Member since August 2018
After decades of partnering with heads of market-leading organizations, Ellen Di Resta has seen again and again that when organizations fail, it's because they over-focus on their technology and invention, and under-focus on the intervention it is presenting to the world.
From her work ensuring the market success of her clients that include: P&G; TetraPak; AstraZeneca; and MIT backed startups - Ellen will challenge your audience to think differently; to recognize and value capabilities that are often invisible and taken for granted. Meeting and conference attendees leave with a new perspective on their work, and how to ensure successful launch and accelerate growth in the market.
In addition to her client work, Ellen has continued to extend the reach of these transformational ideas through publishing (several articles and book chapters on designing successful ventures), speaking (for global professional organizations, and international leadership and academic conferences, and university lecturing.
In my talks, I lead audiences through experiential activities so they can truly feel the discomfort and uncertainty of working on the "intervention" as opposed to the "invention." Watching their faces when it all comes together is rewarding, and they forever talk differently about their work!
I was convening an internal workshop of corporate leadership team that spanned multiple disciplines. The goal was to align the senior team toward a common customer goal from within their different functional disciplines. As we uncovered the layers of what motivated their customers, one participant was clearly concerned. I addressed the group "It’s not uncommon to feel some discomfort with this type of work." This participant piped up and said "Discomfort!?!?! I've already run out of discomfort!" The group laughed and I was able to directly address the issue by comparing to working in normal operations, and this group went on to create one of the company's most successful products.
All of my stories are rooted in finding a source of emotional pain, whether it’s affecting a customer or an employee group. Innovation and disruption can be scary, and I talk about how we use discomfort as fuel to create the best products and services. Clients always exceed their expectations as a result.
I started my career as an engineer in a large medical device company, and soon became frustrated that I was doing a good job of building the wrong products. I made successive career and education moves to put myself in a position to be able to help organizations to design the right products in the first place.
The abysmal track record (often cited as 70% of new venture failure) has taught me that the startup model of product development is broken. Whether a new startup, or a new venture in a large company, the "conventional wisdom" results in prioritizing getting a technology to market, as opposed to getting the right product to market. This results in tremendous waste - imagine what the world could do with the money saved if the 70% ratio were reversed?
The 70% ratio can be avoided, and it is now my mission to fix it.
Innovation has become synonymous with iteration, stage gates and fundraising. We invest heavily in programs, processes, templates and new talent intended to help us move faster, yet it feels like we’re wading through sand. There is also a growing frustration that the current best practices are not producing the results they promise.
What if the product you're building isn’t what the customer is really buying?
Here’s the real problem: the systems, metrics, and best practices we use to innovate were built to help us to define the products we’ll build at scale. They are not the best tools to help us to develop ideas. This leaves us chasing downstream product metrics before we’ve determined how to assess whether we’re creating new value for customers in the first place.
The result? Our innovation efforts produce a lot of activity, with disappointing market results. The frustration is real when results come up short after extensive customer research and building something that addressed the pain points customers articulated. This creates opportunities for competitors to win by solving a problem no one knew existed.
The good news: this is a solvable issue. In this session, Ellen Di Resta will challenge everything you’ve been taught about how to develop and evaluate ideas and earn customer trust. You’ll walk out with a new perspective, and the realization that we’ve been starting with the wrong playbook all along.
Three takeaways:
1.A new perspective on market disruption; and how to prepare for it.
2.The framework for developing ideas that can guide the creation of multiple product generations.
3.The key to building customer trust that endures for the long term.
I was convening an internal workshop of corporate leadership team that spanned multiple disciplines. The goal was to align the senior team toward a common customer goal from within their different functional disciplines. As we uncovered the layers of what motivated their customers, one participant was clearly concerned. I addressed the group "It’s not uncommon to feel some discomfort with this type of work." This participant piped up and said "Discomfort!?!?! I've already run out of discomfort!" The group laughed and I was able to directly address the issue by comparing to working in normal operations, and this group went on to create one of the company's most successful products.
All of my stories are rooted in finding a source of emotional pain, whether it’s affecting a customer or an employee group. Innovation and disruption can be scary, and I talk about how we use discomfort as fuel to create the best products and services. Clients always exceed their expectations as a result.
I started my career as an engineer in a large medical device company, and soon became frustrated that I was doing a good job of building the wrong products. I made successive career and education moves to put myself in a position to be able to help organizations to design the right products in the first place.
The abysmal track record (often cited as 70% of new venture failure) has taught me that the startup model of product development is broken. Whether a new startup, or a new venture in a large company, the "conventional wisdom" results in prioritizing getting a technology to market, as opposed to getting the right product to market. This results in tremendous waste - imagine what the world could do with the money saved if the 70% ratio were reversed?
The 70% ratio can be avoided, and it is now my mission to fix it.
Innovation has become synonymous with iteration, stage gates and fundraising. We invest heavily in programs, processes, templates and new talent intended to help us move faster, yet it feels like we’re wading through sand. There is also a growing frustration that the current best practices are not producing the results they promise.
What if the product you're building isn’t what the customer is really buying?
Here’s the real problem: the systems, metrics, and best practices we use to innovate were built to help us to define the products we’ll build at scale. They are not the best tools to help us to develop ideas. This leaves us chasing downstream product metrics before we’ve determined how to assess whether we’re creating new value for customers in the first place.
The result? Our innovation efforts produce a lot of activity, with disappointing market results. The frustration is real when results come up short after extensive customer research and building something that addressed the pain points customers articulated. This creates opportunities for competitors to win by solving a problem no one knew existed.
The good news: this is a solvable issue. In this session, Ellen Di Resta will challenge everything you’ve been taught about how to develop and evaluate ideas and earn customer trust. You’ll walk out with a new perspective, and the realization that we’ve been starting with the wrong playbook all along.
Three takeaways:
1.A new perspective on market disruption; and how to prepare for it.
2.The framework for developing ideas that can guide the creation of multiple product generations.
3.The key to building customer trust that endures for the long term.
