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tough as creating the new service or product.
You may think this is relatively easy if you're
releasing your innovation project to a 'captive'
internal audience of colleagues but even then
you'll need to make them aware of the benefits
and features of your new tool and educate
them on how to use it.
We've seen months invested in an app
only for it to be buried in a link on an intranet.
If you have any community forums or idea
boards you'll need to strong arm a team of
people to be early contributors to get the ball
rolling. You'll need to email people repeatedly
about updates to get them excited. You may
want to train influential team members on
how to use the project.
Hopefully much of this can be avoided
if you've followed the steps above and have
delivered a tool that users can truly see value
in. Getting engagement will be much easier.
Not budgeting for maintenance
and updates
This one can be fatal. Hopefully I've
convinced you by now that your project will
need to be flexible and able to respond to
changing demands. But I want to be clear,
this is an ongoing requirement. If you were
hoping to put a team of smart individuals on
a project, have them deliver it, then redeploy
them to another project I'm afraid you'll be
disappointed. You can use a service such as
Fliplet to handle the technical maintenance
(operating system updates, mobile-device
changes, integration changes) but you'll still
need someone to maintain the content and
alter the features to match changing business
needs and demands. Failure to do so will
lead to the solution stagnating and user
engagement dropping as they realise the tool
is out of date. ILTA
Insufficient or ineffective market
research
How confident are you of the need for your
solution? How many end-users have you
interviewed? How frank has the feedback
been from your prospective end users?
Embarking on a new initiative because
your boss thinks it's a good idea rarely ends
well. Likewise interviewing a few colleagues
is not a great idea - they'll often say nice
things to avoid hurting your feelings. Getting
feedback is even harder when the intended
end user is your client and you have limited
access to them. It's painful seeking out and
listening to negative feedback so many people
do some cursory research and stop there. This
proves fatal in the long run if there turns out
to be only luke warm interest in your new
service or product.
Not planning to change your plan
The close relative of doing market research
is collating feedback on your proposed
solution. The phrase "No plan survives
first contact with customers" rings true in
innovation. The trick is therefore to expect
plans to change and to budget for these
changes. Indetifying and making changes
early on based on a prototype or 'minimum
viable product' will also greatly reduce the
cost of making changes.
In a software context the ability to
rapidly prototype and distribute a product
to beta testers is paramount. At Fliplet
we encourage our clients to do this before
involving expensive development resources.
Using the platform it's possible to create and
distribute the skeleton of an app in a few
hours. It is also similarly easy for people to
swap in and out features without needing to
code. The ability to rapidly iterate a product
at low cost vastly increases the chance it will
be a success.
Not supporting a launch
The planning of a new product or service can
be so all encompassing that very little thought
is given to 'how to bring it to market'. Making
people aware of an innovation project and
getting them to engage with it can be just as
F U R T H E R R E A D I N G
Hopefully I've given you a feel
for not just the challenges
you might face but also the
magnitude of them so you can
make more informed innovation
decisions. Below I've listed some
of the key resources I highly
recommend when thinking
about these challenges.
Seth Godin on Purple Cows
and Otaku - TedTalk video
Paul Graham's Essays - Blog on
PaulGraham.com
How to Start a Startup -
YouTube video
The Innovator's Dilemma
- Book by Clayton M.
Christensen
Crossing the Chasm - Book by
Geoffrey Moore
