The Product Pulse

I didn't really know what to expect when I prepared to present at the Innovation Risk Management conference in Barcelona, Spain. In the event, I was delightfully surprised at the cast of co-presenters that the conference organizer, Marcus Evans, had assembled (I think I was the only one presenting that didn't have a PhD or who hadn't written a book in the area of innovation).

At this conference, a charming and clever man, always in a bowtie, opened my eyes to an alternate NPD process methodology to Stage-Gate's. And if you've read some of my previous posts, you know that I love me some Dr. Cooper, co-founder of Stage-Gate, so I was definitely paying attention. Dr. Bengt Järrehult presented the idea that a funnel-based stage-gate process (a horizontal funnel, wide side on the left collecting ideas, narrow side on the right spitting out winning products) is great for incremental or next-generation projects and products.

But when trying to deliver radical or breakthrough innovation, Dr. Bengt said that the innovation funnel simply didn't work for his organization (SCA). Similar to what the approach my colleague Kurt Weisenberger wrote about in the blog entry By Product Pros, For Product Pros: Another Successful Product Camp in the River City, Dr. Bengt offered this option for working on those radical and breakthrough innovation projects: the incubation reactor.

In the above graphic, Dr. Bengt draws a variation of the pipeline funnel with the reactor, and overlays it with Gina Corarelli O'Connor's arrows from her book, "Grabbing Lightning." Dr. Bengt discussed that discovery and conceptualization would be similar between the two methodologies, but that the funnel doesn't narrow on into development because an incubation and experimentation stage was necessary before it could move into development and then on to commercialization.

I love this approach! And here's the kicker – these breakthrough or Blue Ocean innovations (read: Blue Ocean Strategy) produce almost 10 times as much profit than those incremental and next generation products. Wow!

A big thanks to my new friend/guru, Dr. Bengt, for presenting this innovative concept. And stay tuned, dear Pulse reader, as you may see Dr. Bengt coming to a presentation near you in Pipeline2011! (I'll be keeping my fingers crossed to see that bowtie again!)