464: Creating a recipe for innovation success – with Shawn Houser-Fedor

Hershey chocolate company’s InnovationOps story

I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference.  This discussion is with Shawn Houser-Fedor, whose session is titled “Creating a Recipe for Innovation Success: Hershey Chocolate Company’s InnovationOps Story.”

Shawn is a R&D; Senior Director at Hershey and she is about to share with us how InnovationOps helped Hershey and can help your organization achieve innovation at scale.

This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976 and contributing research and knowledge to our discipline for nearly 50 years. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org.

Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers

[2:55] Most of your professional career has been at Hershey, and this is not unusual for Hershey employees. What is it about Hershey that keeps employees for long periods of time?

I like to say that Hershey is the sweetest place on earth to work and live for many reasons. The people we work with are the people we see outside of the office. We share a mutual respect for each other. Hershey offers a wide portfolio of products and numerous career development opportunities, so you have an opportunity to learn, grow, and develop into whatever you want to be.

[4:47] What is InnovationOps?

InnovationOps is all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into bringing great products to market—the people, processes, culture, and tools. InnovationOps at Hershey started with R&D; and marketing working together. They owned every aspect of innovation other than bringing it to market through sales and commercial organization. When innovation started to grow and get more complex, we realized we were taking people like food scientists and candy confectioners outside their comfort zones. They have different skills from our marketing team members, and neither were well versed in product management. We found by having a group dedicated to innovation, we can bring together the right people to operationalize innovation.

[6:51] What outcomes have you seen from using InnovationOps?

There are three big takeaways:

* We are much more efficient with our resources, including time, money, and people.

* We’ve seen better cross-collaboration across the business and better partnerships.

* We’ve seen great business results. We have fantastic new products that are sustainable in the market and great innovation.

[8:19] How has InnovationOps helped with alignment between different groups?

Everyone has a seat at the table, so ideas can come from anywhere—engineering, product development, sales. If it’s filling a gap, we know it’s going to be successful. That mindset allows everyone to be very collaborative and get behind an initiative to make sure it’s successful in the market.

We have specific values that drive our culture:

* Be real.

* Champion the consumer.

* Create the future.

* Take action.

[10:09] What are the jobs that InnovationOps is trying to accomplish?

The portfolio and project management group within the innovation operations team hold people accountable by making sure they have all the necessary information pulled together before a governance meeting. They make sure all the people present understand what the stage-gate process ...