The Innovation Funnel
The Innovation Funnel
January 18, 2009 at 7:18 pm
The best way to get around the devil—and all his advocates—is to allow the company to crank up its confidence stage by stage. Luckily, there’s already a workable model for this process: stage-gate investing. It was pioneered by oil entrepreneurs who lacked certainty about which wells would produce black gold and which would fizzle. It was further developed by venture capitalists who lacked certainty about how trends, markets, and people would combine to produce profits. There are four funding stages in this process:
With stage-gate investing, an idea is vetted stage by stage using a kind of natural selection, so that big bets are only made after the idea has been largely de-risked. Stage-gate investing works best when you have a portfolio of innovations in the pipeline. The vetting process then acts a filtration system that separates the great ideas from those that are underpowered, short-sighted, unstrategic, or off-brand. It creates an innovation funnel that lets you vet new concepts step by step, reducing the fear of failure at each step.
Below is a link to download a simple tool that will help you and your team remove the risk from risky projects.
Hi Marty.
This is great stuff. It’s cool that people can comment on it.
a good idea always finds its way! love your ‘steal this idea’ ,-)
I agree with Marty wholeheartedly. For those that are not prepared to make mistakes or fail usually are those that go the safe route without taking risk with new ideas.
Great idea on the “steal this idea”, don’t mind if I do. ;)
Marty, thanks so much for another great tool. I find myself reading and re-reading your ideas and how you distill the complex in to common sense. I find great value in this and appreciate your talent.
Zag has so many great b2c onliness statements. However, my b2b clients are pushing back and asking for b2b examples. Do you have a b2b example? This would really help me push the virtue of an onliness statement. Thanks.