Original article from the Flevy business blog can be found here: http://flevy.com/blog/when-innovation-fails-and-10-ways-to-innovation-success/ No one is able to stand still in this fast paced business environment. As business leader you’re looking for ways to innovate, but most of the time innovation fails. Innovation process-expert Robert Cooper shows that of every seven new product/service projects, about four enter development, 1.5 are launched, and only one succeeds . Innovation is so difficult to master, indeed. I love to share with you five reasons why innovation goes wrong and what to do about it with a scientifically proven structured approach. How Innovation Goes Wrong I encounter in practice so many people that struggle with innovation. It’s has so many pitfalls. Here’s a list of five reasons why innovation goes wrong in daily practice at so many companies all over the world. • Our short-term mindset rules . Your company focuses on getting results next quarter, as your shareholders demand profits today. In this way money and resources are dedicated to sales & marketing, instead of innovation. • We cannot change our habits . Your company lacks the ability to invoke change, the ability to change their mindset. “My colleagues don’t think beyond what made our company successful thus far”. • We fear failure. Your past innovations were not successful and have cost a lot of money. “Managers were fired because their launches of new products failed”. • Our innovation process is chaos. When you lack a process and structure it’s really hard to get tangible results as it takes 18 -36 months on average to get an new idea to the market.

1. When Innovation Fails and 10 Ways
to Innovation Success
Contributed by Gijs van Wulfen on April 29, 2015 in Strategy, Marketing, & Sales
No one is able to stand still in this fast paced
business environment. As business leader
you’re looking for ways to innovate, but most
of the time innovation fails. Innovation
process-expert Robert Cooper shows that of
every seven new product/service projects,
about four enter development, 1.5 are
launched, and only one succeeds .
Innovation is so difficult to master, indeed. I
love to share with you five reasons why
innovation goes wrong and what to do about
it with a scientifically proven structured approach.

2. How Innovation Goes Wrong
I encounter in practice so many people that struggle with innovation. It’s has so many
pitfalls. Here’s a list of five reasons why innovation goes wrong in daily practice at so many
companies all over the world.
 Our short-term mindset rules . Your company focuses on getting results next
quarter, as your shareholders demand profits today. In this way money and
resources are dedicated to sales & marketing, instead of innovation.
 We cannot change our habits . Your company lacks the ability to invoke change,
the ability to change their mindset. “My colleagues don’t think beyond what made
our company successful thus far”.
 We fear failure. Your past innovations were not successful and have cost a lot of
money. “Managers were fired because their launches of new products failed”.
 Our innovation process is chaos. When you lack a process and structure it’s
really hard to get tangible results as it takes 18 -36 months on average to get an new
idea to the market.

3.  Customers reject our new products and services. A lot of our new products
failed because customers did not wanted them. “We struggle to get inside the head of
potential purchasers of the product or service”.

How to Reduce the Failure Rate of Innovation
Although there are no easy solutions, there are ways to improve the effectiveness of
innovation in your company or for your clients. I love to share with you ten actions to
reduce the failure rate of innovation.
 Create momentum for your innovation project at the start. There must be urgency
otherwise innovation is considered as playtime and nobody will be prepared to go
outside the box. If this is not the case: stimulate other managers to explore your fast
changing environment and wait until they get nervous and will prioritize innovation.
 Start your innovation project with a clear and concrete innovation assignment .
This forces the top management, from the start, to be concrete about the
market/target group for which the innovations must be developed and which criteria
these new concepts must meet. This forms a great guideline underway.

4.  You can invent alone, but you can’t innovate alone. Use a team approach to get
both better innovation results and internal supporters for the innovative outcomes.
Invite people for whom the assignment is personally relevant. Invite both people for
content as for decision-making reasons. Invite also a couple of outsiders as outside-
the-box thinkers. Get a good mix between men and women, young & old, et cetera.
 A lot of managers love to be in steering groups. Don’t let them! Innovation is a
difficult and dirty job. It requires not only ‘young wild dogs’ but also ‘some grey
hairs’. Let the internal top problem-owner (vice-president) and important
influencers participate in the innovation team. Let them join your journey instead
of observing it from a distance.
 Use a structured approach . To think outside the box is a good start. But you have
to come back with innovative concepts, which fit the ‘in the box’ reality of your
organization, otherwise nothing will happen. A structured approach helps you to
connect the dots.
 When you ideate unprepared with the usual colleagues hardly anything new appears.
That’s why it is essential to get fresh insights before you start creating ideas. Let
all team members visit customers and others that serve as a source of inspiration for
innovation opportunities. Great ideas emerge after being inspired. So go out there
yourself in a search for inspiration.

5.  Winning new concepts give potential customers a concrete reason to change. It will
solve relevant problems of customers. If you want to create innovative products or
services start with discovering relevant customer frictions to solve. There are
several ways to discover them, like personal visits, focus groups, web searching and
crowd sourcing,
 The world is changing at a faster pace. Keep a high pace in your innovation
project, otherwise it becomes long-winded and boring. It gets killed when it takes too
long without any progress.
 Use the voice of the customer. How attractive are the new product or service
concepts really? That’s a legitimate question. Therefore you should check the
strength of the new concepts and prototypes among potential customers at the
front end of innovation. Use the voice of the customer internally to convince your
peers that you’re on the right track.
 Bring back business. So, draft mini new business cases instead of coming up with
post-its or mood boards. And substantiate, in a businesslike and convincing manner,
to what degree and for what reason the new concept can meet all essential financial
criteria of your organization.

6. A recent scientific study proves that a structured approach, embedding these 10 ways, can
double the effectiveness of your innovation process. Here’s a recording of a 60 min-free-
webinar in which professor Herman van den Bosch shares the results of his scientific
research on the FORTH innovation methodology . Check it out.
So, I hope these 10 ways will stimulate you to improve your own innovation processes in practice and your
success rate!
About Gijs van Wulfen
Gijs van Wulfen (1960; Dutch) is a keynote speaker on innovation and the founder of the FORTH
innovation method, a proven structured way to ideate new products, services and business models. He is
a LinkedIn Influencer with more than 260,000 followers worldwide and he was chosen in the top 10 of the
International Top 40 Innovation Bloggers 3 years in a row. He is a best selling author on innovation with
his latest book titled "The Innovation Expedition: A Visual Toolkit to Start Innovation."

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