If you ran a zoo, you’d keep your jungle animals and farm animals in separate enclosures, right? Your technology development projects are untamed, jungle animals: You don’t completely understand them, and you’re not sure what they’ll do or where they’ll go next. Your product development projects are predictable farm animals. You know what they’re supposed to do, and who they’re supposed to do it for.
When you commercialize technology, you are “domesticating” wild animals for productive purposes. As a first step, you must be crystal clear which type of project your scientists or engineers are working on at any point in time. Remember, technology development turns money into knowledge; product development turns knowledge back into money. You can learn more from this white paper, Commercialize technology in 6 foolproof steps.
More in this 2-minute video, How to pursue transformational projects
Bucket #1 is Technology Development… science-facing innovation that turns money into knowledge. Bucket #2 is Product Development… market-facing innovation that turns knowledge back into money. Bucket #3 is Process Development… optimizing the production of existing products to make money more efficiently. Don’t focus on customer needs for Bucket #1 (it’s too early) or #3 (it’s too late)… but do this very well for Bucket #2. In the entire money-making process, this is your greatest point of leverage today.
More in article, Target Customer Needs and Win
Do you clearly distinguish between technology development and product development? Technology development is science-facing, while product development is market-facing. Technology development turns money into knowledge, and product development turns knowledge back into money. Keep technology and product development separate if you want to avoid confusion and inefficiency. Milestones on a Gantt chart are great for product development, but good luck scheduling technical breakthroughs in your lab.
More in article, Timing is Everything (p6).
Technology development is science-facing and converts money into knowledge. Product development is market-facing and converts knowledge back into money. Both are critical, but don’t confuse them. And never do any product development until you have quantified, unbiased, unfiltered data on customer needs.
More in white paper, Timing is Everything (page 6).
