As someone who has launched hundreds of medical devices to the market, I have certainly had more than my fair share of belly flops. In fact, some of these product failures cost me personally millions of dollars, and those are the kinds of lessons that leave a big impact. The impact was so significant, in fact, that I became obsessed with the forensics of what causes product failure. It turns out there are four failure zones that we need to be very careful about when developing our products if we want to create technologies that delight our customers and ultimately scale, grow, and deliver enterprise profit. Now, without further ado, here are my four failure zones to pay very close attention to:
The Innovation Failure Zone
I have been awarded over 40 U.S. patents for technologies that I have created, and unfortunately, it took me a long time to understand the innovation failure zone. This zone is the moment we come up with an idea for a new product. The problem with this moment of innovation is that it originates from us, and therefore we move forward with the innovation with tremendous bias. It is said that love is the most irrational human emotion, and for most innovators, we love our ideas. We’re excited to launch them to market, and that’s where the trouble begins. Even when we seek out advice about our ideas, we typically seek confirmatory advice from spouses, friends, and colleagues. It’s incredible that we look to this body of analysis when none of these confirmatory insights deliver additional value.
How to Avoid the Innovation Failure Zone
Fall out of love with your idea and approach it with tremendous cynicism and skepticism. Successful inventors create lots of products, but they also kill the development of products early on to provide the emotional, time, and financial bandwidth necessary to move on to the next idea.
The Insight Failure Zone
For decades, product developers have limited their insights to voice-of-the-customer methods and feedback from a close circle of individuals who share the same frame of reference. Simply put, the success of innovation lies in the accuracy of the insights.
How to Avoid the Insight Failure Zone
Go far beyond traditional methods of technology assessment, including staged methods, FFE (Front-End Engineering), and VOC (Voice of Customer). These approaches are simply not enough and are generally risk-centric.
The Design Failure Zone
Some studies suggest that less than 2% of issued U.S. patents ever reach successful commercialization. One of the major reasons why most products fail is that the product is launched into the marketplace before it’s finished. Your product needs to have 10X the value of your competition in terms of real customer value. Take your time, finish the design, and whatever you do, don’t launch your product to market until you have installed every drop of value you possibly can.
How to Avoid the Design Failure Zone
Develop design team architecture that is far more expansive in terms of frames of reference and skill sets. Today, the best design teams include AI developers, UX designers, and a wide range of new participants, including artists and architects. The bottom line is that you need more diversity of thinking to have better innovations. Also, don’t become complacent. Be open to new, great ideas.
The Commercialization Failure Zone
I can’t tell you how many failed product developers I have interviewed in rese
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