“Reactive to proactive: How to energize a culture around new products.”

“With this concept, we could eliminate an entire step of the assembly process, giving our customers back over 200 man hours of labor per assembly line.” I waited as comprehension sunk in, eyes widening as each person in the board room grasped the significance of what I just told them.

Our customers were facing a labor shortage, not enough hands to do the work in an industry where 80% of the revenues come from a season that lasts only 6-8 weeks. The problem they wanted solved was not new or unique: save labor, reduce waste, increase efficiency. What materialized for the new product team, as we completed dozens of customer interviews, was a clearly defined problem. A problem that our customers themselves deemed “critical to their business”.

Now the team had a new and innovative way to solve it.

We presented our findings to the leadership team along with our early-stage concept. This problem was not unique, most of our customers agreed it was impacting their business with no easy solution in sight. One by one, the leadership team turned from polite listening to rapt comprehension. The wave of realization made its way around the table as each person could see how an idea could materialize into a viable solution. This was the catalyst for the next few months of activity, the assignment of capital and resources and best of all, the excitement that sparked a latent product development team into action.

That’s how you build an energetic new product development process.

The energy starts with engaging the customer and prioritizing what is most critical to their success. The energy builds with each successful launch and seeps into the culture. You keep the momentum by celebrating the collaboration, encouraging idea generation and problem solving, sharing in the successes as well as the failures, and most of all by creating space for the opportunity – recognizing how the team persevered through every setback.

The pipeline of solid concepts grows as you rinse and repeat: engage with the customer, define the problem they most want solved, return with solutions, refine and launch.

With every successful product launch, customers flock to you wanting you to solve the next problem.