Zombie Projects

A Review of the Recent New Product Discovery Facilitator Training Course

By: Michael Jennings, Director of Discovery and Innovation

Has your company ever spent too much time, money and effort on a poorly defined development project that is languishing, becoming an NPD “Zombie Project”? These projects are still sitting on a corner of your desk, sucking resources from other projects but you can’t quite kill it.

Ideation, chartering, high cover and creating organizational alignment and focus were all major themes in the 2 1/2 day New Product Discovery Facilitator Training Course held on May 18-20th at the Innovation Focus offices in Lancaster, PA. Chris Miller, founder of Innovation Focus, led a spirited journey through practices and approaches that empower facilitators to effectively initiate innovation project design activities within their organizations. What emerged was a lean set of tools that helped participants to create focus and support meaningful development goals. With session attendees from professional health care products, non-consumer paper products, building materials and food products there was a rich exchange of ideas and challenges that face innovation organizations everywhere.

For information on the next scheduled NPD Facilitator Training Course refer to the following article of this newsletter or to register contact at Innovation Focus. Join us and learn how to prevent your innovation projects from entering the, “Zombie Zone.”