Rebirth Intentional Invention: The Stage Gate Innovation Process
If you are a novice at Intentional Invention, here are some leadership guidelines and a proven stage-gate invention process design that will guide you and your team in creating a structured and practical invention process.
Understand the leadership mindset for invention.
The leader of an organization or community must serve as the catalyst for sparking an innovation mindset throughout a company. This responsibility cannot be delegated. It must start from the top.
Successful innovation often emerges after numerous attempts, with simultaneous development initiatives underway, and following the experience of failures. It is impossible to generate a 100 percent success rate. Leaders must stop obsessing about new product/service failures.
New product capabilities and services take several years to develop and require an additional couple of years before they become profitable. That’s why a continuous stream of new products and services launches is imperative. Without seamless innovation, which continues consistently over time, one can’t expect positive innovation results.
Speed-to-market success at the risk of sacrificing quality will not yield positive long-term results.
The key to new product success is treating it as a key component of business strategy.
Effective invention or innovation is not a creative, unstructured brainstorming activity. It is a multidisciplinary function and a deliberate investment in a company’s future.
Invention or innovation should never be viewed as a cost center. It is a long-term investment.
Top management must accept the uncertainty and inherent risk of new products and services, and utilize a process that examines new insights and bases decisions on experiential rationale.
There is no “black box” or “magic wand”.
Design a stage-gate invention process.
Insight has facilitated leaders in modifying and implementing the stage-gate invention process, as developed by Thomas D. Kuczmarski, author of Innovation: Leadership Strategies for the Competitive Edge.
The preface to the following nine-stage gates for developing and screening invention ideas and concepts clearly articulates your organization or community’s:
Innovation vision – what you want to become in the future
Innovation blueprint – growth role for new products, financial goals, and role of people
Innovation strategy – growth gap to close, role of products, screening criteria
Stage Gate 1: Consumer Problems & Needs Exploration
Conduct qualitative research with customers to explore and identify their concerns, complaints, frustrations, and issues related to a specific category, activity, behavior, or function. These areas provide a focus for idea generation.
Stage gate 2: Problem Solving & Idea Generation
Generate new solutions and creative approaches that address the identified customer problems. An idea is a description of a product/service that details what it does and lists the key benefits it will provide to customers. SCREEN 1: Evaluate idea here
Stage Gate 3: Concept Development
Take screened ideas and develop them into 3-D descriptions of a product/service. A concept should describe the product/service features and attributes, its intended use, and its primary benefits to be perceived by customers. It outlines the core technologies that will be used and states general technical feasibility. It addresses how the product might be positioned against competition and defines who the primary purchaser will be.
Stage Gate 4: Business Analysis
Formulate a market and competitive assessment that projects the potential revenue size and attractiveness of the new product concept. Develop a rough, 3-year pro forma that estimates future financial performance. SCREEN 2: Evaluate concept here
Stage Gate 5: Prototype Development
Complete development of the product and run product-performance and customer-acceptance tests.
Stage Gate 6: Production Scale-up
Determine roll-out equipment needs and manufacture the product in large enough quantities to identify “bugs” and problems. Run additional product-performance and quality tests.
Stage Gate 7: Market Testing
Launch the product into select test markets to gauge potential performance and educate target buyers. SCREEN 3: Test product/service here
Stage Gate 8: Commercialization
Introduce the product and sell it to the trade. Initiate awareness-building and trial stimulation programs to reach the targeted customer base.
Stage Gate 9: Post-Launch Checkup
Monitor performance of the new product/service at 6 and 12 months after launch and evaluate potential changes or improvements to be made.