air (and sometimes rain and wind) made sleep a glorious respite. And on vacation (without an alarm clock), I woke up – fully rested – when the sun gently peeked through the window.

Everyone knows that getting enough sleep is important for health and well-being, but if you work in innovation, you also need enough sleep to be creative. The gray matter recharges with sleep and neuroscientists tell us that sleep allows new pathways to form between our brain cells. Again, our subconscious is at work while we sleep, generating new ideas to serve our customers.

One trick I use is to consider a big, hairy problem before I go to sleep. I have already put myself into a positive state of mind by considering different gratitudes for the day. Then, as I think about a problem and doze off, I can dream about solutions. More often than not, I wake up with a new idea, a new solution, or a better way to do things.

Supercharge Your Creativity

Creativity is a mental muscle that needs attention – just like our physical body needs good nutrition and exercise. Product innovation professionals must improve creativity to continue designing and developing interesting and valuable products and services. Three ways to supercharge your creativity are:

Practice daily gratitude,
Routinely unplug and recharge, and
Get enough quality sleep.

You can learn more about improving your skills for innovation and creativity at my presentation “Innovation Magic: Creativity in a Hybrid World” at the upcoming ACMP Texas conference on 17 September. Learn more about the conference and other great speakers that are Imagining the Future here. You might also be interested in a special two-hour creativity workshop I’m offering on 1 October. Learn more and register here.

Decision-Making for Product Managers

Posted on 08.11.21

Every day we face hundreds of decisions: what to wear, what to eat, and what music to play. Most of our decisions are of little consequence, such as wearing the red shirt instead of the blue one. Our small daily decisions of food and exercise can add up overtime to a more healthy, longer life span or one with health struggles. Many such small decisions are made automatically, based on our personal values or habits. (Read a short post on Routines for Innovation Teams here.)

As product and innovation managers, our decisions can have significant impacts on the happiness and satisfaction of our customers. The small, daily decisions to perform maintenance at a factory impacts the long-term quality of products, just as our daily choices to eat well and exercise impact our longevity. Other decisions are more clearly influential in whether new technologies are tested or implemented and whether or not an investment is made in a given product or process. These larger decisions have both short-term and long-range impacts on external customers alongside internal finances and operations. Such decisions should be approached with the rigor of the scientific method.

A Decision-Making Process

While not every decision merits analysis via the scientific method, it is important to recognize the typical steps through which individuals and teams make decisions. For decisions involving high-risk or trouble-shooting customer situations in which little is known, the decision-making model is especially helpful. Other times, steps are skipped or combined.

Note that we show the decision-making process as a cycle. Every decision we make as product managers cascades to future decisions regarding customers, technologies, and products. The follow-up (Step 6) of each decision results in a new set of questions and problems to ensure customer satisfaction.

Step 1: Identify the Problem

For many troubled-shooting situations, like a poor quality or off-specification product, identifying the problem is often the most challenging step in the decision-making process. Product engineers and quality management specialists are very good at solving problems, but we must be careful in defining the correct problem to solve. Moreover, management may be making a decision regarding which of many investments to make in the product portfolio, so the problem is more than a binary decision. In this case, product innovation decisions involve trade-offs, resource and schedule constraints as well as financial investment and customer satisfaction measures.

It is not unusual for product development teams to revisit the problem statement during subsequent steps in the decision-making process. As data is gathered and hypotheses are tested, the problem statement is refined and re-characterized. Remember that problem statements must be in the terms of the customer (benefits) rather than applying internal technology attributes to products. Sometimes a symptom, such as off-spec product, is really a sign of a deeper problem, such as poor-quality materials or inefficient factory processes. Such issues can impact customer satisfaction and profitability. Product managers must give attention to both external (customer) and internal (operations) elements for a balanced view of innovation.

Step 2: Define Objectives

Once the customer’s problem has been clearly defined, the new product development team must assess their goals in making the decision. If you only need a “band-aid” to keep the product profitable for a short time until a replacement product is marketed, your decisions will be different than if a new product is being developed. New products often require new technologies and new factory construction, even with an anticipate product life cycle of several years. (Read more about the product life cycle here.)

Other product development decisions evaluate the trade-offs among scope, schedule, and budget for the development project by emphasizing one element more than the others. Senior management often recognizes the value of all projects but can only invest in a few projects due to resource constraints. Again, these decisions focus on the entire product portfolio, including existing products and new product development.

Step 3: Propose a Hypothesis

Sometimes this step is called “Make a Pre-Decision”. At this phase of the decision-making process, you are determining how to make the decision. Will a special team be assigned to assess customer feedback data? Will the decision be made by through normal operating and functional management meetings? How will customer concept and prototype testing occur? Will existing or new customers be tested?

At the conclusion of this phase of work in the decision-making process, the new product development team will have formulated a specific plan to advance the objectives of the decision. This will be unique to each product decision.

