One of the greatest challenges faced by innovation executives is a shortage of game-changing ideas for new products.  In our benchmarking study, only 19 percent of businesses have a sufficient ideation front-end to feed their innovation funnel.  Given that it takes roughly 100 ideas to yield one successful new product - this is a big problem for many companies. 

In our latest book, Generating Breakthrough New Product Ideas: Feeding the Innovation Funnel, we provide guidance to establishing a proactive Discovery Stage that addresses the drivers of innovation performance and leverages internal and external idea sources.  

To navigate your road to success, we have noted some key highlights:

• We describe how it is possible to proactively manage a steady stream of highly potential new product ideas
• We provide an unbiased evaluation of every top Idea Generating method that is currently available today
• We share the most creative, interesting and effective methods used by companies such as:

Procter & Gamble - P&G has launched its Connect + Develop initiative to open up the company’s innovation efforts and needs to the world to generate ideas for ready-to-go products, packaging, technologies, processes and commercial connections that will result in game-changing innovation to address unmet consumer needs; and 

Swarovski - the Austrian crystal and jewelry company - has established a best-in-class idea gathering and handling system at the front end of its Stage-Gate product innovation process.

Make 2007 the year  for  generating  Big Ideas for your company!

Learn how to get started. 

Read a chapter from the new book and plan to attend our executive seminar Generating Breakthrough New Product Ideas and receive a complimentary copy of this new book.

Make 2007 The Year Of Big Ideas For Your Company 

It takes approximately 100 ideas to generate one successful product.
 Is your organization generating enough new product ideas to achieve your growth and performance goals?

Generating Breakthrough New Product Ideas:  Feeding The Innovation Funnel led by Dr. Scott Edgett, the world's foremost experts in the ever-important field of product innovation, focuses on the front-end of product innovation. 

This seminar outlines how your company can take a proactive approach to feeding its idea-to-launch process and the actual methods that leading companies such as Apple,  Motorola and Procter & Gamble are using to generate blockbuster new product ideas.

This intensive 2-day seminar focuses on what innovation executives need to know, including the methods you can implement to generate and identify high-value blockbuster ideas for 2007.   

This seminar is a must attend for anyone who wants to learn how to succeed in generating new product ideas.

Register NOW for this Executive Innovation Seminar and Receive a Complimentary Copy of Dr. Cooper and Dr. Edgett’s newest book.

It's today's most comprehensive and practical review for modern and effective Idea Generation Practices.

 

Metrics That Matter
By Dr. Ken Huskins, Senior Consultant Stage-Gate Inc. 

Top performing Innovators know that successful Innovation does not simply occur, it must be managed. Traditional wisdom tells us that we cannot manage what we don't measure. Organizations need ways to measure how effective they are at executing their innovation strategies. Metrics are the basic building blocks for assessment of execution. Let's take a look at the metrics that matter for managing product innovation development. Years of research by Dr. Robert Cooper and Dr. Scott Edgett have surfaced these as best practices employed by top performing innovative companies.

First, what is the definition of metrics in the context of innovation? Typically, metrics (and often a combination of metrics) fall into two broad areas:

• Business Performance
• Process Effectiveness

For business performance metrics, the goal is to determine the impact product innovation is having in achieving the company's strategic goals. The focus is on actual in-market performance versus pre-market forecasts and on project pipeline value, risk, and prioritization. Process effectiveness metrics help to answer the question "Is our innovation process working optimally?"

The authentic Stage-Gate product innovation process, configured in the HTML-based SG Navigator^TM , embeds guidance for metrics collection and analytics directly within the stage activities and best practice deliverables   templates. Product innovation team members (i.e. subject matter experts) are responsible for generating metrics data from their up-front homework and development activities. Assembling the team’s gate deliverables directs the team to integrate cross-functional insight to determine what the metrics say about the project value and risks.

Some sample best practice product innovation metrics found in SG-Navigator, Stage-Gate Inc.’s authentic Stage-Gate web-guide, are…

 Business Performance Metrics:

• Project attractiveness score (from Gate scorecards)
• Financial strength (e.g. NPV, IRR, and EVA)
• Market attractiveness (i.e. total size and percentage that can be reasonably served)
• Likelihood of success (both commercial and technical)
• Percent of total revenue from products introduced in the last 3 years
• Percent of new products that succeed in-market (i.e. meet or exceed sales and/or profit plan)
• Innovation Productivity Index (i.e. product pipeline value divided by investment required)

Process Effectiveness Metrics:

• Percentage of products launched on-time and on-budget
• Project "Kills" by stage
• Average time in Stage (by project type)
• Percentage of Gate 'Recycles'
• Actual resources used versus forecasts (from ‘Next Stage Plan’ gate deliverable)

A well thought out selection of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Timely) metrics, displayed via graphics in ‘dashboards’, can enable the executive team to ask questions that will yield an accurate assessment of the state of health of the organization’s innovation program and performance. For example, is the organization executing ‘on-strategy’? Are resources being directed to the highest value projects? Are project throughput predictions realistic? Is the value of the project pipeline sufficient to meet the business goals?