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.”

A deep understanding of your customer needs, and providing ways to fulfill those needs, is ultimately what leads to profitable growth. The most consistent path to creativity is when an innovator gathers customer data and observes problems that need fixing, according to Karen Holtzblatt of InContext Enterprises. WordPerfect was developed when designers asked for input from their primary customers, office secretaries. eBay founder Pierre Omidyar conceived the idea for an online auction house when his wife required a setting to collect and trade PEZ dispensers. Today, eBay gathers customer feedback on a regular basis in order to add new features to the site every year.

It is essential to get customer input and feedback during the New Product Development process. Consider holding ideation sessions with your customers to gain valuable insight. Take into account customer input at numerous stages throughout your NPD process. Some questions to ask your customers include what features and benefits they would like to see, such as product and service ideas, or what they would like a product to do for them to solve any particular issues. Finally, there are entirely new breakthroughs that customers cannot conceive. But once the idea for a product or service is suggested, let customers give input on a radical new concept.

According to “A Little Book of f-Laws” by Russell Ackoff and Herbert Addison, “Consumers can discover what they want in products and services by designing them. It is in design that people find what they want. Furthermore, consumer involvement in product/service design almost always gets creative results.”

The key of it all is to make sure your products and services are not developed and designed in a vacuum, or only as technical solutions, because they rarely succeed. It is all about creating and adding value in a unique solution.

In “Robert’s Rules of Innovation”, Net Result and Reward is about motivating your people with the right incentives. Motivation does not necessarily mean rewarding with money, and quite frankly it is about recognition for a job well done. Give your NPD team incentive to produce innovative ideas. What type of rewards can you give your team, beyond bonuses? Here are some ideas for non-financial motivation.

• You want your employees to feel a sense of loyalty to the company. Reward high performance with opportunity – to sit on a panel, a team or attend a business conference.
• Recognize a job well done with an award program. Give an award to a NPD team member who has achieved a great accomplishment.
• One of the best ways to highlight an innovation champion’s achievement is to give them exposure. Introduce them to a client, or invite them to lunch with an executive of the organization or face time with the boss.
• Simple praise will boost morale (so long as it is deserved)! People like to know that their success was noticed by the head of the company.

These non-financial rewards can benefit an organization by increasing an employee’s loyalty and commitment to the company, boosting company morale and reinforcing ideal outcomes in the future. Motivating employees to reach their top performance is a win-win situation for everyone involved and equates to Innovation ROI. Actually a November 2009 study by McKinsey concluded that recognition and these types of rewards were appreciated more than just financial rewards.

For additional tips on how to drive a successful New Product Development team, look for “Robert’s Rules of Innovation”. Robert Brands is 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 by Wiley.

Over the past several weeks and 10 posts on the Vistage Blog , we’ve reviewed key imperatives that formed “Robert’s Rules of Innovation” and that together create the foundation upon which to build, improve, sustain and grow an organization’s innovation mandate.

Consider this the closing chapter in an 11-step treatise on putting what you’ve read into action. First, a brief summary…

Consider the lesson on the first imperative – Inspire and Initiate – to realize the steps necessary. The power of inspiration cannot be over-estimated in the process of innovation. Inspire your people, and then hit the throttle.

With inspiration as the wind in your sails, next comes the realization that with No risk, there can be no innovation. Companies must be willing to take some risk to potentially realize the benefits of innovation.

We discovered how important innovation is to the New product development process it, and how Ownership across the organization – from the CEO to the rank-and-file employee – fuels buy-in to successful innovation.

Innovation, we learned, fuels Value creation, yet Accountability, Training and coaching, and Idea management bring value to the process and its individual elements. Finally, the mandate to Observe and measure every step of the process brings quantifiable metrics to the process, which – hopefully – delivers Net results / net rewards.

Together, these imperatives drive Innovation.

With these imperatives in place, now visualize the role they play in your organization and issue a call to action: Innovate to thrive.

How should you start? Here are three final tips to get you started…

• Just Do It. Like the Nike commercial, it’s all about execution. You can read books and blogs on innovation. You can write plans for your next innovative pursuit. Yet as the Chinese proverb says, “Every long journey begins with one small step.” With the plan in hand, work the plan.

• Communicate. This cannot be stressed enough. From the CEO to the Chief Innovation Officer to every team member involved in the process, communication is essential to relaying key information about goals, intent, progress (from the biggest success to the smallest setback), and lessons learned from any failure. Whether by email, IM, a collaborative whiteboard, or recurring meetings, communicate your milestones.

• Get committed. Personal involvement from the CEO means, “No Lip Service.” From the highest levels, there must be a hands-on presence in update meetings, project rankings, and troop motivation. You must set the example. You must walk the talk.

You’ve been given the tools and insights. Now, it’s time to implement an innovation initiative in your organization. You don’t have to start big; in fact, like so many first-time projects, a beta may be the best way to test the initiative without investing too much time, manpower or resources – only to later discover whether the concept was worthy of pursuing further.

