Ask any fan of F1 racing—or, if you can find one, someone who has ever driven a Ferrari to its performance limits—what makes these cars go so fast, and you are likely to get the same answer: the brakes. To the uninitiated, this might seem counter intuitive at first, but it readily makes sense. Nobody would push these 700 horsepower monsters towards corners at blurring speed without the confidence in their ability to slow down rapidly at the last moment. As product developers, we can draw valuable lessons from this simple fact as we seek ever faster means to take concepts from the lab to the commercial market successfully.

In new product development, time is always money. And nowhere is that more true than in the medical device industry. While extended time in R&D can be beneficial to mitigating safety risk, it simultaneously introduces increased commercial risk in the form of lost market opportunity. Balancing the opposing slopes of these curves is the challenge that every program manager faces. The longer a program takes, the longer it takes to get a return on innovation. However, with more time, the more validation work can go into safety and design optimization. You want to run as fast and lean as possible, but without compromising quality or safety. It’s a good time to ask, “how confident are you in your braking system?”

A team’s confidence in its ability to spot risks and respond rapidly will allow them to run faster. In other words, a highly reliable braking system will often gain more efficiency than more “horsepower.” These brakes can be built into complex development programs a number of ways. Schedule more, not fewer, check ins; use evaluation criteria that progress from coarse to fine as a program progresses; identify and address the big problems early and always ask the question “what is going to get in our way?” Reduce handoffs by involving the entire team from initiation to manufacture and moving as few team members in and out as possible. Finally, begin implementation planning in the earliest phase. Practice hitting the brakes and taking corners at high speed when necessary. You’ll be leading your competition by the second lap.