Getting Ideas form Outside

keep monitoring...its continuing relevance to end users.

Procter and Gamble (P&G) used to spend around $3 billion each year on technology research, and employed more than 7,000 people to carry it out. However, it has now committed to sourcing half of its innovations from outside the company. In doing so , it has had to develop completely new ways of working, sharing its unused ideas with a wider world, and picking up on other people's ideas in the most unlikely of places.

For example, the idea of Pringles potato chips having messages printed on them was made a reality not by P&G research scientists but by connecting with a small bakery in bologna, Italy, that had developed a special edible ink and spraying process for the ink. The connection was made through one of the increasing number of Internet knowledge broker sites--a kind of eBay of innovation.

ACTION POINT: As our project progresses, keep monitoring not only expenditure and performance, but also its continuing relevance to end users. Otherwise you may find yourself with a perfectly executed innovation that your customers no longer want.