Day# 15 - Week iii - 2010

Innovating Innovation

I love my school's lunch 'n learns. Free food for life and free fodder for thought.

That Friday, between my two classes of New Venture Strategy and Network Structures of Effective Management, I attended a Lunch'n Learn about re-thinking the innovation process.  A pretty daring title for a quick lunch on a slow Friday on campus.

Let me recapitulate the lessons:
- First, there was the classic innovation process: ideate, engineer, roll-out;
- Then came Robert G. Cooper - when I was about 4 years old and said "let there be Stage-Gate®";
- Later on, came Todd and MacGrath to give us PACE (Product and Cycle-Time Excellence). Yada yada yada yada... and PACE that was pretty much like Stage-Gate® 2.0... died.

... and so this is how we got the new and improved versions of the Stage-Gate® Process after criticism crept up on Cooper. He took his process about a decade or so later and made it into 3 versions. Quite interesting. The full one was called Stage-Gate® Classic - for serious companies - the faster one was called Stage-Gate® Xpress - for companies who want to do tings a bit faster. And Stage-Gate® Lite, which is also the same only the "stages" and "gates" are stacked one on top of the other to make only 3 compact stages and 2 gates. Speed. The addiction of the 20th century.

And then Dr. Middlebrooks broke it to us to give us a new way to do things. It was pretty much the same, only with a different approach to ideation - not changing the process itself, but just eliminating the initial stages that only focused on validating the idea. He suggested to spend about 10 hours with customers uncovering their needs - the real source of ideas.

Not a breakthrough, but maybe something to keep in mind when deciding on developing a new product or service. .... dot dot dot.. I can't think anymore. My girlie just served my lips a piece of chocolate chip cookie dunked in 2% milk. Train of thoughts immediately destroyed.

Cuban Crafters - Delivered

I forgot to mention that I just got my new humidor with a stylish Birdseye maple burl wood exterior, trim and a matching wood inlay and some 14 Nicaraguan puros rolled in Miami's atelier by Cuban crafters... yet some of the finest rolls I have ever had. My own gift to myself for my birthday. Thank me very much.