Estimated reading time: 2 mins
I have worked in five organizations over the last 20+ years. In those organizations I have seen myself gravitate to new product/service development roles, even as a division president. The role is in my nature, and I see product potential before many others. (How I identify these opportunities is the topic of a future post.)
Drawing on my experience at companies in-house and at companies I’ve observed, I believe that few companies can execute well against a new product vision, or even create a vision of new products. It’s what I call the product development trap.
One of the biggest traps I see is using only existing resources to develop new services. Taxing existing resources to lead new development results in far more unsuccessful than successful outcomes.
Existing sales and service teams burdened with new service development have failed more often than not. Existing teams have:
Current products and clients to satisfy. The current clients (internal or external) pay the bills, and keeping those clients happy is the basis for people keeping their jobs.
Established goals for each client. Good people know where they want a relationship to evolve. There is a plan to get the next renewal, sell a special project, or resolve a delivery problem.
An aversion to the risk of introducing something new into client relationships. Clients have a perception of your company, and it can be uncomfortable to stretch that relationship in a new direction.
It is almost impossible, and a questionable tactic, to break the sales and service team’s habit of taking care of current products and clients. Isn’t their focus to satisfy existing clients?
This isn’t to say that existing resources can’t be used in new development. Certainly specialized skills in a company need to be applied to new products, translating and applying company expertise to new situations.
Building New Products and Services with Extra Capacity
Organizations have times when there is excess capacity. That capacity tends to be with lower-level people, as the most skilled staff will automatically and naturally move to "deferred maintenance" of existing clients and products.
Critical Success Factors to Launch New Products using Existing Staff
Make new development an organizational priority.
Bring in a coach or experienced guide to help direct activity.
Improve the efficiency of new product team meetings and activities.
Supplement existing resources with highly skilled temporary resources to break through problems and add new skills. Translate new product vision to how it satisfies current client problems.
Continue to move tasks to the appropriate level of staff to increase efficiency.
Addressing these success factors will begin to resolve the challenges in how to invest staff and new resources into new product and service projects. I will touch on other components of the Product Development Trap in future issues.