Winning at New Products: Accelerating the Process from Idea to Launch Book

I have so much to learn from this guy in the way of promoting a book and a process. This book shows up in Goodreads as first being listed in the 80's. The edition I have says 2001. Each one has a different subtitle. Fascinating as I am a bit unsure how best to handle my upcoming launch...

The book itself starts off extremely strong. The first 3 chapters are fantastic. From there, he describes a process that because his life's work, StageGate-ing. It describes a way to scale innovation and new product development. I have come across this process a few times when I was working with clients.

The first few chapters have great statistics and information which are absolutely quotable. For that reason, I'm going to give him 4 stars.
P 14-15 describes 6 types fo new products: a) New to the World b) New Product Lines c) Additions to existing product lines d) Improvements and revisions to existing products e) Repositionings f) Cost reductions
A & B represent only 30% of all product launches, but are 60% of what is considered most successful. The numbers double in high tech industries. The return on such products are far higher.

P 59 He apparently has done a study on more than 2000 new products. The top factor for success is a "unique, superior, & differentiated product with good value-for-money for the customer." (.534). The second biggest factor is "A strong market orientation - voice of the customer built-in" (.444) with (.406) has the highest correlation to timeliness.

The other relevant factors include:
"Share, early, fact-based product definition before development begins (0.393 Profitability, 0.242 timeliness)
"Solid up-front homework - doing the front-end activities well" (0.369/0.408)
"True cross-functional teams: empowered, resourced, accountable, dedicated leader" (0.328/0.483)
"Leverage - where the project builds on business's technology and marketing competencies" (0.316)
"Market attractiveness - size, growth, margins" (0.312/0.215)
"Quality of the launch effort: well planned, properly resourced" (0.286/0.205)
"Technological competencies & quality-of-execution of technological activities (0.265/0.316)

Interestingly, one of the lower factors is Quality of launch effort/planning and resourcing. It's also a bit nebulous, and that is what Stage Gating is. I'm not sure if Cooper realizes this about his stats. It's too bad he didn't include the full statistical panel on the back, as I can't tell what precisely this is a panel of, (r^2, beta, multi-factor or single factor).
From a statistical perspective, the best interpretation of this data (without seeing the entire panel, but even then my suspicion is that it would support this) are having a great product and a really good execution team.

Lack of good marketing could be a real issue. that said, if you don't have a good product, my suspicion is the marketing matters far less.

The stage gate process is an interesting theory. I've seen it work and fail. I think that if you keep in mind the above survey, e.g. if you have a good team, and the product is good, that likely matters more than the process wrapped around it. Indeed, it seems like if you have those and at the Stage Gate then it could be good, find areas to really support the team through process.

However, when all you have is the process and you lack the other two, Stage Gate forces some silly responses. These are actually listed on p142 (and my brief of what he's saying mixed with what I've seen).
1) Functional Phase Reviewed System - this is where stage gating is used to allow different areas of expertise to destroy the work of others that came before them.
2) Rigid System - This is where sticklers of process miss the point of innovation as relates to the firm's objectives. Instead of moving forward, you are told you can't do X,Y, Z because it doesn't fit in some process. The opposite would be to think about how to fit process around the strategic move you must make to survive.
3) Bureaucratic System - This is where a simple modification is not allowed because all innovation must go through "the process" Man, when I see this, it's just sad. You give up so much small innovation that could allow you insight into the right way to do things, because to do so would be against the grain.
4) StageGating as Project Management -So much in this one. StageGating takes a lot of time. It works for very slow, new product launch type activities. It absolutely does not describe how you ideate for innovation. Agile, for example will not fit into many people's misunderstandings of Stage Gating. Scrum, OMG... would never work. The thing is, I kind of hate both Agile and Scrum, but i like them a lot better then Waterfall. StageGating, which is more a concept of how to run an organization than a project management technique, often creates a culture that only allows for waterfall.

Anyway, I love the first 4 chapters. The rest, even though it's more a promotion of Stage Gating, is great for me to see where some organizations I've worked with have went wrong. Cooper's vision of StageGating has really been warped by those who have allowed these 4 problems to cause a problem.