Do you have a plan to update your existing Innovation process to resolve common issues?
How do you feel about your current Innovation process? It most likely is in place for a while now and overall, it has served you well. Lately however, it feels a bit sluggish, a bit overly complex, the results of your Innovation initiatives seem to get worse. Let’s take a look at a few factors that could be the cause of that.
Change is everywhere
Changes are happening while we’re busy executing Innovation initiatives and we rarely have time to take a step back and take a more holistic point of view on what’s happening around us. Once we do, we find, the organization, the business environment, customer expectations, the markets and other aspects change rapidly and we haven’t kept up with those changes when it comes to executing Innovation initiatives within the new environment.
New Products and Technologies
Your existing process was designed for a certain breed of products and technologies relevant at the time. As the changes above are happening, your products and technologies that you need to offer will change with them. Very often, they will however require new approaches, new internal and external partnerships and new functional tools to execute them efficiently.
More integrated Products
While in the past, your products were built around the core competencies of the organization. Maybe (as an example) that was mainly around a hardware product. Modern products are very often not just hardware, but also include a software component. While you added the capability of software development to your organization over time, the integration of the software development activities into your existing process is not done yet. This is resulting in inefficiencies, non-aligned work packages and ultimately missed deadlines and launches.
While we work with our clients worldwide and across industries, we find many more factors, why an existing process seems to not deliver the same results as years back. I have listed more of the factors in the chart below.
The Solution
To get back to the Innovation efficiency and the results you desire, you will not have to throw out your existing process. After all it got you to where you are today. We encourage our clients to look at their process, keep what is working and update what is not working with new tools and methodologies as appropriate. If you find that you need help in this assessment, at Stage-Gate International we have a variety of tools available to develop an efficient, effective and customized improvement program for your organization. Contact me for a free consultation here through the website and let’s take the first step towards your future and improved Innovation process together.