Step 4: Generate Alternatives

There is never one right answer. Even as product development and innovation professionals with strong opinions and deep customer knowledge, we know that there are different approaches to solving customer problems. To generate profitable new products, we may choose to adjust factory conditions or marketing collateral. There are consequences to each decision that may involve raw material costs, labor expenses, or reputation in the marketplace. Ultimately, new product decisions must lead to customer benefits and company profits.

At this stage of the decision-making process, risks and consequences of each alternative are also discussed. Risk management is an ideal process to help with product development decisions such as forecasting costs and benefits. Alternate strategies for a product portfolio use comparisons such as SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to generate alternatives for project investment decisions. (Read about SWOT and other strategic product management tools here.)

Step 5: Evaluate Alternatives

As different alternate solutions to customer problems are generated, they must be evaluated. This is the phase of decision-making process in which product development professionals use our special skills and expertise. We gather and analyze data to test hypotheses and to support alternate choices in features or attributes. We interact extensively with customers at this phase. Collecting and analyzing quantitative data according to scientific principles yields measurable comparisons. Qualitative data further serves to support customer feelings and attitudes regarding new product features and marketing approaches.

Step 6: Make a Choice

In quality control situations, the product manager may be responsible for making a choice among alternatives based on cost and customer satisfaction. In other situations, the entire new product development team may serve as internal consultants to management or project clients who will be making final product launch decisions. Product innovation professionals must present all relevant data and information accurately and honestly so that whoever is making the decision can do so objectively. Product managers, in particular, are responsible for making recommendations regarding profit and loss for a brand product line or new product. These choices have impact on finances, manufacturing, and market share.

Step 7: Implement the Choice

Once a decision is made, the decision is implemented. In many cases, new product development teams will simply transmit instructions to modify a known product to the factory (e.g., a derivative product). In other cases, a financial decision may lead to a months-long or years-long development project involving dozens of new product development professionals, engineers, IT, and various contractors. For many technical professionals, the “hands-on” implementation of the decision can be the most enjoyable part of working because they see a design come to life!

Step 8: Follow-Up

This step is often overlooked in the decision-making process but is arguably the most important. It is critical for both individual learning and for product development improvement to understand the impact of an innovation decision. Also, if the outcomes of the decision did not deliver the expected results, another alternative may need to be implemented or customer problems investigated to a further degree. If the outcome of the decision met the objectives of the new product development project, then the process may be documented as a best practice. Follow-up is the essence of the product post-launch review. (Read more about post-launch reviews here.)

Decision-Making for Product Development

While not every decision needs a heavy, methodological approach, many decisions we make as product managers and innovation professionals do indeed require a systematic thought process. The steps outlined here validate that you correctly identify the customer’s problem and define objectives in the decision-making process. You also want to ensure that you define potential solutions and evaluate alternatives objectively. Follow-up after a product decision is made verifies customer satisfaction and profitability.

New product development team leaders can use the decision-making steps to help a team gather relevant information at the right point in the process. Further, as product innovation professionals deploy the scientific method in making product decisions, the skills for technology and marketing spread across a broad spectrum of decisions for new product development. Good decisions lead to improved product development processes and outcomes.

Do you need to make better and faster product development decisions? To help you implement effective product decisions, please join our best practices Master Class on Leadership for Project Managers starting 18 August. Register here.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

Review: Deep Work by Cal Newport

Posted on 07.29.21

In this week’s post, I want to talk about one of my favorite books, Deep Work. Innovation professionals today are finding themselves in a number of new work situations. We work in open offices, remotely, use email and IM to communicate, and we document our personal and professional lives on social media in great detail. We are busier than ever, it seems. But are we really accomplishing deep work – work that requires intense focus and concentration, the type of work that leads to new discoveries and elevates our careers?

Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, would argue that most of us are very, very busy but we are busy with shallow work. He defines shallow work as “non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted” (pg. 6). He contrasts that with deep work, defined as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit” (pg. 3).

Formally trained innovation professionals can probably recognize “being in the zone“ of deep work from our college days. Intense studying for difficult exams like the ones I had in thermodynamics, reaction kinetics, and mass transfer as a chemical engineer force us into a deep mode of concentration and focus to learn complicated material. Newport argues that such focused learning is absolutely required to become an elite professional in a highly competitive world.

In Part 1 of Deep Work, the author presents several other arguments supporting the need for deep work over shallow endeavors. Knowledge workers, like innovation professionals, must continually learn and adapt as the digital revolution delivers more data, information, and knowledge than we ever imagined. Newport asserts “to remain valuable in our economy, therefore, you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things” (pg. 13). A firm’s competition for labor and product management skills is no longer limited to a geographical region. Instead we are competing against product professionals all around the world. We have to be the best to succeed, and being the best requires continuous learning.

The author further argues that people in the business world today often use busyness as a proxy for productivity (pg. 64). In this readily-identifiable situation, we measure our productivity informally by how quickly we respond to emails and how many meetings we attended today. Do you ever feel like you’ve spent your entire day doing something every minute but accomplishing nothing? That’s the “busyness” that the author invites us to conquer with deep work. So, in Part 2, he presents four rules to help us learn to focus and concentrate, and to create meaningful work.

