As an early adopter of consumer electronic gadgets far and wide, I am constantly reading and absorbing everything I can in print and online when it comes to technology.  Recently, I caught the announcement that Microsoft pulled their Kin phones just 45 days after product launch.  This is as fast as the closing of a bad play on Broadway (but way more expensive - one estimate says the failure cost Microsoft at least $240 million after selling possibly only a few thousand devices).

This got me thinking about the challenge in balancing the drive to be "first to market" with the mantra of "fail early and fail often", and how our work with clients fits into this.  A critical element to open innovation is that although these new skills can enable a robust product devleopment funnel (by combining internal activities with enabling external components, subsystems, platform technologies, ideas, products for acquisition, etc.), but it is critical to have metrics in place to evaluate projects at every step of the way (even after product launch).  Many companies have "stage-gate" type processes, but often these processes are not strictly adhered to. 

For example, one thing I've learned in working closely with CPG and Food and Beverage companies, is that product development activities have to be closely aligned not only to the corporate/business strategy, but also to consumer insights.  Consumer insights are not only useful for test marketing products and driving marketing and brand development, but with solid integration of Open Innovation practices, gaps in the product features/performance can be identified and then rapidly filled via external innovation. 

By the way, before you count Microsoft down for the count, the entire Kin team has already been reassigned to enable them to focus exclusively on the Windows Phone 7 mobile platform, so you can bet Microsoft will learn from their mistake and come back stronger.

Let NineSigma help you launch an open innovation program.  Contact us to learn more about open innovation.