{"id":7628,"date":"2018-12-06T12:37:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T18:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/?p=7628"},"modified":"2019-07-26T11:00:07","modified_gmt":"2019-07-26T16:00:07","slug":"connecting-innovation-investments-with-delivery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/connecting-innovation-investments-with-delivery\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting Innovation Investments with Delivery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Connecting<\/p>\n

If you read part 1 of this series \u201cThe Complexity of Managing Smarter, More Connected Products<\/a>,” it probably does not come as a surprise that while innovation investments are on the rise, business leaders are still struggling to align resources and money to their strategic targets. In part 2 of this series, we\u2019ll look at the challenges related to investing in innovation as well as the challenges associated with ensuring the product portfolio is aligned to the innovation strategy. We\u2019ll also provide a look into how top performing companies are addressing those challenges.<\/p>\n

In the Sixth Product Portfolio Management Benchmark Study<\/a> (commissioned by Planview and conducted by Tech-Clarity), nearly all survey respondents indicated that innovation is important to realizing their\u00a0company\u2019s current strategic objectives, with almost half suggesting it is \u201ccritically important.\u201d In fact, 73% said that their innovation budget and resources are increasing<\/strong>. Conversely, only 23% reported that their product portfolio is \u201chighly aligned<\/strong>\u201d with their business strategy. And more than a quarter revealed that their portfolio was misaligned with strategy or simply have no idea if alignment even occurs.<\/p>\n

When strategy and portfolio execution do not connect, business leaders must evolve<\/em><\/strong> their processes and tools. These processes and tools must guide and support the new product development process and help in eliminating those products that are a drag on top-line revenues. The question is: how?<\/p>\n

\"Product<\/a><\/p>\n

Use Modern Technology<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Too many organizations still rely solely on Gantt charts, spreadsheets, slide presentations, e-mail, and meeting conversations. While e-mail and spreadsheets aren\u2019t going away, relying on them to manage your innovation strategy is counterproductive, as they cannot enable a holistic and long-term portfolio vision. Such desktop tools do not support an effective overarching strategy or provide the visibility needed to make business decisions, nor do they help leaders understand how the portfolio is progressing and changing,<\/p>\n

The strategy requires an \u201corganizational home,\u201d from which actions cascade down through programs,<\/p>\n

projects, products, technologies, and services. The right solution will enable the data to roll back up to the centralized place to provide a feedback loop, measuring performance. These desktop tools simply can\u2019t give you that functionality. Yet, most participants in the benchmark survey continue to use outdated, manual tools or, worse, no solution at all to align strategy with delivery and portfolio.<\/p>\n

Respondents revealed the following statistics regarding their day-to-day portfolio management solutions:<\/p>\n