About 15 years ago I was working at a very large global company. I was focused in the new products area working for a smaller, more entrepreneurial division. We were a growth division and were expected to launch a lot of new products. Makes sense, right?
This division had a great, low cost business model. One that was free of significant launch costs and many of the natural restrictions that keep ideas from getting out the front door. Depending on your mindset, that might sound like the perfect scenario. The company wants new products. We can launch them easily and with relatively little cost. A marriage made in Heaven . . .
The problem? The division had a history of launching products that did not succeed. The products were launched in niche categories, with little marketing support and without consumer research to determine purchase intent or confirm package size or flavors.
OK, so maybe they just got unlucky, right? But that wasn't the only issue. Over time, the negative consequences are not just related to inefficiency or a lack of growth. Some of the larger issues had to do with the effect on distribution partners and the sales organization. They were losing confidence in the division's ability to identify, launch and support new products.
So, when it is too easy to launch a new product, there's only one thing to do.
Put up a brick wall.
In absence of a brick wall, You need another way to slow down ideas and make sure they are properly vetted prior to launch.
The thought came that an obstacle course was a good visual and might provide an interactive and tangible way to force more discipline on the new product launch process.
So, the new product obstacle course was born.
The New Product Obstacle Course
A detailed and objective new product development path that requires a product concept to prove its worth before test market introduction and beyond.
Each obstacle included a qualitative (subjective) or quantitative (objective) hurdle. In the final program, each product had to "clear" thirteen different obstacles prior to launch.
The effect? With the microscope lowered on new ideas, the natural optimism was replaced with a more sober sense of the difficulties of succeeding with new products. The reality is that 9 out of 10 new products fail.
Our goal was to better the odds by asking more of our ideas.
So if you are in the idea business or the new products business, make sure you put the work in up front.
Make sure the products you launch deserve their time in the sun.
Make them earn it.
Oh yeah. We need MORE products. Products products products. Lets have some articles on managing the creation and development of useless garbage to "fix" problems that 99.9999% of the time don't exist. Yet these piles of waste CAUSE problems themselves. Millions of problems. Problems that can't be washed from your greedy little claws by running a "good" company or donating to a tax shelter charity.
No. We don't need any more garbage ideas or plastic pieces of shit with marketing budgets. We don't need the pudgy, sloppy, daydreams of cubical dwelling middle-management wannabes, afflicted with delusions of adequacy, brought to life. My gods the world already looks like a trashed wal-mart returns room.
Instead of dreaming about another "product" to toss into the lake of life, without any thought to the ripples of misery it causes; maybe you should aspire to doing something NOT focused on waste, avarice, and grotesque gluttony. If you even know how anymore. Yeah, I didn't think you did.
Posted by: RealityCheck | July 17, 2009 at 02:50 PM
RealityCheck . . . I had to read your comment three times to fully capture all of your imagery. Probably the single most interesting comment I have ever had on any of my blogs. Despite your disgust with the concept of new products, I will cherish this one.
Actually, the concept described above is intended to keep bad ideas out of the market. Presumably saving the landfills and preventing other forms of corporate waste . . .
Thanks.
Posted by: Tim Tyrell-Smith | July 17, 2009 at 03:06 PM