TI is such an open company that it can be difficult to generate momentum for some ideas. You really have to be willing to be a politician as well if you really want an idea to flourish because you must convince enough people that it would be worth persuing. This can eat up quite a bit of time and if you're not careful, you can find yourself short of time for the work that is currently on your plate. You have to be vigilent in managing your time as well as your goals.
Another problem is that there are too many sales people that have not really worked in a product team and had to completely see a product through to completion. They are always expecting something to take a couple of hours or a day at most but the reality is it is usually a couple of weeks at least and then they do not respect that you have to weave their project into an already crowed schedule. Too late though, they've already promised the customer and you're on the hook.
Sales drives most upper management and if a sales team really wants something they can usually push their priority down your throat if they want to. I understand that the bottom line is revenue but sometimes I feel like quality is sacrificed too much and we end up with an upset client rather than one we should have been honest with initially and simply told them we don't have the time. I'm sure someone will post a comment telling me I'm nieve in this respect but this is my opinion, not theirs. I blame upper management for this to a certain extent because it seems that a majority of it has risen through the sales force rather than through engineering.