Innovation tunnel vision – why most projects should never launch

25 Sep 2025

Has your innovation pipeline become a tunnel rather than a funnel? Ideas enter at one end and products emerge at the other, regardless of whether market conditions, business priorities, or competitive landscapes have changed during development. What started as innovation management has become innovation momentum – projects continue because they've started, not because they should finish.

This tunnel vision explains why innovation success rates remain disappointingly low despite decades of process refinement, stage-gate methodologies, and design thinking workshops. Market data reveals that as many as two out of every three new products fail to gain traction. The problem isn't ideation quality or development capability. The problem is treating innovation as separate from business strategy rather than integral to it.

Most organisations manage innovation pipelines independently from business planning cycles. Innovation teams often develop products for markets that marketing teams are simultaneously abandoning. R&D creates solutions for customer problems that sales teams no longer prioritise. Product launches proceed while marketing and portfolio strategies shift in opposite directions.

The disconnect creates expensive waste. Innovation investments flow toward projects that business strategy has outgrown, and market opportunities are missed. Meanwhile, innovation resources remain locked into outdated priorities, and competitive threats multiply while innovation capabilities focus on irrelevant challenges.

Smart organisations have eliminated this disconnect by combining their innovation strategy with Integrated Business Planning (IBP). Rather than separate innovation pipelines, they create innovation funnels that align with marketing and portfolio strategy and adapt to market evolution.

 

 

The difference between pipelines and funnels determines whether innovation drives growth or merely fills gaps.

 

Gap-filling kills breakthrough innovation

The most dangerous innovation trap involves using new product development to fill short-term business gaps rather than create long-term competitive advantage. When quarterly targets come under pressure, innovation projects get reprioritised to deliver immediate revenue rather than strategic positioning.

This gap-filling approach corrupts innovation's true purpose. Rather than developing products that create new market opportunities, innovation teams develop products that patch current market weaknesses. In place of building capabilities for future competition, innovation invests in solutions for today's problems.

Gap-filling innovation also distorts resource allocation. Breakthrough innovations require the right amount of time in development and, once launched, sustained investment over extended periods. Gap-filling innovations demand immediate results with minimal investment. When innovation budgets split between breakthrough potential and gap-filling urgency, breakthrough projects starve while gap-filling projects multiply.

The resource distortion creates a downward spiral. Weak breakthrough pipelines increase pressure for gap-filling solutions. Gap-filling solutions consume resources needed for breakthrough development. Reduced breakthrough capability increases future gap-filling pressure.

Organisations trapped in this pattern find themselves constantly behind market evolution. They react to competitive innovations rather than creating them. They respond to customer demands rather than anticipating them. They follow market trends rather than setting them.

Breaking this pattern requires a disciplined distinction between strategic innovation and tactical gap-filling. Strategic innovation protects against short-term pressures, while tactical gap-filling receives time-bound support with clear success criteria.

Most importantly, gap-filling projects require explicit sunset clauses. Without defined endpoints, tactical solutions become permanent drains on strategic resources.

 

Funnel thinking prevents resource waste

Innovation funnels differ from innovation tunnels in fundamental ways. Tunnels move projects from stage to stage. Funnels filter projects against evolving criteria. Pipelines optimise throughput. Funnels optimise outcomes.

Funnel thinking recognises that not every project should reach market. In fact, most projects should be eliminated during the different stages of development as priorities clarify, markets evolve, and competitive dynamics shift. The goal isn't maximising launches – it's maximising impact from successful launches.

This requires different measurement systems. Tunnel thinking measures project progress against development milestones. Funnel thinking measures projects against business contribution potential. Tunnel metrics focus on time to market. Funnel metrics focus on time to value. Ultimately, you need a balance of both.

Effective innovation funnels integrate four critical dimensions: strategic alignment, market opportunity, business capability, and resource availability. Projects must score adequately across all four dimensions to merit continued investment.

 

 

Strategic alignment ensures innovation projects support broader business direction rather than pursuing independent agendas. Market opportunity validates that customer problems remain relevant and competitive landscapes support successful launches. Business capability ensures the business is properly set up to deliver the type of innovation to market efficiently and effectively. Resource availability confirms that necessary capabilities – technical, operational, commercial – exist or can be repurposed or acquired cost-effectively.

This integration prevents common innovation failures: technically brilliant products that miss market timing, market-relevant solutions that exceed organisational capabilities, and strategically important projects that lack sufficient resource commitment.

Funnel thinking also switches on dynamic prioritisation. As business strategies evolve, innovation projects get re-evaluated against updated criteria. As market conditions change, project rankings shift accordingly. As resource constraints emerge, lower-priority projects get deferred rather than poorly supported.

This dynamic approach requires abandoning the sunk cost fallacy. Previous investment doesn't justify continued investment if strategic conditions have changed. Projects that made sense at initiation might become irrelevant during development.

The discipline feels harsh but delivers superior results. Organisations using funnel thinking launch fewer products but achieve higher success rates from the products they do launch. This also stress-tests the organisation's appetite and broader business culture around its innovation ambition.

 

Strategic integration eliminates wishful thinking

The most sophisticated innovation organisations integrate innovation strategy with monthly business planning cycles. Innovation pipeline reviews become part of Portfolio Reviews within IBP processes and key integration and communication points are established with the stage-and-gate process.

 

 

When innovation teams present project updates to cross-functional business teams monthly, strategic misalignment becomes obvious immediately. Marketing teams identify shifting customer priorities. Sales teams reveal changing competitive pressures. Supply chain teams flag operational constraints. Finance teams validate business case assumptions.

 

 

This cross-functional scrutiny improves innovation quality while reducing innovation waste. Projects receive early course correction instead of late-stage failure. Resource allocation reflects current business priorities rather than historical innovation commitments.

The integration also improves innovation timing. Instead of launching products when development completes, organisations launch products when markets align. Instead of forcing market entry during unaligned launch windows, innovation teams coordinate with marketing campaigns, sales initiatives, operational capacity, and their customers' capabilities.

Perhaps most importantly, strategic integration prevents innovation teams from developing products in market vacuums. Customer insights flow continuously from sales and marketing teams. Competitive intelligence updates innovation priorities in real-time. Operational feedback influences design decisions before specifications lock.

This integration transforms innovation from hopeful product development to strategic capability building. Innovation projects advance business strategy rather than pursuing independent technical achievements.

The result: innovation investments that strengthen competitive position rather than simply expanding product catalogues.

Organisations still managing innovation separately from business planning aren't just missing integration opportunities – they're developing products for markets their business strategies are abandoning.

Strategic innovation requires strategic integration. In volatile markets, innovation pipelines that ignore business strategy become expensive tunnels leading nowhere profitable.

 

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