Mastering The Hype Cycle

A good project board (or innovation steering group) is valuable asset that should last a lifetime if you look after it. So treat it with respect, put effort into maintaining relationships. Innovation needs guidance, maintain your board with a variety of members with different viewpoints and experience. This will help ensure you get both the [...]

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As you rise up the slope of enlightenment to the plateau, don’t get arrogant. Your understanding is rising and so are the returns. But scaling an innovation has its kinks and bumps too. At this point, when it seems the hardest and most dangerous times are past, it is easy to loose concentration and make [...]

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Innovation adoption hype cycle surfers must stay cool at all times. This is especially true in the plunge from the peak of inflated expectations to the trough of disillusionment. Nine times out of ten the hype cycle will bottom out and start to recover, but for those coming on the ride with you it won’t [...]

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Don’t even bother to make a half hearted attempt at adopting the innovation on this wave, you will be certain to fail. Decide when to go and then put your full energy into it. Innovation isn’t easy. Changing anything, particularly in larger organizations will always turn out tougher than you initially expect. Staying the course [...]

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Once you have decided that this is the right innovation wave, you must judge carefully when you will you go with it– before the peak, at the peak, after the peak? Perhaps you want to wait until almost the trough. Maybe you should take it easy and ride this one in on the plateau. Make [...]

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As you get ready to go, remind yourself of the key behavior that will help differentiate you from the competition – you choose the innovation wave, it doesn’t choose you. No matter how inviting it looks – if isn’t the right one, don’t go with it just because the crowd of surfers around you seem [...]

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Once you get started, it’s very easy to get carried away and to be tempted out of your depth. Remember that’s what the hype is all about – getting swept along with the enthusiasm of a market crowd. It’s a human anthropological trait. We all holler out from the stands at a football game in [...]

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The graphic above was originally drafted to be an end-piece for the book – a ‘photocopy and keep’ aid to help people remember the realities of the Hype Cycle’s twists and turns as they wrestle with project situations and perhaps need to regain their perspective. For both Jackie and I, this was our first book [...]

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