Break the Rules!

4Why “Moving the Needle” Doesn't Matter Much to Entrepreneurs: Think Narrow, Not Broad

 

In most well‐established companies, there are processes for just about everything, and for good reason. Good processes drive both efficiency and effectiveness. They help people do their jobs more easily. They help deliver results.

When it comes to new product development, there's a process for that, too. Drawing on the seminal work of Robert Cooper,¹ it's become the norm that ideas for new products are put thorough a series of “gates” through which they must pass in order to qualify for launch. At each of the gates, a “go” or “no‐go” decision is reached that permits the project to proceed to the next stage in the process or be killed.

In essence, this conventional process is intended to ensure that the proposed product or service, if launched, will meet the company's targets in terms of revenue, market share, return on investment, profitability, or some other relevant metrics. In other words, will it “move the needle” and contribute meaningfully to the company's growth and profit objectives.

In spite of the widespread use of such stage‐gate processes, however, Hanover Research, a consultancy that helps companies manage and implement them, reports that “Almost half of new products launched will fail within the first year.”² The high failure rate of new products is testament to the difficulty ...