The document discusses the challenges of getting support and budgets for ambitious projects due to aversion to risk. It outlines five types of risks to transformational initiatives: implementation failure, adoption failure, cannibalization, legal risks, and perception of failure. The document argues that some level of risk is necessary for innovation and provides strategies for communicating the risk profile of initiatives in a way that makes business sense, such as using an iterative development process, customer research, and setting proper expectations that acknowledge the experimental nature of innovation projects. The overall message is that avoiding investment in transformational projects due to risk aversion leads to the greater risk of business irrelevance.

1. GETTING A
GREEN LIGHT
Challenges and Solutions
for Your Ambitious Projects
Howard Tiersky, CEO

2. Do you struggle to
get support or
budget for
transformational
initiatives that are
essential to enable
your company to
thrive in these
times of change?

3. You are
not
alone!

4. The reason your enterprise isn’t
supporting you?
Aversion to Risk

5. For them, it
seems better to
stay where
they’re
comfortable,
rather than
venturing out into
the unknown.

6. But are they
right?
Is your
ambitious
project
risky?

7. The answer is probably…

8. But when the world is changing,
not changing is even riskier.

9. The good
news?
CEOs and the people managing
business units understand a lot about
risk.

10. You just have to draw the
right connections for them.

11. They know if someone offers them a stock
with HUGE returns and ZERO risk,
it’s time to run the other way.

12. Just like with stock
investments, the
steps to successful
innovation include
taking smart risks
based on insights into
the marketplace
combined with a
portfolio approach.

13. Our job as
innovators is to
communicate the
risk profile for
transformational
initiatives in a
way that makes
solid business
sense.

14. Then, we structure the approach to keep the
risk as low as possible.

15. Once you have alignment on the
idea that some level of real risk is
necessary and appropriate…

16. 5
…you can gain the
confidence of
enterprise leaders
by demonstrating
you have strategies
to address the
different types of
risk your efforts
may face.

17. There are
different types
of risks to
transformational
initiatives.

18. The first type
of risk is
implementation
failure.

19. Implementation failures are
generally the result of unforeseen
circumstances.
Find a better image–
something funny about
someone who doesn’t see
what’s coming

20. The best antidote is having a diverse team
collaborating effectively to consider any
essential aspects for implementation
prior to implementation.

21. Less ambitious, less expensive
launches lead to more
sophisticated launches down the
line.
Use the concept of the
minimum viable product:

22. Microsoft is
famous for
developing
terrible version 1
products that
dominate the
market by version
10.

23. The second type of risk is
adoption failure.

24. Even if your product is executed
perfectly, there’s always a risk
that people won’t like it.

25. The best way to manage risk of adoption
failure is by leveraging an iterative,
user-centered development process.

26. You can use
customer
research to
understand
customer demand
and reduce the
risk of adoption
failure.

27. The third type of risk is
cannibalization.

28. Cannibalization is “failure by success,” or
the idea that a new channel will take money
away from another area of the company.

29. But if you don’t do it, someone else
will.

30. “I’d rather Apple
cannibalize
Apple than
somebody else
cannibalize
Apple.”
In the words of
Tim Cook:

31. LEGAL/REGULATO
RY
The fourth
type of risk
is legal risk.

32. With breakthrough ideas, it can
sometimes be unclear what is allowed.
There’s risk of regulatory violation,
infringing on a patent or other legal
issues.

33. While their valuation climbs to tens of
billions of dollars, Airbnb and Uber are
constantly fighting legal battles.
And what a great
problem to have!

34. When Google launched, they faced legal
challenges as to whether or not they could
index other sites.

35. Attorneys are often asked to focus on
protecting the company from ALL risk.

36. It’s important
that they be
included in the
innovation
process, to
understand that
the goal is not
to avoid risk,
but to take
intelligent risk.

37. The fifth type of risk
is the risk of the perception
of
FAILURE

38. Successful
innovation
requires
experiments,
wrong turns,
learning and
persistence.

39. There’s always a risk that those who don’t have a
knowledge innovation mindset will judge the
projects or their leaders as failures when they
aren’t instant successes.

40. Furthermore, in the world of enterprise,
perception can often be reality, especially
with public companies.

41. It’s critical that the right expectations are set
in advance for innovation projects, with
appreciation for their experimental nature.

42. Because failure is always part of the
innovation process! Failure is a step on
the road to success.

43. It’s intelligent to take risks if you
have your eyes open and see a
substantial potential
Return on Investment (ROI).

44. There’s always a risk that ROI won’t be
achieved, and the timeframe for ROI from
transformational projects is difficult to
forecast.

45. However, in times of change, avoiding
investment in transformational initiatives
leads to another kind of ROI:
Risk of Irrelevance.

46. “Far better is it
to dare mighty
things, to win
glorious
triumphs…”
“Far better is it to dare
might things, to win
glorious triumphs, even
though checked by
failure, than to rank
with those poor spirits
who live in the gray
twilight that knows not
victory nor defeat.”
-Teddy
Roosevelt

47. Please share this
with your colleagues!

48. GETTING THE GREENLIGHT
Howard Tiersky, CEO
Contact us to learn more about how to
overcome aversion to risk .
sales@from.digit
al
@tierskylinkedin.com/in/tiersky

49. from helps clients develop and optimize
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online, on location, and everywhere you
find the digital consumer.
More at FROM.DIGITAL.

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