Product Development Leadership
Larry Pendergrass, vice president of New Product Development at Keithley Instruments, Inc., contributes his views on a variety of issues related to new product development leadership, including general leadership, innovation, strategy development and execution.
Tenet of Innovation #10: Recognize that innovation can be managed
The process of creating commercial products involves generating information and moving from high risk and uncertainty toward very low risk and great predictability. By the time the products and services are in production, our expectations are for high quality and certain yields, cost, and performance. And yet we know that, by its very nature, risk is inherent to the innovative process. The answer ...... Read More
Comments (3)Tenet of Innovation #9: Give your people the time and resources they need
In 1967, Charles Hummel wrote the classic essay “Tyranny of the Urgent,” which spoke to the hearts and minds of many of us caught up in the rush of the modern world. Far from creating the 1950s ideal of a life freed from trivial tasks, technology has simply caused us to pick up the pace. The pressures of increased global competition and the demands of Wall Street have done the same t ...... Read More
Comments (1)Tenet of Innovation #8: Create a “yes, if” environment rather than a “no” environment
It’s been written that the typical product development environment has five types of contributors: the Creator, the Advancer, the Refiner, the Executor, and the Flexor. (See Leadership Resources, using the Inscape Publishing material “Team Dimensions Profile.”) According to this model, the Creator tends to create ideas, whereas the Advancer promotes ideas. The Refiner challeng ...... Read More
Comments (5)Tenet of Innovation #7: Understand that ideas come from everywhere
Often, we turn to a few top individual contributors to act as our innovation generators. And these innovators usually have a well-deserved reputation for creative ideas. But sources of innovation for your business and technologies could be waiting for you in the most unlikely places. If you take the time to listen, and sometimes just observe with eyes un-obscured by current assumptions, you may fi ...... Read More
Comments (0)Tenet of Innovation #6: Hire a diverse workforce and watch for opportunities at the intersections
Have you ever walked into a new job and found that your background allowed you to see long-standing problems from a different perspective than those who had been working on them for years? You’ve brought a new set of eyes to the problem, perhaps applying skills from another business or technology discipline, bridging the gap between your past experience and these new challenges. Your abilit ...... Read More
Comments (0)Tenet of Innovation #5: Realize that innovation is not always customer driven
Some of the most spectacular innovations were not the result of carefully studied “voice of the customer” processes. Of course, for any business, it’s essential to keep listening to customers and to understand their needs, both spoken and unspoken, as well as to understand their applications, both current and future. But investing all of your resources in products within the v ...... Read More
Comments (1)Tenet of Innovation #4: Accept that hierarchy and position are irrelevant and may be the enemy
Creation is more important than title. I give credit here to the company IDEO for demonstrating this on film better than any words can do. See the Nightline video. (This is Part 1 of the full version. Parts 2 and 3 are also found on YouTube.) See also The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm, by Tom Kelley, Crown Business, 2001. The video gives u ...... Read More
Comments (4)Tenet of Innovation #3: Realize that trust is a prerequisite for innovation
Fear kills risk-taking; trust releases it. Part of this principle has roots in the Pygmalion effect (also known as the Rosenthal Effect) I discussed as part of the 10 Tenets of Leadership. Recall that this is a well-studied phenomenon by which our expectations of others drive how they view themselves and hence how they perform. The more faith we have in our employees to be innovative and creative, ...... Read More
Comments (0)Tenet of Innovation #2: Fail often; fail early
Innovation is discovery, in both our market and technology understanding. Failing often implies willingness and tolerance for this sometimes-painful discovery process. And we have talked about this to some degree in Tenet #1: Plan on failure; be delighted with success. But although we may expect failure, we wish to get to knowledge quickly, with rapid iterations, so we can make better decisions go ...... Read More
Comments (4)Tenet of Innovation #1: Plan on failure; be delighted with success
Innovation is never without risk. In fact, it has become almost a basic premise of research and development that increased risk is a prerequisite to increased innovation. (This principle is at work in your personal financial investment portfolio just as it is in your product development portfolio. Just as you wish to have a balanced financial portfolio that represents a level of risk that reflects ...... Read More
Comments (2)Introduction to the 10 Tenets of Innovation
I’d like to offer my thanks to everyone who has read and commented on my Product Development Leadership blog over the past few months while we discussed my 10 Tenets of Leadership. I’d also like to continue the great exchange by moving on to my 10 Tenets of Innovation. I hope you will enjoy and take part in the discussion through your comments. An innovative environment An environmen ...... Read More
Comments (2)Tenet of Leadership #10: Become redundant
Why is it that some leaders focus on training their successors and others don’t? Is it just a matter of feeling the press of current work, the tyranny of the urgent? Sometimes it is. And yet, in some cases, it has more to do with a leader’s self-image and level of self-confidence. In the same way, some leaders always look to hire people better than themselves, and others feel less co ...... Read More
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