One-shot.
The small R&D team had been working for months, laying the groundwork for what they hoped would be a dramatic new product. It seemed like it had it all: market runway, clients who were accessible by the existing team, and good utilization of the firm’s existing capabilities.
Unfortunately, many firms have a process that puts reach out projects on “the bubble” during a specific review with one chance to make the case to go forward.
In the case above, it turned out that their proposed product was a little too competitive with an existing product line. The P&L leader’s voice carried a lot of weight and in short order, the project was postponed for more “study.”
In truth, it was tossed overboard, left bobbing in the water like a buoy behind a cruise ship where it was quickly forgotten by most. Who hadn’t forgotten, were those who proposed it. There, a layer of memory had been built.
And this isn’t an isolated case – it happens in firms every day. In fact, I’m sure it’s happening right now.
Why Does This Happen?
In most firms, there is a gap between the visionary “creatives” and those who execute the solutions – be it in hardware, software or services. Visionary leaders excel at seeing the shortfall in the current product or service and developing a unique approach. They are also amazing at finding the high-level risks, as well as the experiments necessary to remove them.
The “gap” is built due to the fact that when they think they are done, the work is actually just starting.
Much like cutting the middle out of an ice cream cone and trying to put the two halves together, the solutions created by a visionary team are not nearly as ready to “hop the gap” into a delivery environment as they might believe.
This gap costs the firm and its stakeholders a significant amount of time, money and resources in one of two ways:
First, for those projects that are pressed into the commercial side of the firm early, it gets very messy (and messy equals costly). Typically, these costs come in several ways. There is a loss of “face” by the sales team as the delivery teams cannot deliver on promises. The ensuing pressures lead to very ineffective use of delivery resources which has the cascading effect of spilling over to other established products and services. What has happened is that the real customer research was done in the most costly way – real-time with a client who didn’t realize they were running a “beta test.”
All this extra effort hits margins, which go zero or negative quickly when the firm’s precious production resources get bogged down.
Second, for those projects that are promising, but get stopped prior to being introduced, there are revenues that the firm never gets to see. This is the zone that never shows up on the P&L but is the kind of (game-changing) missed growth that we’ve seen in stories like Xerox PARC. These lost opportunities are like those buoys behind the cruise ship.
The hidden but deeper issue is the message that gets sent to and internalized by the culture. It’s easy for those who are most creative to take this as, “they are just not interested.” Suddenly, great ideas all over the firm head for the digital equivalent of the bottom desk drawer.
When the best and brightest keep their ingenuity to themselves, it creates a spiral of mediocrity.
Putting in the (Soft) Work to Avoid the (Hard) No
So just how do we approach this dilemma? Work styles and functional organization boundaries tend to create the gaps that lead to these high-stakes meetings.
The anecdote is to apply soft skills to the projects before the go/no go line is approached.
The best time to get after this is before all the drama has built by placing understandable, robust processes and training in place to surface and productively act on new ideas in every planning cycle.
By making sure we are always taking (even a small subset) of the best ideas forward, you are reversing the negative cultural spiral we talked about above.
Specifically, we need to:
#1: Establish cross-functional ownership and development
It is very important that the voices needed to validate the project’s “graduation” are present at the outset and contribute to the project specs, validation process, and associated problem-solving sessions. Team members need to be recruited for factors including subject matter expertise, ability to work with peers to develop novel solutions and also to be the influential leader in their “home” functions.
Pro Tip: When you do it right, the right people will find you. The key is to “put the word out” and keep a high bar. Those who volunteer will surprise you.
#2: Simplify the key tenents of the project
The benefits of the project to the end customer must be easy to articulate and solve a compelling problem. This clear voice of the customer must be stated not just in features and specs, but in real improvements in some portion of their well being.
Pro Tip: You cannot have too much first-person customer collateral. Keep quotes, short videos, and insights from the moment you start the project. These are especially powerful when validated by “big dog” sales leaders.
#3: Establish clear value for each key group to overcome internal gravity
Internal gravity is the unseen political hold each team has on projects through influential relationships, org chart position, and leadership connection. Identifying and working these needs and conflicts early is key to a project’s success.
Pro Tip: The groundwork for this is to talk early and often with your peers about how their teams are measured for performance. Most firms these days have “wild card” goals in the bonus packages that are intended to promote collaboration. These can be very helpful in getting doors to open.
The teams who do the work outlined above have been able to substantially reduce the rate of “fails” in the approval cycle (Industry average is a dismal 75% no go). By setting aside resources, meeting agenda and budget to move these forward in a win-win way, you can build muscle that will power growth.
If you would like to talk about how to work this out in your growth program journey, I’d be happy to talk. Please contact me using this link or reach out to at 847-651-1014.
Related posts you can benefit from…