Rule #1

The first rule is to work deeply. Studies have shown that when people are working deeply, they are often tamping down desires to do something else that is trivial and doesn’t contribute directly to their goals. In our world today, most of us are easily distracted by incoming email, text messages, and Facebook. Newport’s solution is to turn off those distractions so you can work, free of interruptions, for an extended period of time.

Of course, you cannot completely ignore email from your boss, but a response can probably wait for a couple of hours. In my business, I strive for a few hours of uninterrupted time each morning, so I only check email once for urgent messages on my phone. If there is nothing urgent, it can wait until I sit down at my computer to handle a set of smaller work tasks. Most days I can delay email responses for a few hours so I can concentrate on writing or reviewing relevant research. Both are deep work activities that add value to my career and utilize my brain capacity when it’s at its best (early morning).

Rule #2

Embrace boredom is the title of Newport’s second rule to achieving deep work. It is perhaps easier to describe the opposite of the rule. You find yourself in a queue at the supermarket or post office. Instead of letting your mind wander, you pull out your phone to check Facebook or play a quick game. We fill every minute of our day even if it is with meaningless activities.

Newport argues that, at best, we gain mild entertainment stimulus from Facebook. He recommends it instead of expanding our limited energy posting funny cat videos. Or we respond to posts of a high school acquaintance’s child’s sports scores vs. investing that time in a deep relationship. Isn’t it more rewarding to have lunch with a close friend than to read 20 Facebook posts that flit by in an instant?

Rule #3

Newport’s third rule to help us accomplish deep work might seem heretical to some: quit social media. We have just reviewed Newport’s injunction regarding Facebook. In Deep Work, the author also takes direct aim at Twitter and all other forms of social media. Does social media add value to your career goals? If not, you should quit using the service. He cites examples of popular and award-winning authors who have no social media presence. People buy their books because they are seeking the product of long hours of research and the development of new theories, not because they post 10 or 20 pithy remarks on Twitter.

Newport suggests a couple of strategies to quit social media. First, he advises taking a social media “Sabbath” – quitting network tools for just one day per week. This allows your brain to recharge quietly with your family or in nature. The second strategy the author recommends is to quit all social media cold turkey. If your presence is missed (measured by a direct request for info or posts), then you should start up the service again. Unfortunately, the author fails to discuss LinkedIn, which is typically professional in nature (as compared to Facebook, for instance) and is often utilized by hiring managers to evaluate potential job candidates. My advice is to manage Linked In based on your personal business needs.

Rule #4

Finally, the author’s last rule to achieving high productivity is to “drain the shallows.” Again he describes the heavy time drain of email on our ability to get deep work done, but he offers several tips to handling the onslaught of email that bombards most of our inboxes.

First, not every email requires a response. I am guilty of replying with “Thanks”. This just creates email clutter and too many emails are simply acknowledging the message was received. Newport would admonish me for creating this email clutter. Neither I nor the recipient has benefited or gained value as a knowledge worker from “Thanks“ in this situation. Instead, the email must be handled – read, deleted, or filed. Otherwise, we waste a lot of time that could be used solving a deeper innovation problem.

Next, Newport teaches us how to respond directly and succinctly to email requests. For example, an unsolicited email requesting a meeting should be met with a specific response. It would read something like “Please check my calendar to schedule a 15-minute meeting to discuss this matter”. Personally, calendar applications have increased my productivity because it has put a stop to the back and forth that is often required to schedule a simple meeting. Our email traffic is substantially reduced if we move scheduling a phone call that takes a total of five minutes instead of five emails – back and forth – each taking five minutes to handle and taking away from our ability to work in a distraction-free environment.

Summary

Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work, is a great text to read. It is one of my favorite and most recommended books. While we face many structural obstacles in our careers as product innovation professionals, we can learn to focus more deeply on higher value challenges. It is this “deep work“ which will advance our careers and allow us to stand out against the competition.

While you may not integrate every single one of Newport suggestions, many of them offer quick hit advantages to help us structure our personal and professional lives to achieve higher value objectives. Deep Work is recommended for product managers, engineering managers, and project managers who seek to enhance their productivity and gain more satisfaction from their busy work days.

What steps will you take today to achieve greater focus in your work as a product innovation professional? To help you solidify and act on your goals please join our best practices Master Class on Leadership for Project Managers starting 18 August. Register here.

Four Elements of Creativity

Posted on 07.22.21

Product innovation is a fabulous field in which to work. Innovation mixes several interesting ingredients – markets, technologies, creativity – to generate products that are valued by customers. In turn, companies generate profits when they deliver products and services to consumers that delight and inspire them.

Researching markets and technologies is deliberate and structured within product innovation. Product managers use inquiry tools and statistical analysis to understand categories of customers as well as to pinpoint areas of opportunity. R&D practitioners analyze experiments and data to design novel technical solutions. Market research and technology development both follow specific processes with known performance metrics.

