Our world has sped up. The demand for faster, “instant,” responsive products and services drives business competition for customers. A computer, for instance, with a faster processor is worth more than one with a slower one because faster page loads mean either a more enjoyable gaming experience or work productivity. Consequently, a higher price can be charged for a faster computer. In many markets, people are willing to pay a rush charge for added convenience or quicker availability. Why is the need for speed, then, missing in typical product development efforts? My friend, Jeffrey Phillips, addressed this issue with a recent blog post:
Three innovation clockspeeds
The pervasive lack of enthusiasm or even awareness of time in regards to innovation is a constant source of amazement for me. In organizations transfixed by time, speed and efficiency, innovation and product development are often the slowest out of the gate, the longest efforts to accomplish and seem completely unrelated to the real world. There are, of course, reasons why innovation is slow:
- Innovation is uncertain and risky, so organizations try to move slowly to reduce risk
- Innovation (if done well) is often ahead of the market, so organizations try to time innovation to market needs and demands
- Innovation requires tools and techniques that are unfamiliar, which slows the process
- Innovation and subsequent product development processes are sclerotic, like blood vessels full of plaque, stuffed with unimportant but time consuming activities.
My stipulation is that you should do innovation as fast as humanly possible, even at the risk of skipping steps or bypassing checkpoints, because your internal clockspeed is almost certainly out of synch with the market’s clockspeed.
Your internal clockspeed
Your clockspeed (how fast your organization works) was set by management – this means that your clockspeed is relatively high when working on (the) familiar … and very slow otherwise. Your operating models slow innovation down at exactly the time that they should be speeding up. The strange thing about internal clockspeed is that it is similar to the weather – everyone complains about it but few do much about it.
External market clockspeed
Your markets are likely moving faster than your internal processes, since the markets are subject to competition, new entrants, substitutions and other factors that Porter and others made famous. The real problem is innovation clockspeed.
Innovation clockspeed
If you compete in a lucrative market, there are a host of firms innovating right now, seeking to disrupt your market, create substitutes for your product or to simply replace the need for your product or potentially your market. Clockspeed isn’t simply about bringing a new product to market faster, but about making the product or market obsolete or unnecessary.
Getting obsolete faster
Nobody cares about how efficient or fast your existing processes are to provide existing products and services. What will differentiate firms in the future is an accelerated ability to innovate, at least as a fast follower if not an innovation leader, carefully tracking the external market clockspeed and anticipating innovation clockspeed.
hippotential 