The first article in this series of four, Achieving More Success in New Product Development, illuminated the new product development challenge, giving you a deep understanding of what makes it so difficult. It provides helpful background for what is discussed below, and you can find it online at pcimag.com or in the December 2018 print edition.
The series is based on work my firm did over the last 15 years on hundreds of new product development projects at global manufacturing companies. In the course of that work we extracted six practical techniques that can help you achieve consistent, long-term revenue growth. The GrowthPilot keys work because they make you better at three critical tasks: (1) asking the right questions at the right time during new product development, (2) minimizing your spend (in time and resources) on ideas that are unlikely to find market success, and (3) delivering the data that decision makers need to confidently make large investments in the best ideas. This article will describe the first two keys: maintaining a balanced innovation portfolio and providing a protected budget for adjacent/transformational initiatives. Follow-on articles will address the other four keys.