13 Metrics for Managing Innovation: Lessons From Growth Leaders ^Top Innovation Metrics Are Imperfect All innovation metrics are inherently imperfect. Most are flawed proxies for what we would like, and are subject to availability and surrogation11 biases and manipulation. This will not be a surprise to any executive who has coped with the ambiguities of innovation. Indeed, I have met few executives who are the least surprised by the disturbing results of a study (by a consortium of 12 companies) of the results of the commercialization of 120 projects that survived seven years. The average project was forecast to break even in slightly less than two years. The actual performance was a median time-to-breakeven of four and a half years, with the worst decile of projects not breaking even for six years. Why the lack of surprise in the gap between what was promised and what was realized? Many explana- tions are offered; essentially they boil down to the inherent optimism of innovators, the difficulty of fore- casting competitive entries and counter-reactions, and the need to present a more attractive case for a share of scarce company resources than other projects. The effect of these pressures is exacerbated by the widespread use of spreadsheets, sometimes called “the fast food of strategic decision making” that enable analysts to build and manipulate financial forecasts. As Scott Cook12, the founder and Executive Chairman of Intuit, argues, a focus on financial rewards too early in the development process leads to a “withering 11 Michael Harris and Bill Taylor, “Don’t Let Metrics Undermine Your Business,” Harvard Business Review (September – October 2019), 63-69. 12 These quotations come from Clayton M. Christensen and Derek van Beur, “The Capitalist's Dilem- ma,” Harvard Business Review (June 2014), 62-68. The effect of these pressures is exacerbated by the widespread use of spreadsheets, sometimes called "the fast food of strategic decision making" …