It’s never too early to start killing your ideas

One of the common mistakes that gets made in the world of innovation work is deferring risk. To be clear, no innovation team goes out of its way to ignore the risks that exist in bringing a better product or service to market. All the same, organizations continue to invest time and effort into ideas that ultimately fail when they hit the real world. You’ve likely been there, when your smart strategy jumps the shark and becomes a bet. It seems harmless at first; you can always push that test or validation off just a little bit to get the product just right. Unfortunately in the the world of innovation risk, the house always wins.

It’s easy to push risk back in the mix. We want our ideas to succeed and the more we invest in them, the more we embrace their potential. Every sprint, every cycle increases our investment and also our exposure, especially when we’re betting on a idea to succeed. So how do you stop betting and beat the house at its own game? Like any good poker player, the secret is knowing when to fold early and wait for a new deal. Over at Forbes, we’ve shared our thoughts on how to fold early, killing your bad ideas so that you’re always playing with the best hand possible.

The best innovators know how to avoid the trap of deferring risk, and knowing how to kill your bad ideas early is one of the most effective ways to immediately improve your innovation toolkit.

Learn more in our recent Forbes article: Want to innovate? You need a license to kill bad ideas.