Cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit in product innovation Watch on YouTube TLDR Penny Wise, former 3M executive, and Michelle Jones, innovation systems architect at Stage-Gate International, discuss how innovation leaders can navigate uncertainty, balance governance, and build trust in their organizations. They share practical insights from decades of innovation research and experience, preview their upcoming PDMA conference workshops, and discuss ways organizations like 3M foster a culture of entrepreneurship and collaboration. Introduction Two things nearly every product leader wants: the innovation track record of a company like 3M, and a way to govern innovation that actually helps instead of getting in the way. Today I have someone from each of those worlds. Penny Wise is a former executive at 3M, with nearly three decades there — including as president of 3M Canada, as well as a global vice president of marketing. Michelle Jones is an innovation systems architect and senior partner at Stage-Gate International, where she helps organizations measure their new product innovation system against the hallmarks of the best performers and fix what’s holding them back. At the PDMA conference this October, the two of them are facilitating a Leaders’ Roundtable and a Benchmarking Workshop. Today is the first of two conversations. We’ll look at the leadership and governance challenges they’re seeing leaders encounter. Then, in a few weeks, after the conference, we’ll come back to learn what surfaced with the leaders that attended. Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers Leaders’ Roundtable at the PDMA ConferenceMichelle and Penny are facilitating a leaders’ roundtable, which will bring together some of the most influential and trusted voices in new product development. They’ll discuss how their teams are managing the many uncertainties of today’s world such as demographic shifts, rapid technological advances including AI, and geopolitical instability. Live Benchmarking SessionStage-Gate International and PDMA have the world’s largest databases on benchmarking in innovation and product development. At the conference, Penny, Michelle, and Dr. Bob Cooper, will facilitate a session that dives deep into benchmarking, focusing on governance of innovation. Participants will assess their organizations’ performance in each benchmark, and the facilitators will introduce emerging practices in benchmarking. Innovation Leadership in Times of UncertaintyLeaders may be tempted to be paralyzed by uncertainty, but Michelle points out that periods of uncertainty also offer the biggest opportunities. Innovation leaders who can operate in uncertainty have the best chance for the biggest rewards. Product innovators are well equipped to help the rest of their organizations deal with rapid change, particularly related to AI. Impact of AI on InnovationArtificial intelligence is rapidly changing both back-office operations and front-end product opportunities. Penny points out that while AI creates a flood of new ideas and synthetic data to mine, it also presents challenges for prioritization and aligning new product efforts with company strategy. Leaders must view AI strategically, ensuring it supports larger business objectives. Penny and Michelle recommend that companies use the Stage-Gate process to test and iterate on their use of AI. Governance in Stage-GateMichelle describes how leadership and governance have been forgotten in the Stage-Gate process. Over the past few years, all innovation disciplines have contributed to make Stage-Gate more efficient, but in the sprint for speed, the leader’s role has been lost. Michelle has observed that organizations that continue winning are the ones that haven’t set governance aside but instead knit all the innovation methods into a sophisticated governance process. Portfolio ChaosRecently, when talking with companies, Michelle hears that they are experiencing “portfolio chaos.” Product leaders don’t know what’s in their portfolio or how they’re contributing to the overall organizational strategy. An abundance of ideas from AI amplifies this problem when there aren’t governance systems in place to help leaders make good decisions to curate their portfolios intentionally. Innovation Culture at 3MPenny and Michelle describe how the innovation culture at 3M is intentionally designed to support innovation and nurture an entrepreneurial spirit. They use governance wisely, to avoid chaos while not squashing innovation. The company focuses on understanding customers’ needs and building the right products. Like many large organizations, 3M has to balance revolutionary innovations with incremental improvements. Big organizations have no shortage of new ideas, but they must have a solid strategy to decide which ideas move forward and help everyone feel that their ideas are valued. At 3M, anyone can generate an idea, and others in the organization are expected to quickly connect them to someone who can help develop those ideas. They also host open technical poster sessions to facilitate collaboration. A few years ago, 3M and the U.S. Department of Defense swapped Stage-Gate leaders for a year. Both organizations wanted to learn from each other’s strategic challenges, processes, and unmet needs. Michelle describes this as an example of 3M’s dedication to innovation and long-term success. Governance as a Trust-Building MechanismGovernance is a trust-building mechanism. When teams trust their leaders, their performance is accelerated because they know what to expect and have permission to try new things and fail intelligently. Research shows that it is best for product leaders to manage the process and governance with a heavy hand and manage the projects and people with a light hand. Useful Links Register for the PMDA Ignite Innovation Summit. Listeners get 20% off with code PDMACHAD20. Teams of 3 or more also get a discount when registering. Learn more about Stage-Gate Connect with Michelle and Penny on LinkedIn Watch Michelle and Penny’s webinar, Next Generation New Product Governance Systems Innovation Quotes “As go the gates, so does the process.” – Dr. Robert Cooper “An idea is not an innovation. You have to make a product and test it against all the customer applications. Then when you sell it and customers buy it a second time, then you’ve got an innovation. You’ve changed their buying habits.” – attributed to Art Fry Application Questions How does your organization balance the need for operational efficiency with fostering an entrepreneurial, innovative spirit? What governance structures are in place to ensure innovation projects are both supported and strategically aligned? In what ways could you foster trust in your team? How does your team decide which new ideas move forward, and what mechanisms prevent good ideas from ending up in the idea graveyard? What benchmarks do you use to measure and improve your team’s innovation performance? Bios Michelle L. Jones is a Managing Partner at Stage‑Gate International and one of the world’s leading authorities on architecting and implementing high‑performing, enterprise‑wide new product development and innovation management systems. For more than two decades, she has worked alongside Dr Robert Cooper, Dr Scott Edgett, and hundreds of leading innovators to research, evolve, and deploy the most influential innovation frameworks shaping corporate growth strategies today. Renowned as the foremost expert in tailoring and implementing Stage‑Gate® Hybrid systems, Michelle has led more successful enterprise innovation transformations than anyone else globally. She partners with leadership teams across North America, Europe, China, and South America—including some of the world’s most discerning and performance‑driven organizations— to modernize portfolio and gate governance, strengthen decision‑making discipline, and embed innovation capabilities that scale. Her work helps organizations align strategy, culture, and operating models to unlock sustainable growth and accelerate value creation. Michelle brings a rare combination of strategic insight and practical implementation expertise, grounded in more than 30 years of experience in consulting, R&D management, post‑merger integration, and operational leadership. She integrates change leadership, organizational behavior, and systems thinking to drive adoption, embed new leadership behaviors, and ensure long‑term system durability. At PDMA’s 50th Anniversary Conference, Michelle will lead an interactive workshop on the hallmarks of next‑generation governance—what world‑class gate governance looks like today, how leading companies are elevating decision quality and portfolio performance, and why governance is re‑emerging as the critical backbone of high‑growth, high‑performance innovation organizations. Penny Wise is a senior Marketing and Corporate Affairs executive known for creating clarity and generating momentum in complex environments. Over her career at 3M, she held global leadership roles spanning brand strategy, marketing, new product marketing, communications, public policy, marketing transformation and P&L management, including serving as President of 3M Canada. She is recognized for mobilizing leaders and unifying teams around shared priorities and integrating work across business, marketing, brand, corporate affairs, and communications to deliver enterprise strategy. Penny has led major transformation initiatives, including modernizing marketing systems in a $12B Business Group and guiding the global relaunch of 3M’s brand platform. Her leadership has delivered impactful commercial, reputational, and regulatory outcomes. Penny has been recogn
