Down to the Lab

Stevens Institute's Lynn, co-author with Richard R Reilly of Blockbusters: The Five Keys to Developing Great New Products (Harper Collins 2003), says getting new product development right starts with the CIO and the CEO going to the lab, touting the new products at every turn and singing the praises of the team members who invest their blood, sweat and tears in them.

"You know, I wrote this book called Blockbusters, where I highlighted these five key practices [senior management commitment, a clear and stable vision for the product, improvisation with rapid prototyping and fast feedback, intensive information exchange, and collaboration under pressure] separating the best new product teams from the rest, and I think they're very important, but there is no magic bullet here. No matter who you talk to, there really isn't.

"It really has to start from a desire from the top that has to trickle down that new products are important: We're going to invest the time, the effort, we're going to put our best people, we're going to reward them in order to make innovation happen.

"I think that if the CIO begins to start seeing how important innovation is, and they start to kick it up the next level, to their bosses, maybe then we'll start to see more innovation, rather than just: 'We're going to make it in blue or we're going to make it in green, or we're going to make it in orange'," Lynn says.