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

Avoid these 5 mistakes before manufacturing starts. “Overlooking quality control and production efficiency, bypassing supply chain concerns, taking a ‘price-first’ approach, ignoring differences among materials, and forgetting to get to know your manufacturer.” Read more at RevPart https://revpart.com/manufacturing-mistakes

How GE, Google, and Intel use constraints and failing to drive innovation. “’Often when you just throw money at a project, you’re not focused,’ said General Electric  vice chair Beth Comstock. Regina Dugan, VP of engineering, advanced technology, and projects at Google, agreed: ‘Constraint forces you to edit.’” Read more at Fortune http://fortune.com/2015/10/13/failure-is-just-the-beginning-lessons-in-innovation-from-ge-google-and-intel/

The Woz shares how co-founder Steve Jobs viewed innovation. “That’s something Steve Jobs was very good at. In other words, put in the balance of the best features, and you don’t have to be the top camera in the world, the highest speed processor in the world, the longest battery life. You just have to be very good in every category.” Read more at Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-steve-wozniak-steve-jobs-innovation-2015-10

The unbearable messiness of innovation. “Herein lies the great, exquisite irony of every conversation you will ever have about innovation, the biggest challenge to the deep, meaningful cultural shift that is necessary for organizations to be innovative.  Innovation — that is the state of a system that is prone to innovative outputs — is notoriously resistant to models and modeling.  Innovation and innovative outputs tend to be emergent factors of system states, not of linear processes.” Read more at Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrydoss/2015/10/14/the-unbearable-messiness-of-innovation-2/

5 innovation best practices for the future of work with the President of the Xerox Innovation Group. “We look at the Five Best Practices for Innovation, focusing on who is going to be effected by the results of your company’s Innovation, the end user. We also go into great detail on how to establish an Innovation culture, providing the resources for the proper research and development, and allowing flexibility and freedom to test and try many different solutions for products and services that will fulfill the needs of the consumer.” Hear the interview from Forbes at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2015/10/12/five-innovation-best-practices-for-the-future-of-work/

8 questions to ask when moving from problem/solution fit to product/market fit. “During a typical diligence process, we will interview customers and might ask them questions like these: How did you hear about the product…” Read more at Tomasz Tunguz http://tomtunguz.com/anatomy-of-a-customer-reference/

Avoid these 10 mistakes to make better products. “Define no hypotheses, ignore, your data, fall victim to HIPPO’s, …” Read more from Timothy Platt https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-ways-ruin-your-product-timothy-platt

How the Internet of Things is driving innovation. “Right now, the Internet of Things (IoT), which connects the Internet to everyday things and devices, is emerging as the third wave in the development of Internet.” Read more at Innovation Coach http://www.innovationcoach.com/2015/10/innovation-management-keeping-up-with-the-digital-world/

3 key questions product managers can use to solve problems with B2B products. “Is it a product or a market problem, how can we address problems with the product or product marketing, and how can we address problems with the market.” Read more at B2B http://www.business2community.com/product-management/3-questions-ask-b2b-software-product-team-turning-silver-bullet-solutions-01350600

How product managers can act like startup founders to increase success. “Here are four of the most important lessons I learned, and how you can use them to turn your idea into a business. (1) Get lots of feedback…” Read more at Entrepreneur http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249579