Both activities involve movement, but only one lets you get lost for a while so you can see what others have missed. When you develop new products based on sales reports and “validating” your ideas with customers, you’re just map-reading. Put yourself in a position to be amazed by new scenery in customers’ worlds. You’ll need to get comfortable off the beaten path… but you don’t want to go where anything is ‘beaten’ anyway, right?
More in e-book, Leader’s Guide to B2B Organic Growth (Lesson 15)
Keep using the vitality index… new product revenue as % of total revenue. But understand three limitations: 1) It’s not predictive; it only tells you what has already happened. 2) It’s not prescriptive; it doesn’t suggest how to improve. 3) It’s not precise; is it a new product if we just change its color? Supplement the vitality index with 2 newer metrics: Growth Driver Index (GDI), and Commercial Confidence Index (CCI).
More in Leader’s Guide Videos Lesson 29, Employ leading growth metrics
A project landmine is something that blows up budgets, schedule and reputations. No one steps on one they can see. So why don’t we look for them harder and earlier in a project life? Because we’ve been conditioned to think that killing our project equates to failure. Instead, we should identify areas of uncertainty as early as possible. Celebrate when you kill your own project swiftly… and celebrate when you try hard and are unable to kill it.
View video, De-risking Transformational Projects
The Oxford Dictionary defines a factoid as an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often it becomes accepted as fact. Too often in product development, what we view as a fact is just a factoid. Its fine to have assumptions, but make sure they don’t dress up as facts. What you think you know is more dangerous than what you know you think.
View video, De-risking Transformational Projects
The vitality index—percent of sales from new products—is a metric you should keep using. But it’s not predictive, prescriptive or precise. Consider 2 leading-indicator metrics from The AIM Institute: The Commercial Confidence Index (CCI), and the Growth Driver Index (GDI)… both quite easy to run. Use this free diagnostic to find out your CCI and GDI, ... Read More
1) It should be leading: Doing more of this will result in growth. 2) It should be actionable: Our employees can make this happen. 3) It should be benchmarkable: We can compare year-over-year and to our peers. 4) It should be high impact: If we improve these things, it will significantly impact growth. These two metrics pass all four tests: The Growth Driver Index (GDI) and the Commercial Confidence Index (CCI).
More in article, Beyond the Vitality Index: Two Metrics to Truly Assess Innovation Potential
A sales force is fine, but why not add a “learning force”? You don’t have this today if you’re hiring, training and rewarding your sales force to sell for today, not learn for tomorrow. But you could turn them into an “early warning system” that allows you to pursue market innovation at just the right ... Read More
Ignoring your future is a bad idea for 3 reasons. First, foresight wins battles… so compete for industry foresight, capability-building and then market share. Second, see why the future is more knowable than most realize. Third, you want to be the disruptor, not disruptee. Consider Amazon, Uber, and Apple. Get your set of Future Scenes ... Read More
Successful companies reap huge financial reward from bold, transformation projects. They probably approach them differently than you do today. Consider this 5-step process to safely and rationally process all the potential “landmines” that could otherwise blow up budgets, schedules, and reputations. Learn more about project de-risking. ... Read More
If you expect your business to be around in 10 years, why are you focusing so much of your energy on this quarter? Especially since less than 10% of your company’s stock value comes from current earnings… while the rest comes from the market’s expectations of your future earnings. Sure, this is what most leaders focus on… but not leaders like Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs.
More in article, The Inputs to Innovation for B2B
Treat technology development and product development differently. The former is science-facing and turns money into knowledge. The latter is market-facing and turns knowledge back into money. This “separation thinking” applies to voice-of-customer: You should “test silently” any technology you have. More in article, Should you develop new products like Steve Jobs? ... Read More
Your front-end-of-innovation should center on a specific customer job to be accomplished. Focusing on your product concept is far too limiting. Let’s say your business makes some physical article. By focusing on the customer’s job, you might conceive a different product, service, or even a completely new business model.
More in Leader’s Guide Videos Lesson 13, Immerse in customer outcomes
You’ll gain $4000 in net present value for every day you launch a typical B2B product earlier. Consider 3 ways to speed innovation: 1. Strengthen front-end work to end hesitation, second-guessing, and dead-end detours. 2. Concentrate resources on fewer projects. 3. Reduce “organizational friction.” More in article, How Leaders Can Accelerate New-Product Innovation ... Read More
Be very nervous about “confirmation bias.” Most B2B companies have NPD processes designed to let this bias run rampant. See The AIM Institute’s research on how quantitative interviews and Market Satisfaction Gaps remove this bias… and help you reduce commercial risk in the front-end of innovation. More in research report, Preference Interview Research Report ... Read More