Yet, creativity if often shrouded in mystery. Many people assume they are not creative because they don’t view themselves as “artists”. Others claim that only wild-eyed scientific geniuses are creative, coming up with ideas like a lightning strike. In truth, creativity for product innovation is also a structured process with four key elements.

Cross-Functional Teams

There are two elements to creativity from a people perspective – individual and team creativity. As individuals we all have different experiences and bring that diversity when generating ideas for new products. Individuals with various work skills and backgrounds “see” the problem differently. For example, a marketing specialist might define the problem in terms of product awareness while a technology specialist might see the problem as a set of puzzles and a technical code that will unlock the solution.

Higher levels of creativity occur, however, when we collaborate as a team. The marketer cannot successfully deliver innovation on his own by simply raising product awareness. The technologists cannot deliver a new product by simply designing a great piece of hardware. Instead, when we combine the viewpoints of a cross functional team, we can generate truly radical innovations. Sharing the different perspectives of a problem – from the customer’s viewpoint as well as from each team members standpoint – enhances creativity and the end solution.

Boundaries

While it seems counter-intuitive, creativity increases when we place reasonable constraints around the problem. You might dream about your weekend plans if you had infinite money and no restrictions on your time. Perhaps a trip to an exotic beach or taking in a Broadway show would be on the agenda? Yet our dreams of limitless wealth are not actionable.

Teams are most successful in identifying creative product solutions when there are some boundaries around the problem space. Having infinite funds or unlimited time opens every possibility and too many choices can be overwhelming. Instead, your weekend plans must be creative if you can only spend $100 and have two fixed time commitments. Maybe you take the kids to the zoo just after their Little League game. It’s a fun and unusual family activity while solving the problem within the given constraints.

Curiosity

It goes without saying that curiosity must be a key element of creativity. The status quo cannot serve to grow a business or to generate innovative products over the long-term. Creative curiosity is a desire – a passion – to figure out how things work. In new product development, the marketing representative is curious about the problems consumers face and the technical representative is curious about how to build a widget to solve that problem. Creative curiosity is always looking for ways to improve a system and searching for the “real” problem.

Are you curious? How do you approach a new opportunity? Creative curiosity involves jumping in to quickly learn the who, what, why, and how of a problem.

Learning

The final element of creativity is learning – learning from failure and learning from each other. Not every idea works out as we planned. Sometimes our ideas are too radical for an existing market. Oftentimes, we cannot find the cost-effective technology to scale for commercial application. These are “failures” by one definition, yet there are also opportunities for learning. Each piece of knowledge stacks up to help us solve the next problem, even if one particular approach didn’t work out perfectly.

Another aspect of creative learning regards quality. A lot of us are perfectionists because of our passion and love for our customers and career. Yet, sometimes, good enough is good enough. When a famous artist changes his style from realism to abstract, he might learn new techniques and learn to be satisfied with the quality of each new painting, even though it isn’t perfect. A mystery author can add new twists and turns to the story line, depth of characters to her text, but the book must be written in order to be read and appreciated. Learning to define “done” is an important feature for creativity within the bounds of product innovation.

Four Elements of Creativity

A lot of people I know claim they are not creative. This is troubling since I know a lot of people working in new product development. Everyone can be creative. I suggest you start with these four key elements of creativity.

Use a cross-functional team to build empathy across many different perspectives.
Place loose boundaries around the problem space to enhance creativity.
Encourage curiosity by offering new options and seeking to deeply understand the problem.
Practice continuous learning and accept failure by recognizing that good enough is good enough.

Creativity starts with leadership. Please join our best practices Master Class on Leadership for Project Managers starting 18 August. Register here.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

Passion and Persistence

Posted on 07.07.21

Innovation is often conflated with creativity. While successful product innovation requires application of a new technology or developing new markets, creativity lends the new with the known. Both innovation and creativity hinge on passion and persistence.

Click here for the 30-second video summary and then read on.

What is Innovation?

Innovation is the introduction of something new. Sometimes we find a new technology that makes a task simpler or cheaper. There are product innovations that make the lives of consumers better and there are process innovations that make factories run more smoothly. Product and process innovations deliver value to the customer and value to the company (profit).

We also observe innovation in marketing when an existing product or technology is introduced to a new market. For example, using your smartphone to take a photograph is known technology. Using your phone to take a photo of a check and deposit it to your bank account is a new market application.

A third category of innovation is a new business model. Business models (read more here) are the narratives of how companies serve customers and create value for both he customer and themselves. Sometimes a business model innovation is simple, such as changing fast food pick-up from a drive-through window to curbside. Other times the business model transformation is huge – do banks need tellers anymore if we take photos for depositing checks and get cash from an ATM?

Thus, innovation can be small or large. Innovation can involve technology, markets, and products. And, innovation can encompass sales and delivery channels.

What is Creativity?

