Research shows that five barriers impede consumer goods companies from generating more high-value ideas to put into their product pipelines. Below are those barriers, along with suggestions for how to overcome them. Read More

One must consider resource implications when determining an optimal portfolio investment scenario. Insufficient resources available to deliver a given portfolio is the norm, so one must conduct a process to select a subset of the portfolio to be funded. A portfolio funding approach which selects... Read More

To gain the most benefit from their innovation efforts, companies need to manage their innovation process. The early phases of the innovation process – namely, idea gathering, idea development, and idea review – are particularly important to manage because they are typically the “fuzziest” and... Read More

We recently attended the Stage-Gate® Innovation Summit 2013, with this year's theme of “Driving Innovation Performance: Getting Better Results.” Not only was this a great topic that spurred some thoughtful discussions around the innovation challenge, it also supported the idea that companies can... Read More

At the recent Stage-Gate® International Summit 2013, the organizers conducted real-time benchmarking with the attendees between presentation sessions. The attendees were mostly senior leaders in the innovation / new product development areas of the companies they represented – a cross section of... Read More

Much has been written and said about master data. Knowing which system has data, which system is responsible for maintenance of that data, which system is the gold source, which system is responsible for access control, and which approach is to be used to share, access, or replicate data across... Read More

Research of current practices among today's manufacturing companies has identified a number of critical points where innovation processes typically break down. The consequences of those failures are amplified for companies faced with the complexities of managing innovation resources and outcomes on... Read More

Innovation is something that cannot entirely be scheduled. It is possible to plan to do innovation work (the key word being work). One can allocate time to work on a strategic innovation plan, or a particular deliverable for a given product development project. But actual innovation cannot be... Read More

Most of us work in an environment where the objectives we have to deliver exceed our currently known initiatives. This happens at all levels of the company. The executive suite has to deliver to expectations set by its shareholders. A brand manager has to deliver to expectations set by divisional... Read More

There are several major business, economic and market circumstances and trends that have forward-thinking companies exploring innovation opportunities beyond traditional new product development initiatives. The major circumstance and trends driving these initiatives include: Read More