You are what you make. Your approach to product design will define your business in the eyes of your customers and enable you to stake out your place within your industry.
When you add to your knowledge and skills around product design and development, it can take your organization to the next level. Systematic innovation is a relevant philosophy here, one that can affect the way you conceptualize all your products, processes, and services.
Considering the impact industry shifts can have on organizations of all sizes and types, there's clear value in learning flexible approaches to new product development. You never know when you may need to quickly and confidently release an innovative product to remain competitive and relevant in your sector.
Read now: See why innovative development favors the concept of platforms over discrete products.
What is systematic product innovation?
Innovation is the process of introducing new ideas to keep your company evolving and relevant. The "systematic" part of the equation comes in when there's a framework in place to guide the process along in an orderly and repeatable way.
At first glance, using a systematic framework can seem counter to the spirit of innovation and inspiration. If innovative ideas are the product of brilliant brainstorming, how can this process be standardized or organized?
In fact, frameworks don't prevent breakthrough ideas from occurring. They simply help you keep everyone on track and engaged as the seed of an idea turns into a viable new product, solution, or service. With a solid set of criteria to work from, contributors can stay on task, adding valuable input from different perspectives.
As MIT Sloan Executive Education Professor Steven Eppinger points out, successful innovation is not just a bold new idea but rather an idea that meets three useful criteria:
- Desirable: It's something consumers will want.
- Feasible: The company is technically capable of producing it.
- Viable: It fits in with the company's business model.
Leaders from various departments tend to approach problem-solving from one of these three perspectives, based on their backgrounds and training. By combining these schools of thought in a systematic way and adopting methods like design thinking, it's possible to create a fresh, successful product innovation strategy.
In the MIT Sloan Executive Education course Systematic Innovation of Products, Processes, and Services, Eppinger and his fellow instructors show participants how to apply the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) to their thinking. The DSM dates back to the 70s and helps stakeholders visualize their work.
The DSM is a square grid that lays out the elements of a system. Engineers and managers can consult the chart to see how the pieces of an in-progress idea interact. This means seeing the relationships between information flows, people, departments, system components, and more. Relationships become clearer, and missing elements stand out. Using this method helps with the systematization of innovation.
Read now: Learn how companies reveal the complexity of systems with the Design Structure Matrix.
The state of innovation today
Why put all this effort into fostering innovative ideas and development processes? In short, it's because that's what the market demands. Companies are dealing with disruptive forces that are presenting them with a choice: adapt or fall behind.
Some of the most pressing and important themes shaping the business environment today include:
- Continuing digitization: All processes across sectors are becoming subsumed into fast-moving digital models. Manual inefficiencies are a competitive liability in the era of such thorough automation.
- Blending of product and service: Integrated solutions are the nature of business moving forward, with companies adopting new models to sell and market items that would have once been discrete products.
- Corporate responsibility: With organizations showing greater awareness of factors such as their sustainability performance, there are new variables and considerations going into new product development.
- Remote and hybrid work models: Transitions in work styles and the normalization of global workforces have changed the resources available to businesses and the ways their teams work together.
Innovation has always been a must for companies at the forefront of their respective industries. In such a malleable business environment, innovation is now more important than ever — albeit with additional challenges involved in its effective application.
When your organization develops innovative product ideas today, it's doing so in a digitized, service-centric world with new priorities and collaboration styles. Systematic innovation management can help you stay on target, no matter what new developments shape your industry.
Read now: Learn how companies have fared as they implement dynamic pricing for their offerings.
How do you embrace systematic innovation?
A product that represents a true breakthrough needs to fit a market opportunity and suit customer needs while aligning with your company's identity and capabilities. This is somewhat more constrained than a "blue sky" view of innovative thinking and idea generation. However, looking at product design and development through this lens brings practicality and actionability to the new product innovation process.
Rather than waiting for a "eureka" moment, adopt systematic innovation to make it more likely for great ideas to emerge, leading to a successful product innovation strategy that is:
- Structured.
- Reliable.
- Repeatable.
Applying these principles to your innovation process means taking a few concrete steps. By changing your philosophy and the way you oversee your people, you can:
- Focus on identifying market opportunities and remain tuned in to customer needs.
- Adopt a staged (or spiral) process that incorporates iterations, milestones, and reviews.
- Apply frameworks such as the DSM that organize and systematize innovation.
The result is a process that reliably leads to viable and innovative product ideas, helping you thrive within your industry.
Read more: See how companies incite curiosity in their audiences.
Executive education and product, process, and service innovation
MIT Sloan Executive Education courses such as Systematic Innovation of Products, Processes, and Services deliver a close-up view of how modern innovative product design works. This in-person course allows expert faculty members to share useful methodologies and insights while also helping you put innovation methods to work in small groups.
To avoid being rigid in your thinking, learning about specific innovation frameworks like the DSM prepares you to adapt and change along with market conditions. Creating value for your customers and your organization are the end goals, and highly systematic thinking can help you achieve those ends.
Refining your end-to-end product development process is a worthwhile goal in today's business environment, one with relevance to nearly every organization's efforts. You don't have to wait for the course to end to begin applying the concepts to your specific product issues — personalization is part of the syllabus.
Get started with systematic innovation frameworks
Being innovative is a powerful capability for any business leader today. You can systematize an open-ended concept by using solid frameworks and methodologies. The sooner you familiarize yourself with innovative approaches, the quicker you can put them into action in your own day-to-day work.
MIT Sloan Executive Education allows you to tap into the latest thinking and the most advanced best practices that drive new product innovation processes. Whether you're focused on improving your performance and driving business growth via your role as a product manager or seeking skills that will help you stand out as an executive candidate, product innovation knowledge can matter to you.
Enroll in Systematic Innovation of Products, Processes, and Services and learn how to make breakthrough ideas a regular part of your business.