Dicationary.com defines creativity as “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns…” I often think of artists as creative people. I envy their talent in oil painting, woodworking, and jewelry-making. Interestingly, my friends and family have told me that I’m creative with my handmade greeting cards. As a chemical engineer by training, I’m pretty sure I’m not an artist – I think of myself as a nerd!

Yet, artists are just as dedicated to their craft as nerds are committed to engineering and coding. Artists study their subjects – people, landscapes, texture, and colors – just as engineers study math. And successful artists commit hours to perfecting their technique and media, just as engineers spend hours at university learning sophisticated calculus, statistics, and physical chemistry.

The Common Thread

So, innovation and creativity share the common idea of creating something new. To be successful at innovation, a company needs creative concepts, but creativity is not enough. Creative artists and innovation professionals share passion and persistence in their quest to create something new.

Passion

Passion is a desire for something that is so intense you cannot imagine not having it. Artists are passionate about their work. They talk about a necessity to paint so that a scene in their imagination can become real. Mystery writers have a passion to create a tension and they must write so they, too, can find out who-done-it.

Innovation professionals also have deep passions. We want to make a product work and to solve a customer’s problem. We must create a better way for our customers to access information or to perform daily tasks. Sometimes an innovator’s passion is the technology – knowing that if people can use a new device, it will make their lives better. Creating the new technology is work of love.

In Bridging Communication Gaps (Chapter 6 in PDMA Essentials Volume 3), I recommend hiring for passion over other qualifications. Team members with passion will support your mission and strive for excellence. Passion resulting in a work well done is a reward by itself.

Persistence

I saw a quote the other day that success only comes before work in the dictionary. This is definitely what my parents taught me. I also observe artists and creative people working with persistence. Great writers and painters spend dedicated time every day working to master their technique. We don’t see their mistakes and errors from practice. What we are treated to is the result of creative persistence and hard work.

Successful innovation professionals are also persistent. We cannot design and develop a new product just because we have an idea. We must carefully (and ploddingly) analyze the data from potential customers and market segments. We must be persistent in the questions we ask and to whom we ask. Innovation doesn’t happen overnight, and we must be persistent in carrying a project through the long, boring times to achieve success. You’ve probably heard of the entrepreneur who became an overnight success – after 10 years of hard work and persistence!

Innovation and Creative Leadership

Passion and persistence. Goal-setting. Managing schedules and budgets. Creativity and innovation. Leaders need all these skills (and more). So, I’m really excited to offer you a chance to develop your passions for innovation through our new Leadership Master Class, starting 18 August (online). This course was created from years of experience in building innovation leaders and incorporates many of the tools from the popular Life Design Master Mind. Learn more and register here.

In the meantime, do what you love (passion) and do it well (persistence).

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

On Waiting, Wisdom, and Creativity

Posted on 06.30.21

Watch the short video summary and then read the full post below.

I saw a statistic that the longest that people would wait to be seated at a restaurant was 20 minutes. I suppose it depends on how good the food is in how large your group is. Recently, at a Meridian, MS, chain restaurant, my husband and I were given an estimate of 1-1/2 hours to wait to be seated. We went somewhere else to eat but a large family was already into their second hour of waiting.

Most of us don’t like waiting. Waiting is the one time that we recognize that time is precious. It is a commodity with no price and no limit yet is more valuable than anything else in life. We cannot recover lost time – once we have spent a second, a minute, and hour – it is gone forever.

Waiting is an Opportunity

Today when we are faced with a 20-minute wait for seating at a restaurant, we whip out our cellphones. Some people read news stories of their favorite movie stars. Others check scores from last night’s basketball game. My husband checks stock prices and I run through email.

Unfortunately, I’ve watched families continue this pantomime after they are seated. Mom, Dad, and kids continue to look at Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok while they have dinner “together”. The opportunity to share a meal together goes beyond eating (in my opinion) and is a time to talk about your day, your dreams, your challenges. This time gives people a chance to build relationships and to create memories.

Waiting time can be an opportunity. I was called to jury duty the other day and the facility had a “no cell phones” policy. A sheriff stood at the entrance demanding people leave their phones in their cars. There is a lot of waiting while the judge and lawyers go through their processes of negotiating jury selection

Knowing I could not have a cell phone to check email or read the news, I brought a book to read. Of 91 potential jurors, I was the only person who recognized an opportunity in the waiting. Maybe the other potential jurors were making mental plans or daydreaming – also worthwhile uses of our time . But, unless you are prepared to take advantage of waiting, you could just waste your time.

Wisdom in Waiting

The book I was reading during the jury duty waiting is called “Off the Clock” by Laura Vanderkam. It is also about focus so that we use our limited time to the greatest purpose. We all know that glorious feeling when it feels like the clock stopped because we are enjoying time with our work, our colleagues, or our hobbies. These are precious times of engagement that we remember and recall as “good times”.

Waiting time, however, can give us wisdom. When we pause to put down our phones and focus on our plans for the day (versus what meetings are on the schedule), we “think”. Deep thinking helps us apply wisdom to a situation. These interludes of unoccupied time give us wisdom in creative problem-solving. By turning a problem over and over in our minds, we can see new angles and new approaches for solutions.

