Each week I scour articles, wading through the dogs, and bringing you the best insights to help product managers, developers, and innovators be heroes.

Product Innovation Tips Around the Web

Using “why” to create successful products – simplifying market research. “The discipline of product management is shifting from an external focus on the market, or an internal focus on technology, to an empathetic focus on people. …I’ll walk through how we applied this approach to a particular product at a start-up, and how it led to large-scale adoption and, ultimately, the acquisition of the company.” Read more from Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2015/04/a-process-for-empathetic-product-design

10 tips for startups to develop products customers love. “How do a team of designers, engineers, product thinkers, and data scientists most efficiently make things that people absolutely adore? Here are the  10 Core Principles Of Product Development…” Read more from Inc 42 Magazine http://inc42.com/buzz/10-core-principles-of-product-development-for-startups-to-develop-product-that-customers-adore/

We all know trends are vital – create a capability to spot them. “To do this, you should task a group of employees with professionally diverse backgrounds to become a band of trend-spotters and form a think tank of sorts within the company. The team’s objective is to uncover emerging trends that are three to five years out.” Read more at Innovation Excellence http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2015/04/29/the-art-of-trendcasting-in-innovation/

How process manufacturing executives develop products to minimize risk and maximize profit. “Once a market approach has been identified, process manufacturers must evaluate new products across a range of factors and metrics, including…” Read more at Global Manufacturing http://www.manufacturingglobal.com/leadership/435/Innovate-or-die:-Top-tips-for-product-development-in-modern-manufacturing

5 requirements of any truly innovative company. “So what are the parts of the innovation engine that most often get left out? Here’s our list of the top five…” Read more at Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2015/04/the-5-requirements-of-a-truly-innovative-company

Resolving conflict in your team. “We think of confrontation as an aggressive thing, but it shouldn’t be a defensive maneuver or a counterattack. A healthy, fruitful confrontation is marked by empathy, calm and commitment. Also: a smidgen of hostility. But only a smidgen. “ Read more at Entrepreneur http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244492

Feeling unproductively busy? Read this. “It’s very easy to succumb to the temptation of staying busy even when it is counterproductive: It is the way our brains are wired. But there is a remedy that we can employ to translate that predisposition into productivity.” Read more at Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2015/04/the-remedy-for-unproductive-busyness

What Citrix has learned about designing products using a customer driven approach. “Over the past two years, Citrix has adopted a customer-centric approach to building and selling its virtual workspace technologies.” Read more at Citrix http://blogs.citrix.com/2015/04/30/a-design-process-driven-by-the-customer-not-feature-checklists/

10 common pitfalls of product launches and how to avoid them. “If you can spot these pitfalls and avoid them, you’ll be well on your way to an amazing and successful product launch.” Read more at KISS Metrics https://blog.kissmetrics.com/10-product-launches-pitfalls/

The Product Development Success Index. “The findings clearly show that culture, feedback, communication, staffing, collaboration and time/budget focus drive product development success more than any other factors — including technical expertise.” Read more at Entrepreneur http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245511

Case Study – Jetstar’s experience moving to agile product development. “Many businesses aspire to adopt agile working practices, but the level of investment and reorganisation required to implement this cultural shift often proves to be an insurmountable obstacle.” Read more at Econsultancy https://econsultancy.com/blog/66381-how-jetstar-moved-to-agile-product-development-apac-insights/

Why companies need outside help with innovation and how to get it. “If executives are more alive to the possibilities that fresh thinking can provide they could be more inclined to seek it out before their rivals beat them to it.” Read more at Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogertrapp/2015/04/28/innovation-is-too-important-to-be-left-to-insiders/

A financial analysis approach to reducing the failure rate of new products. “I would like to make an argument for using the market approach based on the money questions that need to be answered. New product development is an investment and may require a significant amount of capital to be successful. These are decisions with considerable risk and every effort should be made to do a careful evaluation of the money decisions at each step of the process.” Read more at Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikecollins/2015/04/30/reducing-the-failure-rate-of-new-products/

Still Important – Product Management Flash from the Past

4 conditions leaders must create for organizational innovation – Results of an 18 month study. “When leaders actively made sure that these four conditions were present, innovation thrived. But when they either ignored or dropped even one of the four, the chances of success were significantly diminished.” Read more at Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/ronashkenas/2015/04/22/four-conditions-that-leaders-create-for-innovation-to-thrive/