Innovation, going back to Terwiesch and Ulrich (2010), is “a new match between a need and a solution”. In ways that are often comical to the casual observer and tragic to the people caught in the middle of it, that match often requires an onerous “stage gate” process through which the life and spirit of the innovation is sucked dry. Management types will argue vehemently in favor of these processes, pointing to failures avoided, disaster averted. They do have some merit, especially when they are used to help build out and encourage an idea forward. But too often they are focused on proving why something won’t work, rather than why it will, and humans have an uncanny knack for proving themselves right.  If you have an innovation lifecycle, re-examine it for purpose. Is it structured for success or failure?  Is it designed to “stress test” or to “reinforce” an idea in the early stages? If you move too quickly to the stress test, you run the risk of shutting down great ideas before they have time to stabilize and grow.

Tom Fishburne did the process justice with his cartoon, licensed to share below: