
Exhausted from practicing basic kicks for two hours, I asked, “Master Chen, why do we practice the same moves over and over?”
“So that your body will know what to do without your mind thinking about it,” the Master replied.
Hey, let’s innovate and make something new. This is what we all want to do, right? After all, everyone likes to be on the forefront of the next great thing, and there’s no denying that proprietary products based on controlled IP yield the highest margins. But, what about the forgotten, mundane, incremental improvements to existing products?
Don’t turn you nose up at incremental innovation. It’s not only a good thing; it’s vital to developing a sustainable innovation culture. That’s right. If you focus solely on the big game hunting in your innovation program, you will never achieve the pervasive innovation environment needed for success in the emerging climate of global competition.
So, why is incremental innovation important? In a nutshell, incremental innovation provides the dual benefits of short term impact to the business and the long term impact to innovation capability development.
In the short term, the margin on an existing product line may be enhanced; the product’s revenue life may be extended; and a brilliantly executed incremental innovation can have a disproportionately large impact on market share. These are all very good arguments for incremental innovation. Add to these benefits that the risk of incremental innovation is relatively low, and what’s not to like?
Of course, when I talk about incremental innovation, I am making a tacit assertion that should be highlighted. To get the maximum benefit of these more pedestrian innovation projects, it is important to pursue them with the same focus on proper execution of innovation best practices which you would bring to bear on more exiting forward looking innovation projects. Using these disciplines with ensure that your incremental achievements deliver to their highest value potential.
This discipline will also help hone the innovation skills and readiness of your innovation workers. And this is exactly the long term benefit I mentioned earlier. If every time you want to look at a more ambitious path you have to reset the innovation engine of the organization, your chances for success are greatly diminished. But if your designers, engineers, and scientists are well practiced in repeatable innovation strategies and comfortable with thinking as innovators, they will know how to move forward and not miss a beat.
In other words, you reduce the risk of big innovation not just by employing innovation best practice, but also by practicing the sustainable innovation paradigm every day.








Small Business Success and Innovation Success
On Seth’s Blog, there is a short bit of advice on success for the small business. I comment on it here, because these same points are relevant to the business of driving innovation.
Seth’s points were (with my comments inserted in italics):
Three things you need:
Don’t ever stop evaluating your strategy. Even something that seems to be working can be made to work better. Is 35% growth good enough? Maybe a change in your model can accelerate your growth.
Don’t forget, it’s never too late to do the right thing. Keep your objective in sight at all times, and consider midcourse corrections.
Always hire the best people you can attract. Your organization will never be better than the people that drive it.
However, never think you can ignore the details. Knowing the details can be the difference between wild success and dismal failure in the small business environment where the margin of safety is very thin. Remember, you can delegate authority, but the ultimate responsibility is always your own.
Posted at 10:42 AM in Commentary | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Reblog (0) | | Digg This | Save to del.icio.us |