After all, the path to Innovation is not always linear. It needs different perspectives working together to achieve the end goal. In fact, the greater the Innovation, the more necessary it is to include fresh perspectives. A team of “usual suspects”, experts in their field driven by past successes, may be able to take a product or service to the next level and create an incremental benefit. However, to create true ground-breaking “disruptive technology”, the process must start from a blank slate.

Once the Innovation champion assembles a team of diverse people from all levels and business backgrounds, it is key to establish trust. Only an environment that allows openness and risk-taking can produce favorable results. With the right amount of patience and shepherding, the Innovation leader can break down barriers and guide the conversation to allow for everybody’s input.

Here are some tips for the Innovation leader:

1. Trust people before they earn your precious trust; and not make your trust contingent upon proving loyalty to your ideas alone.
2. Devise a way to create a “safe haven” environment to coax the best out of the quieter members of the group; there will be those who have great ideas but will be reticent about piping up.
3. Open dialogues and collaborative relationships with local business groups, suppliers, customers, and universities.

Democratization cuts across traditional methods and produces an environment ripe for Innovation. For more tips, *see “Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.”

Implementing innovation depends on a disciplined strategy customized to the needs, size and culture of an organization. First determine what type of innovation you hope to achieve with your organization. Innovation can be incremental, which features a new process or way of doing business, or it can be transformative, which debuts an entirely new way to deliver value. Transformative innovations are few and far in between. These true game changers open up new businesses and markets. Organizations tend to use 80% of their resources on incremental enhancements, according to a 2003 study by the London School of Business. However, be warned that companies that focus entirely on incremental innovations have difficulty keeping up with new competitors that enter the field.

Understanding what your organization needs is very important in the New Product Development process. Know your innovation status and areas for improvement by completing a short audit at www.innovationcoach.com/solutions/short-audit based on Robert’s Rules of Innovations.

Once you solidify the goals of your organization, it’s time to assemble your NPD team and begin the innovation process. Be sure to complete a few relatively easy wins with your team earlier on in the process. This will not only build equity for your  program, but also gain attention from the high-ups in the organization right away.

Each organization must create their own clearly defined stages and steps of the NPD process. Here are some tips and insights for best practices.

•           Do we go/no go? Set specific criteria for ideas that should be continued or dropped. Stick to the agreed upon criteria so poor projects can be sent back to the idea-hopper early on.
•          Lean, mean and scalable. During the NPD process, keep the system nimble and use flexible discretion over which activities are executed. You may want to develop multiple versions of your road map scaled to suit different types and risk levels of projects.
•         The rear-view mirror review. Organizations are doing launch post-mortems, with performance metrics in place, to measure project performance, establish team accountability, and build in improvements for the future. An examination of your last innovation process can gain some valuable key learnings. Foster a culture of continuous improvement in the innovation process.

For more tips and guidelines on developing the right implementation strategy, see  Robert’s Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival.

How do you treat ideas once they land in your organization’s “idea hopper”, and how wide is your idea funnel?

Answer these questions, and you’ve placed your finger on the pulse of how your organization embraces new product development.

NPD best blossoms in that place where creativity commingles with structure – where fresh thinking is fostered in a nursery of structured liberation. Think of ideas as if they were offspring: They should be free to roam and explore, but they need fences – structure – in their lives to ensure safe maturation in a controlled environment.

The same is true for NPD – regardless of whether products are widgets for sale or processes envisioned to improve the organization. A formalized new product development process will guide your organization towards Innovation through steps and “sub-steps” to help you make a Go / No-Go decision.

A carefully designed business process will take you through all the steps of new product development including idea generation, concept development, prototype development, and scale-up to launching and tracking. And remember that good “products” don’t all necessarily have to result in revenues; they can enhance processes, that in turn, can boost profitability.

Finally, is your organization prepared to measure the results – not of the NP, but of the process itself? Do you have a system in place to gather, measure and share both the success and the stumbling blocks? Are you prepared to ask yourself, how did the process work?

The truth is, future success can be closely tied into past accomplishments – if you’re willing to ask the right questions, create the right environment, and learn along the way.