In the research for “Off the Clock,” Ms. Vanderkam found that people with the highest perception of time are the same people who intentionally scheduled periods of open time. Instead of running from meeting to meeting, high performers use this time for strategic thinking and responding as leaders. Innovation professionals can use waiting time to build creative wisdom.

Waiting, Wisdom, and What Else?

I believe our lifelong satisfaction comes from working hard at what we love and loving those in our relationship circles. We build wisdom, memories, and creativity through our engagements with people and by thinking and planning what’s next. King Solomon didn’t ask for wealth or possessions. Instead, he asked for wisdom and he waited for his prayer to be answered.

What can you do to increase wisdom through waiting? First, put your cell phone down and be fully present. Brendon Burchard advises busy people to pause at the door, take a deep breath, and focus on how they can be fully present as they pass through the door to what lays beyond. This increases our wisdom as leaders, our creativity as the innovation professionals, and our happiness in relationships.

Next, I recommend taking time to build your professional wisdom as a leader. I’m offering a new opportunity for project, product, and engineering managers to grow in their careers through disciplined focus, strategic goal-setting, and functional skill-building. Learn more here.

Finally, be prepared for the wait. Have a plan ready in case you must wait. Keep a real book in your bag to read when the opportunity arises. Ask your spouse about their day – and really listen. Laugh and tell jokes. Waiting is an opportunity for creative wisdom.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

Is Your Accent Real?

Posted on 06.24.21

Recently, my husband and I attended a production of “Pride and Prejudice” at the local community theatre. First, I didn’t even know Jane Austen’s famous book had ever been made into a play. Second, because of the short time available for a stage production, I missed some of my favorite passages with Mr. Darcy. Finally, I live in Texas, so we had to laugh at some of the feigned English accents.

In fact, my husband’s mother is British. After about 15 minutes, he whispered to me “Where is this taking place? Louisiana?” (Remember we’re both engineers and not experts in literature! Pride and Prejudice is definitely a “chick flick” anyway.) The props did have fleur de lis painted on them and the play actors’ accents were far-removed from his mother’s accent. One guy definitely sounded more Irish than English!

Accents and Innovation

So, you’re probably wondering, “What do fake English accents have to do with innovation?” Maybe more than you think.

When we are designing and developing new products, the expectations of our customers are most important to satisfy. We can design features and functions that add value for them. Or we can fake it. A “fake” feature is one we tell customers is great, but the product does not support our claims in quality or cost.

Another example of a “fake” feature is one that a company develops and promotes but customers don’t want. Presenting customers with a more expensive product with features they don’t want is as ridiculous as an actor trying to speak proper English over a Southern drawl.

Identify Important Features

While my mother-in-law’s British accent is familiar and true, I was perfectly happy to accept the “fake” English accents at the play. My goal – as a customer – was to spend an afternoon away from the normal hustle and bustle, to be entertained, and to enjoy a familiar story in a new format. You have to know your audience to know what features to offer them. In this case the fake English accent allowed the production of Pride and Prejudice to go on. The producer understood customer needs.

New products start by offering a core benefit. (Read more here about the whole product.) All competitors must offer the core benefit – a necessary feature or function – for the product to sell in the marketplace. For example, a ballpoint pen must have ink in it and be able to transfer the ink to paper.

The actual product includes those features that are new and add extra value or convenience for a customer. A retractable ballpoint pen keeps the ink inside the holder, so it doesn’t stain your pocket or purse. Such added features are initially differentiating but quickly become necessary for the core product when competitors also adopt this new functionality

Finally, augmented features are what makes the difference between an ordinary product and an extraordinary one. Today, a lot of ballpoint pens have a rubber tip for tapping on your phone or tablet. This is a special feature, useful for people with cold or dirty fingers. A customer is willing to pay a higher price to access special features.

What is Your Accent?

Knowing your customer means knowing which features are important. This information will guide product innovation so that you don’t waste time on unnecessary or unwanted features and functionality. If your audience accepts the fake English accent in exchange for two hours of entertainment, you are successful, but you must know what your target audience (your customer) wants and will accept in the product.

Join me for the online WAGILE Product Development class on 15 and 16 July. In this short course, we focus on valuing the customer and apply WAGILE principles to speed the product development process. We learn which features customers want so we don’t have to fake it. Register here – space is limited.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.

4 Critical Skills Every Innovation Leader Must Master

Posted on 06.16.21

Watch the 20-second summary and then read on!

Innovation managers are outliers in a world of functional managers. An engineering manager hires and grooms talent to design safe and reliable manufacturing processes. A business manager balances administrative tasks to maintain operational efficiency, and a sales manager ensures customer visits are scheduled as continued touchpoints. Each of these roles includes measurable performance indicators: safety incidences, organizational productivity, and sales revenues.

