The XXIII Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea were pretty incredible. The frosty competition and the “best of the best” athletes going for the gold had the entire world watching.
Just like the Olympians geared up for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, your company is likely gearing up for a successful 2018. For organizations focused on growth through innovation management initiatives, R&D programs, and new product development (NPD), there are four parallels between Olympic sports and how your teams work together to accelerate new offerings to market.
Need for Speed
A downhill skier follows the “fall line” — the most direct line down a mountain or hill — to reach the maximum possible speed.
Are you carving out strategic innovation programs that are delivering fast enough to lock in early opportunities?
Win the speed-to-market race by avoiding the five widely-held misconceptions about executing and operationalizing innovation strategy within your organization described in the blog post Organizations Struggle with the Strategy Execution Gap.
Team Work Makes the Dream Work
Bobsleigh crews use extensive training and teamwork to produce the greatest speed and cross that finish line first.
In an organization, effectively collaborating across internal barriers — like working closely with other business units in different countries and time zones — helps develop high-quality ideas and steer them into winning products. A mature innovation framework accelerates teamwork to shorten time to market on new products and services.
Are you looking for a push to accelerate your R&D and NPD best practices? View this infographic to see how market-proven processes and tools can help mature your innovation framework.
Calculated Decisions
Ski jumpers maximize their velocity while retaining total control so they ace their landing.
The way your R&D and NPD teams work together is similar: you want to introduce speed into how your teams operate, yet the decisions you make need to be controlled, e.g. smart and calculated based on current and reliable shared facts.
Read Accolade for Strategic Innovation to see how Accolade software helps your teams implement operational changes that increase speed and result in better decisions.
Agility Wins
Speed skaters go the distance and aim for pace and agility when moving around competitors and hugging those tight curves.
Is your organization racing against both time and the competition to execute on the next breakthrough innovation?
Read the whitepaper Align Product Portfolios with Strategic Plans, which outlines best practices for facilitating programs and projects that deliver on growth objectives.
Close the Strategy Execution Gap
By now you've probably noticed that in all of these parallels, speed is a major factor. Strategizing your enterprise innovation, R&D and NPD initiatives is one thing. Executing them efficiently is another.
Take a look at our Close the Strategy Execution Gap page to learn about improving business performance and aligning initiatives, people, and resources around corporate objectives to execute strategic initiatives faster.
