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Lesson #3 of Turning Ideas into Market-Winning Products.

Scaffolding

Scaffolding is used to create buildings. It is an essential element that supports people and materials, allowing construction to occur. Scaffolding is also essential for making the complex clear. With the proper scaffolding, or framework, more complicated processes and practices can be identified, related, and understood. This lesson presents a three-part innovation model that will be the scaffolding for your innovation projects.

Why This Lesson is Important and What You Will Learn

After reading this lesson you will be able to illustrate the essential three-part scaffolding for turning ideas into market-winning products.

 

3-Part Innovation Model

Innovation Model

Product innovation practices can be separated into three areas:

1. The Managed Front End: MFE activities generate those “Eureka” moments that result in viable product concepts. Rest assured, there is a method to the madness. People who are successful at MFE work establish processes and structures to deliver concrete results from within their creative environment. Their ideas become product concepts, which are then moved into a new product development process. You may be more familiar with the term “fuzzy front end” but fuzzy is a misleading term for what actually occurs. Instead, product innovators manage uncertainties in the front end as they uncover what customers need and how to create value for them.

2. The New Product Development Process: The phases of activities introduced in lesson 2, including Conceive, Plan, Develop, and Qualify organize the work that turns concepts into products. Unlike the MFE, the NPD process is disciplined work driven by milestones. During the NPD, product concepts either become features of products launched to customers, or are killed or tabled along the way.

3. The Product Lifecycle: Once in the market, the Product Lifecycle becomes the product manager’s focus to optimize the product success as it moves through the market stages of introduction, growth, maturity, decline, and retirement.

Fundamentally, innovation means doing something new. If you are doing what you have always done, you cannot be innovating. A helpful way to remember the need for doing something new is…

In∙no∙va∙tion = in a new way

The 3-part innovation model provides the scaffolding for doing things in a new way. Recall the quote from lesson 1, which is why the model is so important…

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. – Albert Einstein

The Big Picture

How do ideas become market-winning products? The model above illustrates the scaffolding used for specific processes that lead to products customers value.

  • “Eureka” moments are guided through the Managed Front End, resulting in viable product concepts.
  • These concepts take shape through a structured process and eventually transform into products that can then be launched to a market.
  • Once in the market, the product manager focuses on maximizing the product’s performance through the Product Lifecycle.

Closing Thoughts

Being asked to be more innovative or take on a roll with a product team can seem like a daunting task. Even if you are taking control of your own career and learning more about product development, management, and innovation to further your success, you’re dealing with an overwhelming amount of information.

Just like the old joke goes, “how do you eat an elephant – one bite at a time,” learning about product innovation can involve many bites. But now you have an important tool with the 3-part innovation model – scaffolding to hold the concepts and practices used by product developers and managers.

Keep innovating,

–Chad
The Everyday Innovator™

P.S. This course is designed to get you thinking like a product developer, manager, and innovator. When you are ready to learn specific concepts and practices, check out the Foundations of Product Innovation Leadership eCourse.

– return to lesson index- 

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About Me

Chad McAllister, PhD - Product Management Guide

I'm Chad McAllister, the host of The Everyday Innovator™ podcast, author of Turning Ideas into Market-Winning Products, and founder of Product Mastery Now. I am aTop 40 Product Management Influencer and a Top 10 Innovation Blogger.

I help product managers become Product Masters. I have trained product managers at Microsoft, Kind Snacks, Level 3, Kohler, John Deere, J.D. Power, GHX, FedEx, Cummins, Compassion, Clorox, Cisco, Mastercard, SAIC, Thomson Reuters, Xerox, and many others.

Product Masters create more successful products, gain influence throughout their organizations, and accelerate their careers. See how, with the Product Mastery Roadmap.

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Chad McAllister - Product Management and Innovation TrainingThe primary responsibilities for an organization are product management and innovation. They deliver value to customers. They're also exciting responsibilities for those properly equipped. That is my job - equipping product managers and innovators.
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