Do you take ages to get new products out?
Are you waiting to fix a few more bugs in the software? Add the extra killer feature that you thought of last week?
Are you polishing the product so it’s just as shiny as your current stuff?
Have you created mammoth processes so you won’t make any of the mistakes you made before? That stop you from making any new mistakes? Or, in fact, doing anything at all?
Does half the population of your town have to sign off on it before you let it go?
Are you actually scared to release it in case your customers don’t like it?
You’ve got innovation constipation.
This can afflict all businesses, from large corporates down to single person, kitchen table enterprises.
They start off well, emboldened by what Eric Reiss calls ‘the audacity of zero’, but then all these questions and doubts and processes creep in until the whole innovation process is sclerotic and barely moving. That’s when the warning lights should be flashing because the death of the business could be just around the corner.
So what’s your diagnosis? Are you ready to take the cure?