Below is a checklist that, in our experience, will increase your odds of successfully implementing innovation initiatives. You will learn that there is never an ideal moment to get started and that you will never have all the necessary components aligned at the same time.
TIP: You’re not Google or Facebook, are you?
For 2015, forget about inspirational success stories of companies that schedule and internalise innovation time – such as Google with its 20 Percent Time policy (one day each week for all employees to devote to personal innovative projects), 3M with its 15 Percent Time, Apple with its Blue Sky project and Facebook with innovation Hackathons.
TIP: For those who know the innovation clock is ticking
Now that the year comes to an end, we have good news and bad news. Let’s start with the bad news: Arthur D. Little’s Innovation Excellence Survey found a growing number of companies realise that they have failed to make innovation everyone’s business. And this is costing them dearly.
TIP: The innovation keystone you may be missing
When launching your innovation management effort, you must find a way to communicate that the initiative is bigger than just a simple project. We’re talking about the opportunity to define the company’s future. The opportunity to out-differentiate your competition and, more importantly, to write history together.
TIP: What are you neglecting in your innovation initiative?
You’ve taken all of our advice and built a robust innovation management engine that will – over time – bring differentiation and engagement to your organisation.
TIP: Is your innovation effort transparent enough?
Today the traditional model of ‘top management decides’ and ‘everyone else unquestioningly executes’ is less likely to succeed, namely in your innovation efforts. Leaders need to define strategy based upon established fundamentals and then clearly communicate that strategy throughout their organisation. Transparency is paramount in the twenty-first century enterprise.
TIP: How to duck the innovation implementation void
Say you’ve run the front-end process and have successfully identified the ideas and opportunities that make the most sense to implement, but now you lack resources. As a result, the opportunity falls into an implementation void and you get the blame for the low return of your innovation management programme.
Internal crowds have their say with open innovation
This is where our open innovation model draws a line to make a difference – we believe both external and…
Open innovation is no self-fulfilling prophecy
However positive and confident you and your company may be about developing your open innovation initiative, these benefits won’t just follow automatically.
What could possibly go wrong with open innovation?
Everyone understands the value and promise of open innovation in the business world – from brand awareness and customer engagement through to the search for fresh answers. But, truth be told, most programmes are failing to deliver results because their dynamics are too complex and the processes used are proving inefficient. A lack of relevance is also strongly affecting returns.