With any innovation work there is a pull between enhancing, polishing and launching.
1. Enhancing – Adding one more feature, figuring out one more use or creating one more benefit
2. Polishing – improving quality, striving for perfection, editing, refining and tweaking
3. Launching – the need to get this into the world in a timely manner
You may run into some people who will delay to avoid launching the innovation to the world. “It’s not perfect” they say. “Maybe we should design it another way”. These folks are likely scared. They are afraid that the innovation won’t do well. Other folks will want to rush from development to launch even though the innovation is not ready. They may not truly believe in the project and just want to get it off their plate. Or they may not be able to see that it’s not ready for the outside world. Somewhere in between these two extremes is the right path to take.
If you are working on innovation there’s a decision ahead of you. You will have to decide when you’ve added enough magic for this round and when it’s great enough (but no not perfect) in order to launch as soon as possible.
Remember we are all now allowed to launch our projects to the world in beta.
This is the second article in a series on innovation and new product development. Catch the first article Why Associations Should Have A New Product Pipeline.