New Year's Resolutions - The Top Ten

1. Strive for superiority. Resolve to equip your company to develop truly differentiated, superior products and avoid ‘me-too-copycats’. The strongest driver of new product success is a product that delivers real value to customers. See our Tip of the Month.
2. Coach your gatekeepers. The biggest missed opportunity for most companies. Consider each gate meeting as your best opportunity for the leaders to ‘display’ the behaviors needed for truly effective innovation performance.
3. Learn to say NO. An abundance of new product ideas + hard working people eager to make an impact on performance is a recipe for gridlock, unless your idea-to-launch process demands tough decision points. Focus on fewer projects.
4. Engage the leaders. Executives tell us that they want to get involved and recognize the importance of getting involved but just don’t know HOW to get involved. Many rely on their top NPD officers to speak up and provide guidance. Start the New Year by sending each executive a copy of Product Leadership the best selling book.
5. Raise the bar. This year establish a goal to improve, really improve, one aspect of your new product performance. It’s OK to limit yourself to one improvement if that improvement can make a significant impact. Choose carefully.
6. Invest in your team. Remember how energized you were after spending a day with Bob Cooper or Scott Edgett discussing the best practices of top performing companies? One sure way to improve your overall performance is by training others on your team. They will appreciate the opportunity to develop and grow.
7. Less really is more. Resolve to cut the # of portfolio charts you view at your portfolio meetings in half. Work with your executives to zero in on the few but really meaningful charts that will lead to superior decision-making.
8. Network. Make a point of creating a network of innovation colleagues that you can learn from, compare performance & practices with and use as a sounding board. The Stage-Gate Summit is a high caliber network and great start.
9. Delegate Idea Generation. Stop generating ‘lists’ of new product ideas for the year during the annual business planning session. Design a good idea generation program and let it work for you – some of the market’s best ideas were captured this way. Rely on your gates to weed out the good, the bad and the ugly.
10. Stop, Reflect and Recognize. Product innovation is tough business. Critical thinking and problem solving is a necessity. Thick skin is mandatory. If you are doing this right, you’ll reject upwards of 75% of all of the ideas submitted and will kindly ask those same people to go back to the drawing board for more. You make some of the toughest decisions of your careers. Product innovation is no doubt one of the toughest fields to work in. All the more reason to learn when to pause and reflect on your achievements. Don’t stop there - remember to acknowledge your team by recognizing their contributions?