In contrast, innovation and product development managers have no certain goals and their output is fuzzy. Innovation leaders integrate skills of the functional managers: talent management, safety, reliability, manufacturing productivity, customer interactions, and sales revenues. Yet, innovation leaders face higher levels of technical and market uncertainties.

So, which skills are absolutely critical to success in innovation?

What is Innovation?

First, let’s take a step back and define innovation. If I were to ask 25 people what innovation means, I would get 35 different definitions! For our purposes, let’s assume innovation means the creation of a new product, service, or program that brings value to the producer and to the consumer. Thus, we include sales revenues as value to the company and utility, functionality, and convenience as values to a customer.

The Four Critical Skills

Knowing that innovation is fraught with risk, innovation leaders must master four critical skills to succeed. These are:

Business knowledge,
Talent acquisition,
Process capability, and
Strategic decision-making.

Business Knowledge

Successful innovation leaders process information from a variety of internal and external sources. They must understand the business from a technical perspective and understand customers from a market perspective. Traditional business goals, like financial analysis and productivity studies, are a factor in mastering the business. Innovation managers must use this information to prepare a profitable business case for any new product or service.

Business knowledge extends to trends, fads, and emerging technologies. Innovation relies as much on learning and change as it does in building efficiency into a current model. Successful innovation leaders study adjacent markets and industries and apply world-class best practices to compete over the long-run.

Talent Acquisition

Because new product development (NPD) is inherently risky, innovation project team members use different tools to work together. A successful innovation manager builds a team that balances creativity, operational expertise, and customer interactions. Persuasion, negotiation, and conflict management are capabilities of an innovation manager who recognizes diversity of functional experience to commercialize a profitable new product.

Process Capability

It goes without saying that any manager must be organized and efficient with his or her time. Innovation managers use NPD processes and product portfolio management (PPM) to drive product development. Choosing and adapting an appropriate process is a hallmark of a successful innovation manager.

NPD processes range from conventional phased-and-gated waterfall systems to agile methodologies with hybrid systems like WAGILE becoming more popular today. (Read more about WAGILE here.) Understanding the organizational culture, executive risk tolerance, and the business model allows an innovation manager to select an effective NPD process. Of course, the execution of a product development project within the NPD process is linked to effective collaboration of team members – a direct link to talent acquisition as a key skill for the innovation leader to master.

Strategic Decision-Making

Finally, innovation leaders act strategically as well as tactically. We have discussed the tactical and operational skills of acting on business knowledge and deploying an appropriate NPD process already. But, knowing “how” is very different than knowing “why”.

Successful innovation managers use decisions as opportunities to increase product knowledge and to improve customer service. Strategic decisions include which markets are attractive, what technologies are appropriate, and what products ought to be developed. This focus on specific growth objectives and competitive analysis differentiates a successful innovation leader from other functional managers. Check out our new virtual Master Class on Leadership, starting 18 August here. This course is specifically geared to the challenges of innovation, product, and project managers.

Four Critical Skills that Innovation Leaders Must Master

Innovation leaders must be adaptable, flexible, knowledgeable, and expectant. All managers must know their trade and be ready to measure performance outcomes. Yet, successful innovation leaders balance risk, investment, markets, and talent in a unique stew to produce customer satisfaction. Mastering the skills in business knowledge, talent acquisition, process capability, and strategic decision-making differentiates the successful innovation leader.

Learn More

I highly recommend New Product Development Professional certification for any innovation manager. You will learn how strategy, portfolio management, and NPD processes guide decisions for innovation with best practices tools and techniques in process design, market research, and team-building. Register now for the next session of the NPDP workshop here.

Hydrate Your Creativity

Posted on 06.03.21

Water. We all need water to stay alive. When we become dehydrated, our minds get fuzzy and our bodies collapse. Water is a fundamental component of life and we must continually take it to survive.

Creativity is like the water of innovation. A company cannot survive if it does not explore new ideas and without creativity, products become stale and collapsed. Creativity is fundamental to new product development (NPD) and we must continually supply it for a firm to stay in business.

But just as we take water in different forms to stay hydrated, we can use creativity in different ways to maintain and sustain innovation. First, we must understand the goals. Then, we must invest in the right tools. Next, we must make creativity and its companion – failure – acceptable within the culture. Finally, we can take the small steps to encourage creativity across organizational boundaries.

Goals for Creativity

Most firms clearly articulate the need for innovation to stay competitive and to meet a variety of strategic objectives. Business goals and objectives are typically identified in the strategic mission statement and visualized on the product roadmap. Yet, creativity is not a clearly identified goal in itself. However, without creativity, innovation and product development cannot thrive.

Management can inspire creativity by linking business goals with innovation objectives. This is easier than it sounds. Often our R&D and NPD teams gather for “brainstorming.” Brainstorming is one of several techniques that is useful for generating new ideas and concepts, but brainstorming can be largely ineffective if not applied in the right situation(s).

