10 Costly Product Innovation Don'ts to Avoid

The great thing about learning is that it provides you with an opportunity for improvement. Even with 18 years of leading product innovation efforts, I love that I still find opportunities to learn and improve. While I’ll have more to share on my approach to innovation in a subsequent article, I thought I would start by sharing some of the mistakes I’ve made along the way and the lessons that they’ve taught me.?

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.”?- Eleanor Roosevelt

While I’m sure that many of these lessons learned will resonate with you, please feel free to pay it forward by adding your own in the Comments below!

1. Don’t Skip Market Research

Learning is part of the innovation process! If you are responsible for developing a product, then conduct your own market research. Before starting any innovation effort, it’s critical to understand the market dynamics that are at play. Taking time to identify the trends, constraints, players and examples provides you with the foundation needed to develop valuable and disruptive solutions.?

2. Don’t Chase Feature Parity

Keep your competition close, but your customers closer! Never abdicate the understanding of your customer and their problems to a competitor. Products that mimic competing features run a higher risk of lower adoption because you do not understand the underlying needs and/or constraints of your customer. In addition, you take on the risk of developing an ill-conceived solution due a poor discovery process by your competitor.

3. Don’t Attack the First Problem You Find

The cure for a disease is more valuable than the medicine for its symptoms! During discovery, the first problems identified are often just symptoms of the real problem / opportunity. Investigate the “why” of the problem, its impacts and the process that surrounds it. Identifying the right problem to solve sets you on the path to design a solution that delivers value.

4. Don’t Lead With Your Own Success Metrics

Deliver customer success, and your success will follow! Prioritize the discovery of your customer’s desired outcomes and the associated success metrics. Doing so enables you to identify and incorporate analytics and reporting that measure the impact and value of your solution based on your customer’s success criteria. If your product is delivering value, then adoption, engagement and retention will follow.

5. Don’t Skip to the Solution

The easiest answer isn’t always the best answer! As in probing for the real problem, take the time to explore solution options. Avoid predetermined solutions or defaulting to the easiest solution to develop. Balance development effort against customer impact and value. Validating your solution with your customer can mitigate lengthy and costly development rework.

6. Don’t Design Around Technology

Remember that you’re designing for people! It’s easy to get excited about a new technology and its promise of disruptive innovation. That innovation, however, must deliver measurable value to an actual person. If you are designing a process around a technology instead of a person, then you circle back to your customer and validate your approach.

7. Don’t Ignore the Implementation / Change Effort

A well-designed solution must be easy to implement! When you’re focused on solving a problem, it’s easy to overlook the effort and cost required to implement the solution. Many products fail because the change curve is too steep for customers. Always capture and address your customer’s requirements for integration, conversion and training.

8. Don’t Ignore What the Data & Feedback Are Telling You

Celebrate when you’ve learned enough to stop! When research reveals your current approach must change, be prepared to pivot, back-track or completely stop your innovation effort. Avoid confirmation bias, by constantly engaging your customer to test your understanding, concepts and approach. Let them be your early warning system and they will reward you for it.

9. Don’t Create Outputs That Aren’t Inputs

The road to launch is paved with good intentions! Partner with your development team to create templates that will transform insights from problem discovery and concept testing into requirements / user stories. Even better, invite developers to listen and observe your customer sessions. Reducing the effort to understand customer needs and desired outcomes will improve your speed to market.

10. Don’t Always Default to Build

It’s perfectly fine to use someone else’s wheel! Once you have a clear picture of the solution that is needed, take a moment to explore potential partnerships. You may find that someone has a good start on the problem you need to solve. Whether you take advantage of an existing API or find a startup in an incubator, partners can accelerate your speed to market while spreading development costs.?