Troubling Successes and Good Failures: Successful New Product Development Requires Five Critical Factors

Abstract

This article examines several critical success factors for innovation and new product development and then applies them to eight development projects from AT&T, BOC Gases, and Rhodia, Inc. From these projects, we observed that neither all innovation successes nor all failures are created equal. There are successes and successes, as well as failures and failures. A company can succeed with a new product project, but it may not be repeatable—and one battle does not win the competitive war.We found that for companies to have repeatable new product success, their teams must balance five critical factors. Most interesting to our study was our discovery that success can still be achieved by heroic efforts or extraordinary circumstances in only a subset of the five factors. Similarly, failure can result from unsatisfactory efforts or lack of attention in merely one or two of the five factors. We term these product development projects “Troubling Successes and Good Failures.” We assert that this unbalanced strategy is not prudent and is unlikely to produce long-term viability in new product development.