It is more important to choose the right problem to solve than the right technique. A lot of firms will automatically turn to brainstorming when other creativity tools can be used to find potential solutions to customer problems. The objective of the company is to sustain business growth which may require marketing for sales solutions in addition to product development. Brainstorming tends to focus on generating ideas around a single concept and many of these ideas never have any follow-up.

Instead, task your product development and engineering staff with a set of business goals. Striving to meet a specific goal can generate more creative solutions that are realistic and actionable.

For example, consider a product that has lately experienced lagging sales. Instead of jumping to a brainstorming session to generate ideas for added features, use the experience and expertise of your product management teams to better understand the sales data from the perspective of business goals.

Are there new competitors in the market?
What is your market share?
Our customers once-through or repeat buyers?
What fashion or geographical trends are impacting the sales?

Invest in Creativity Tools

Brainstorming is a great technique under certain circumstances, but it is not a cure-all for creativity. Companies must invest in a wide range of efforts to induce creativity. This includes a financial commitment, year-after-year, to basic R&D. Skills development in research cannot be advanced with annual budget fluctuations due to the interruptions in project progress. Creativity grows from a long-term investment in R&D and in building skills for NPD within staff and personnel dedicated to bringing new ideas to fruition.

Brainwriting is a structured group method to generate new ideas but is more focused on specific problems and goals than are general brainstorming sessions. This technique eliminates the wild and often chaotic atmosphere of a brainstorming event to bring forth more actionable ideas. Each individual will quietly inscribe three to five ideas on a sheet of paper. Because the problem statement has been circulated in advance, the ideas are immediately forthcoming. The paper is passed to the next person who builds on these ideas. Or they may record a new idea. After a few rounds, the paper returns to the originator who reviews and selects the best idea. The team then notes the “best” concepts from this compilation of ideas. These “best” ideas are recorded as in a traditional brainstorming session.

Another technique that works well to generate creative product concepts is built on the customer’s problem, or “job-to-be-done”. The NPD team should actually use the product as it was designed in the same situations that a customer might use it. Product use (and role-playing if that’s not possible) helps to identify real pain points from the customer’s viewpoint – areas that are ripe for innovative solutions.

Accept Failure

We’ve all heard Thomas Edison’s famous quote of not having found the right invention but instead having found 10,000 ways not to do it. Failure is a part of the creative process and companies must learn to accept some failures on the pathway to success. This is precisely why athletes practice and practice. When they encounter the real-life conflict in a game, they know what worked and what did not.

While failure is a part of the creative process, there are limits to acceptable failures. Companies should not tolerate new product development without corresponding customer research. Product designs should not be created in a vacuum without consumer input. Marketing campaigns should be tested with a subset of the target audience. The NPD process is devised to engender fast and smart failures, leading to knowledge that increases the success rates of new products.

Creativity Across Organizational Boundaries

Creativity for new products and services is not limited to named R&D staff or those personnel assigned to the product development organization. Seek creativity across organizational boundaries to increase idea generation, manufacturability, and sales and marketing of products that meet customer needs and wants. Workers on the factory floor should be empowered to add value by saving costs or increasing productivity. Sales teams often have the most contact with customers and know their needs best. Every NPD effort must be staffed by a cross-functional team that can look across organizational boundaries to build better, smarter, faster products and services to solve customer problems.

The traditional “suggestion box” might be accompanied by incentives and rewards, linking exceptional ideas to the corporate business goals. Every suggestion, however, must be acknowledged with a heartfelt “thank you” and how the suggestion will (or will not) be implemented. Suggestions that aren’t timely or do not have enough cost impact must be acknowledged, rewarded, and encouraged. Small steps can eventually cover great distances, especially when taken together.

Supporting Creativity

We have to support our bodies and minds by staying hydrated as water supports all the life-giving mechanisms. Similarly, creativity supports all the business-sustaining systems for growth and productivity. We set goals for daily water consumption – my fitness app recommends 64 ounces of water per day. I have invested in tools to help me achieve that objective – refillable water bottles for my bicycle, for instance, and an insulated thermos for the car. Sometimes I fail to meet my hydration goal – sometimes by a few ounces and other times by a lot. But I can accept that failure and try again tomorrow. Finally, I have enlisted help across my institutions – each evening, my husband brings me a fresh bottle of water while I watch television or read. Staying hydrated helps me achieve so many other goals.

Likewise, senior executives today recognize more than ever that that innovation is key to long-term success. Inspiring creativity is not easy, yet most employees feel empowered and more engaged in their work when they seek creative solutions to address real-world problems. Just as I’ve taken simple steps to increase hydration in my daily life, firms can take some simple steps to enhance creativity in their organizations.

Link innovation to specific business goals.
Invest in effective innovation tools.
Accept failures on the pathway to creativity.
Take small steps to generate big results.

Creativity is part of being a successful new product development professional (NPDP). Learn more about NPDP certifications here.

Read about more creativity tools in my recent article in Chemical Engineering Progress (published by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers) here.

A Division of Global NP Solutions, LLC

Study. Learn. Earn. Simple.