The key, though, is to kick it off. Create a personal action plan, follow it through, get engaged with personal involvement, and be there.

Don’t hesitate to drop me a note if you need encouragement or want to relay news of your successes, robert@innovationcoach.com

For more information and useful content see “Robert’s Rules of Innovation“,

LOOK INSIDE for more chapters, insights and tips on Innovation.

—/—

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.

Of the ten imperatives of Robert’s Rules of Innovation, this step is all about continuous improvement. It is necessary to Observe and Measure throughout the Innovation process, or else, how would you recognize successful Innovation? A system of metrics will objectively show your progress and success each step of the way. Plan. Do. Check. Act. It’s essential to follow a course of actions that produce ongoing improvement.

So first, gather initial observations and measurements at the beginning of the NPD process. It’s necessary to establish a baseline or starting point and measurable facts versus subjective assessments.

Secondly, to have an optimal measurements, one should establish leading and lagging indicators – leading to show where you are heading, and lagging to show you rearview mirror observations.

Examples of leading indicators can be patents filed, ideas created and in the hopper, as well as development time spent. Lagging indicators include patents granted, new products introduced and percentage of new product sales compared to total sales.

Product life cycles are getting shorter and shorter, which means NPD cycles must happen quicker to keep up. For example, personal care products have a life cycle of only 2 or 3 years. That means continuous Innovation is vital. Observe and measure the time spent in each gate, and the time spent to get to the next gate. See if you can make any improvements as far as efficiency.

By following a set of metrics, you’ll be able to evaluate the performance of your New Product Development process and your end result. And it doesn’t stop after the product is launched.

Here are some additional tips:

• What’s Measured, Is Treasured: And that’s just human nature, so be sure to check and recheck performance – monthly.  No exceptions, no excuses. What gets measured gets done.
• What to Look For?: The key performance indicators and metrics include:
  • R&D spending as a percentage of sales
  • Total patents filed/pending/awarded/rejected
  • Total R&D head count
  • Current year percentage of sales attributable to new products released in the past year/three years/five years
  • Number of new products released

For a recent survey on Innovation Measurements, see:  http://www.innovationcoach.com/resources/survey/ “What do you measure?”

For more Tips, see “Robert’s Rules of Innovation” by Wiley, March, 2010.

The last imperative of Robert’s Rules of Innovation is Net Results, Net Reward, meaning recognizing the people who contributed to the development of a new product. It’s important to reward actions with incentives for sustainable effort.

Rewards for a successful New Product Development process can be monetary – often the key stakeholders get a product launch reward or a percentage of sales from new products. But all members of the staff need to be rewarded, and motivation isn’t always about money. In fact, non-financial motivators can rise above other incentives. Praise from managers, the attention of leadership and the chance to lead projects are strong motivators that can top even monetary rewards. People mostly want to feel recognized and appreciated for their contributions. If those needs are met, employees stay engaged until after the new product launch and for more development processes to come. Rewards enhance an employee’s commitment to the company, boost workplace morale and motivate future efforts.

The fruits of your team’s labor benefit all. These successes must be rewarded – and in the appropriate manner. Here are some tips on why you should reward your employees and how:

• Innovation and ROI: True Innovation results in value creation for all stakeholders – in terms of financial return, increased market share and enhanced profitability; this is the ultimate goal of your sustainable Innovation program.
• The Right Rewards: Rewards and recognition systems can take many forms, from a bonus percentage based upon new product sales to peer acknowledgment and awards.
• Recognition: Pride…a thorny problem solved…the personal satisfaction of a job well-done – these are some of the intrinsic motivators that make creative people tick.

For more tips on Net Results, Net Reward and other Rules of Innovation Imperatives, see Robert’s Rules of Innovation™ by Robert F. Brands with Martin J. Kleinman published in March, 2010 by Wiley.

It is not without reason that Whirlpool Corporation established that the “How To” training is the most important need for corporate Innovation to succeed, from top to bottom. At Whirlpool, innovative thinking is considered the responsibility of each of its 80,000 employees. They continue to be the primary source for new ideas that meet consumer needs. It’s such an important part of their culture that they have a corporate initiative in place to sustain the commitment company-wide.

To reinforce and enhance a creative company culture and mindset, effective training and coaching must not be forgotten. Any company that wants to stay in business needs a sustainable Innovation program. Here are some Training and Coaching tips to help your product development process:

• Share the Joy: As well as the frustrations – communicate what is working and not working.
• Pick the Right Coaches: Not everyone has the psychological makeup to be the coach.  Knowledge is key, obviously.  But the coach needs to be able to motivate, mediate, and create camaraderie and a sense of selflessness.
• The One-On-One Touch: Individual coaching provides the privacy and attention that breeds success.  I’ve found that discussions regarding areas for improvement are received and acted upon much better in a private session, away from peers listening in.  This can be especially critical with new employees and/or team members.
• Basics First: Make certain project management basics are taught, applied and re-taught.

For more Tips, see Robert’s Rules of Innovation™ by Robert F. Brands with Martin J. Kleinman published in March, 2010 by Wiley.

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