The Product Pulse

Happy New Year, Product Pulse Peeps!

At the end of last year, I was lucky enough to attend the Stage-Gate® Innovation Summit 2010. In addition to getting some quality time to swoon over my professional crush, Dr. Bob Cooper (I even got to get my picture taken with him -- he looks less excited than I do), I was fortunate enough to hear Dr. Scott Edgett speak on raising the bar in product innovation. As always, this dynamic duo got me thinking.

Carrie Nauyalis, Dr. Bob Cooper, and Dr. Scott Edgett
at the Stage-Gate® Innovation Summit 2010

Similar to the 2010 Product Portfolio Management Benchmark Survey sponsored by Planview and presented at Pipeline 2010, Stage-Gate recently completed a study to determine how businesses are doing in the product development innovation arena. One dataset that struck me was this one:

• Average business' rates of commercial success = 52.3%
• Average business' rates of failure = 26.5%
• Average business' rates of "kill prior to launch" = 21.2%

The curious point about this: Stage-Gate reports that this 52% success rate (higher than what I've seen reported from some other research and analyst groups) is actually a bit lower than what they've seen in the past. The reason for this decrease, according to Dr. Edgett? In 2010, companies invested less in innovation. Very interesting, Dr. Scott.

For me, a prime take away from this study is that we must raise that bar if we're going to raise the commercial success rate of our product development efforts. 2010 was a year for retrenching and rethinking. 2011 invites us to raise the bar on innovation.

So, what are your goals for driving innovation in 2011 and for increasing your company's success rates? Click on the Comment link above and share your company's grand plans for 2011! (Dare ya!)