Why R&D needs a different playbook for innovation

When we began our own careers in product development, there were many valuable books on strategy, quality, marketing, design thinking and innovation. We read widely, learned from different disciplines and reapplied what we could.

What we did not find was a practical playbook written specifically for R&D professionals: scientists, engineers, researchers, developers and leaders doing the complex work of turning ideas into real products.

R&D occupies a distinctive position in innovation, and without R&D expertise, there is no product to sell and no product story to tell. Yet R&D teams are not always involved early enough to shape the consumer question behind the brief. In some organisations they are still expected to execute against a direction that has already been set, even when the evidence required to translate the ambition into a successful product is incomplete.

This creates a familiar challenge: how do you move faster without compromising the rigour that underpins good product development? How do you give teams the consumer understanding they need early enough to make better decisions and avoid costly rework later?

For R&D teams, one of the most important challenges is translating technical possibility into a product proposition that genuinely matters to the user. This is where Untapped Product Story™ plays a valuable role. It creates a clear connection between the consumer problem, the science behind the solution and the experience the product is designed to deliver.

The tools R&D teams told us they were missing

We often hear from our R&D clients that they lack the tools and templates to easily extract deep insight from their consumers and translate it into winning products, or to develop strong product communication.

Back in our early P&G days, we also had no handbook. However, we were fortunate to have excellent coaching and supportive colleagues to help us. And we reinforced our learning in the staff canteen, in hotel bars and in those “please tell me I’m not the only one” conversations with fellow product developers. Over time, those shared experiences became a set of practical tools and ways to bridge deep technical understanding with the messy, human, commercial world our products must live in today and beyond.

That experience is even more relevant today as R&D teams are being asked to do more with less, move faster and still land products that succeed in market. When timelines compress, product research can be one of the first things to be shortened, but the missing understanding has not disappeared. It tends to surface later, when changing direction is considerably more expensive.

Consumer understanding should shape the brief

We believe science-led innovation and genuine consumer insight are not in competition with each other. They are the same thing, approached from two directions: R&D brings deep technical understanding of what is possible, consumer understanding gives that expertise a clearer target.

When R&D understand their consumers, the products that follow are better grounded and more commercially durable. R&D and commercial teams can work from the same consumer foundation, so that the brief and the product science are pointing in the same direction from the start. This is particularly important when briefs arrive with strong commercial ambition but without the consumer or category grounding R&D needs to direct its effort. A request for disruptive innovation is difficult to action if the brief does not define what disruption should mean for a specific consumer in a specific category.

Building deeper consumer understanding early in the development process changes the role R&D can play: from executing against the brief to bringing the evidence that helps shape a stronger brief in the first place and for R&D leaders, this is also a question of return on innovation investment. Across FMCG, teams are often challenged to develop solutions before they have established a sufficiently deep understanding of the consumer problem, the product experience required or the technical choices most likely to deliver it. The resulting ambiguity can lead to avoidable rework, late-stage changes and investment in solutions that ultimately fail to deliver meaningful consumer value.

Reducing that ambiguity earlier in development creates an opportunity to make better technical decisions faster, strengthen alignment between R&D and commercial teams, and focus resources on the innovations with the greatest potential to succeed. The goal is to improve the quality of the decisions that determine where time, expertise and investment are directed as well as accelerating speed to market.

Practical tools for stronger R&D capability

Untapping Innovation® brings together practical approaches for building consumer understanding, creating clearer product requirements, testing and learning earlier, reducing avoidable rework and helping cross-functional teams make better decisions together. The intention is to give R&D teams tools and frameworks they can apply themselves, so that capability remains within the organisation and good practice becomes easier to repeat.

The Untapped Product Story™ tool brings this thinking together through four connected stages: the Consumer Wish, the Root Cause, the Breakthrough Innovation and the New User Experience. Each stage challenges teams to be more precise about what they’re solving, how the technology addresses it and what will meaningfully change for the person using the product.