For more ideas read “Roberts Rules of Innovation” (Wiley) available since March 2010 or visit www.InnovationCoach.com.

The Stage-Gate innovation process has two key elements.

1. Stage. The “stage” refers to the critical activities that need to take place during a certain stage of product development. It is important that the New Product Development process be cross-business to give balanced ownership. So “stage” content should be divided amongst all business functions.
2. Gate. The process of “gating” involves ownership, decision makers, degree of flexibility, criteria and prioritization. This includes a selection of ideas and concepts from the hopper.

During the New Product Development process, build a system of metrics to monitor progress. Include input metrics, such as average time in each stage, as well as output metrics that measure the value of launched products, percentage of new product sales and other figures that provide valuable feedback. Important for an organization to have agreement of these criteria and metrics.

Even if an idea doesn’t turn into product, keep it in the hopper because it can prove to be a valuable asset for future products and a basis for learning and growth.

Remember that it is possible to nurture both creativity and structure! Here are some tips for how:

• Open Wide: Keep the idea funnels wide open, find and fill the product “white spaces” – untapped marketplace opportunities.

• Sharpen Those Teeth: Make sure your Go/No-Go decision checkpoints have “teeth.”

• Widen the Innovation Highway: Make the system lean, adaptive, flexible and scalable, in order that you can simultaneously process different types and risk levels of projects and increase sped to market.

Robert Brands is a professional Speaker, the founder of InnovationCoach.com, and the author of “Robert’s Rules of Innovation”: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival, with Martin Kleinman published in March, 2010 by Wiley.

Is the “product” actually a product? Or can it be a process? Is it a mandate from the C Suite? Or can it be a suggestion from the factory floor, the retail showroom, the Idea Box or a customer tip?

How wide is your idea funnel? And how do you treat ideas once they land in the organization’s “idea hopper”? (see the blog post on “Innovation and Idea Management” to discover how to handle in-bound ideas).

Answer these questions, and you’ve placed your finger on the pulse of how your organization embraces new product development .

NPD best blossoms in that place where creativity commingles with structure – where fresh thinking is fostered in a nursery of structured liberation. Think of ideas as if they were offspring: They should be free to roam and explore, but they need fences – structure – in their lives to ensure safe maturation in a controlled environment.

The same is true for NPD – regardless of whether products are widgets for sale or processes envisioned to improve the organization. For the concepts of “creative” and “structured” are not mutually exclusive. Creativity is the thinking that goes behind the ideation of a new product. Structure helps define and determine the vetting process that NPD must go through.

Keep in mind that each step of this entire process has distinct “sub-steps,” if you will, that must be accomplished even before a Go / No-Go decision can be made. These often are done together – and simultaneously. This vetting and completed steps will than determine which products pass the Go / No-Go decision – regardless of the source or even the potential “profitability” of any new product.

These are important distinctions. When creating a foundational NPD process, all ideas should be welcomed from all sources – from the customer service rep to the C-level exec. No short-shrift or free pass here. If the structured vetting process, one established by the Chief Idea Officer and his/her team, gives a Thumbs-Down to a new idea, the source should not spin that determination.

Regardless of whether a product is seen as a revenue source, or just an internal concept or process, that, too, should have little impact on a product’s viability or survivability in the organization. Good “products” don’t have to result in revenues; they can enhance processes, that in turn, can boost profitability.

As you’re pondering your NPD capabilities, consider whether your pipeline accommodate simultaneous multiple product development streams? A new, physical product for sale should not force a process-focused product to be shelved. This level of scalability ensures a wide “innovation highway” – one that is lean, adaptive and flexible, and can handle various products at the same time.

Finally, is your organization prepared to measure the results – not of the NP, but of the process itself? Do you have a system in place to gather, measure and share both the success and the stumbling blocks? Are you prepared to ask yourself, how did the process work?

The truth is, future success can be closely tied into past accomplishments – if you’re willing to ask the right questions, create the right environment, and learn along the way.

For more ideas read “Roberts Rules of Innovation” (Wiley) available in March 2010 or visit www.InnovationCoach.com