Hi! managers: Street-smart common sense and product innovation

Here are some hard-won lessons from the street (and the gutter) of innovation that are more lore than data and more "street smart" than the formal process. They align roughly with the new product introduction phases - but only roughly.

The Idea Phase: "Never allow an idea to die" - because ideas are fragile. Keep as many ideas alive as you can. You never know when you will need one.

The Concept Phase: "Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks" - a 3M saying, and in our case, it's literal. Sometimes you need to execute on multiple options or prototypes in order to get to the best one.

The Feasibility Phase: "Will the dogs eat the dog food?" No matter how enamoured management is with an idea, if customers don't like it, it won't succeed. Too internal a focus can lead to innovations that look good to a committee, but fall far short of expectations.

The Development Phase: "It's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission." Innovation is about taking risks. In a large organisation this might mean challenging processes and approvers as well as budgets.

The Scale-Up Phase: "Make a little, sell a little." At 3M, this is a mantra. Nothing succeeds like success. If you can make some early versions of your product and some lead customers will buy it, that goes a long way to proving your invention.

The Launch Phase: "Sell what you've got." While every invention is a "version one", it is tempting to sell according to the promise of the next generation of features. It's best to sell what you can deliver today. Too many times, an invention suffers from being "a year away from being a year away".

The Post-Launch Phase: "One good idea leads to another." Ideas reproduce, mutate and build on each other. Don't be shocked if your original intended use ends up being its third- or fourth-best application. Follow your inventions down alleys.

In summary, it's easy to get lost in the innovation process because not everything appears on the map. Forks in the road, uphill climbs and even the corporate equivalent of competing gangs lurk in the alleys of new product development. Great innovations come from teams that follow the process, but use street-wise common sense.

Paul Acito is managing director of 3M Thailand. Follow his articles every fourth Wednesday of the month.