Keys to Increasing Your Speed to Market

4 Keys to Increasing Your Speed to Market

Speed to market, or the art of transforming an idea into a product faster than anyone else, is an essential skill for new product development, especially in the area of bioscience.

The speed-to-market mindset has gained momentum and relevance due to three trends: 1) The increasing speed of innovation in today’s economy, 2) The accessibility to technology and funding for individuals means anyone can be your competition, and 3) Consumers have been conditioned for instant gratification by companies like Amazon.

Is faster always better? Of course not. Some use speed to market as an excuse to cut corners resulting in the development of unnecessary or low-quality products that fail in the market. Nevertheless, more time spent in development does not always equate to a better product. These four keys will help you increase speed to market, without sacrificing anything along the way.

1) FOCUS

Speed does not equal velocity. The difference? Speed measures how fast an object is going (i.e. 70 mph); velocity is speed in a defined direction (i.e. 70 mph south). Organizations can develop products with speed, but if the focus is not right — they can quickly head in the wrong direction. It is crucial to start with a well-defined vision.

2) AGILITY

Our society is so accustomed to Google Maps. Users can see every part of the journey before they even begin. The beauty and burden of new product development is that it is impossible to plan for every scenario that might be encounter, sometimes making it feel like a journey without direction. That’s where agility in project management is beneficial. Agile project management is when every member of the team can recognize and react appropriately to a new variable or risk. Team members must embrace and expect change, and communicate often to manage scope, schedule, and budget changes. Throughout the process of development, new feedback will drive changes in direction, a fail-fast, fail-forward approach is where agile teams learn from mistakes and iterate forward, saving time and resources. (See Figure A).

3) MOTIVATION.

When interviewing, look for a person that is both energized and energizing. Individual culture inspires company culture and hiring motivated individuals who back up what they say with examples of follow-though is important. Project managers need to ensure their teams have the tools and information they need to knock out their work,and avoid lapses in motivation from delays.

4) EFFICIENCY

One of the biggest tragedies in new product development is poor implementation of business processes. Project leaders should keep each process simple.They should be convinced of the “Why” before focusing on the “What”. Processes should have the goal of making the business run more efficiently for everyone. The ordinary task of timely decision-making can have the extraordinary result of greatly motivating a team. ■

DISHER is a nationallyrecognized product development, talent solutions, and business consulting firm. One of DISHER’s sweet spots is helping companies efficiently develop new products by offering usercentered research, innovation workshops, industrial design, prototyping, and engineering. Contact DISHER to help bring your next bioscience product to market with speed and excellence.