A strong Product Story makes innovation easier to communicate and helps R&D teams challenge their own thinking. Does the technical breakthrough really address the underlying consumer need? Is the intended benefit meaningful enough? And are we developing the elements that will make the greatest difference to the user? These are questions worth answering before significant development time and resources have been committed.

This is particularly important for experienced R&D leaders as they are rightly rigorous about external methodologies. They do not need general encouragement to become more innovative but, they need credible, practical ways to improve how important decisions are made under real commercial and technical pressure. The goal is a team that knows how to get to the right answer faster because it has the methodology and frameworks to do so, rather than reinventing the approach on every project.

Product Story is particularly powerful when used alongside other R&D disciplines. Understanding the Untapped Technology Mode of Action™ establishes what is technically possible and then Product Story connects that possibility to a meaningful user benefit. Concept Thinking, Untapped Claims and Demos™  then help bring the proposition to life and communicate its value. Together, these approaches create a more connected path from scientific understanding to a product experience people can recognise and value.

John Metselaar interviewing Suzanne Allers, Deirdre Walters, Sally Kemkers at the Untapping Innovation book launch, June 2026.

The playbook we wish we’d had

Untapping Innovation® is the capability playbook we wish we’d had then: simple, agile tools to help R&D teams unearth deep user insights, translate them into winning products, and craft the stories that help those products land in market.

The playbook brings together eight practical tools and frameworks, developed through decades of R&D experience and refined through our work with leading FMCG organisations. Together, they provide a connected approach to reducing ambiguity, focusing innovation investment and helping R&D, marketing and leadership teams make better-informed decisions around what consumers genuinely need.

We were delighted that Untapping Innovation®: An R&D Playbook for Products and Stories That Sell received Distinguished Author recognition from the International Impact Book Awards, a milestone also featured in The London News. For us, this recognition reinforces the importance of equipping R&D professionals with practical methodologies that help turn scientific expertise and consumer understanding into stronger products and commercial outcomes.

By working with these tools, you’ll save time and reduce wasted cycles of rework by building stronger consumer understanding earlier. Forge stronger, more meaningful connections between your product and the people who use it. Gain confidence in telling your product’s story to colleagues, marketers and ultimately consumers. Have a practical framework, the Connected R&D Playbook, that you can return to again and again to guide your projects to success.

For R&D leaders, the benefit goes beyond an individual project because when teams have practical tools they can apply themselves, capability stays within the organisation. Good practice becomes easier to repeat and teams can move with greater confidence.

Untapping Innovation® is written for R&D professionals: scientists, engineers, developers, managers; anyone involved in the work of turning ideas into real products. You are at the heart of innovation and without your expertise, there is no product to sell, no story to tell. And yet, you’re under more pressure than ever to do more with less, move faster, and still land products that succeed in market.

We believe R&D teams should have practical tools designed for that reality: tools that help them understand consumers more deeply, translate that understanding into winning products and build capability that gets stronger project after project. There were plenty of excellent books we could learn from when we started our careers. There just wasn’t one written for the work we were actually doing.

Bring your next product story to life

A good framework becomes truly valuable when teams can apply it to the challenges they’re working on. The Untapped Product Story™ tool is one of the practical methodologies featured in our book and available to explore through the Innovation Gym®.

The Innovation Gym® gives R&D and innovation teams the opportunity to experience our tools first-hand, working through the questions and decisions that shape stronger innovation. Whether you’re exploring an early-stage opportunity, developing a technical breakthrough or looking to sharpen an existing proposition, Product Story offers a structured way to connect the science with the difference it will make for the user.

For R&D leaders, the opportunity is to build this capability across their teams: reducing avoidable rework, improving the quality of technical and commercial decisions, and strengthening the connection between innovation investment and consumer value.

Explore the Innovation Gym® and discover how Product Story could support your team’s next innovation challenge.