Innovating To Win

In Defense of Improvement

A colleague pointed out a post by Patrick Lefler that appeared on Chuck Frey’s Innovation Tools site this week.  In this article, Patrick proclaims that improvement is not innovation.  Of course, in the purest sense, the author is correct.  While all innovation seeks to deliver an improvement, not all improvements are innovative.  But, there is a very important aspect of improvement that, in his fervor to make his point, Patrick has ignored.

Coincidentally, I presented a webinar just yesterday on the topic of harnessing innovation creativity to drive corporate value.  One of the key points I touched on was the importance of incremental innovation.  Yes, incremental innovation is a good and necessary part of building a sustainable culture and environment for continuous innovation.

Breakthrough innovation, incremental innovation, minor improvement—these are all points on a continuum of value creating solution generation.  Incremental innovation is very beneficial to an organization trying to develop the core competence needed to support a high-performance innovation system.  Specifically, incremental innovation delivers both short and long term benefits.  In the short term, immediate business benefits can be realized—extended revenue life of a product, increased market share, better contribution to margin, etc.  In the long term, incremental innovation provides a low risk platform to hone the basic innovation skills needed for successful, repeatable breakthrough innovation practice.

This last point, honing basic innovation skills, is too often overlooked.  Most organizations lack these basic skills and the knowledge of innovation best practices.  These skills must be developed and practiced constantly.  Even seasoned innovation workers should take a page from Basketball legend Larry Bird’s play book.  Larry was well known for his work ethic and diligence in maintaining his skills.  He would arrive for a game hours before anyone else and warm up by taking hundreds of practice shots.

Efforts to improve, even modest ones, are opportunities to practice innovation thinking and skills.  The adept application of innovation practices can move a change further along the continuum of novelty and value creation so that what might have been a minor improvement becomes an incremental innovation that creates strong competitive differentiation.

So while Patrick is correct in the assertion that simple improvements are not innovations, one should not eschew incremental achievements.  In fact sometimes the road to breakthrough innovations is paved a brick at a time.  In my own research team where we are constantly pushing the limits and redefining the concept of the possible in the area of applied computational linguistics, we often use the expression “step by step” to describe the path to innovation success.

Of course, it’s important to remember that you must be constantly trying to reach further up the novelty-value ladder in order to find the breakthroughs that will provide you optimal market position.  But don’t forget to embrace incremental innovation, too.  It’s a good thing.

Brainstorming Innovation – The Wisdom of the Cloud

Brainstorming continues to be a common method to try and shake out the cobwebs and draw out new ideas from teams.  In practice however, the outcome of brainstorming often falls short of expectations as team get stymied by a stalled creative front.  Psychological inertia, hidden agenda, lack of insight can all contribute to these non-productive innovation weather patterns.  To understand how people can influence the brainstorming outcome, let’s look to the wisdom of the cloud.

There are a number of different types of clouds, each with its own make up and effect on the weather.  So too are there difference classes of participants in a brainstorming exercise.  Can you recognize the similarities?

Cumulus clouds are puffy and cheerful.  These clouds are willing participants in the brainstorming exercise, but rarely contribute any significant ideas.  They tend to revel in the exercise and cheer on other cumulus clouds by seeing the shapes of imagined novelty in what are in reality the same old concepts.

Cirrus clouds are high and wispy.  They often bring some very high-level ideas to the table.  But, the ideas are generally not deep and may lack good alignment with the overall business objectives.  It can be a challenge to distinguish between the cirrus idea that could have value if it were only further developed and the concept which is going to simply drain valuable resources to explore and kill because it is not a good fit.

Fog.  Need we say more.  We can all recognize the team member who just doesn’t seem to have a clue.

Cumulonimbus clouds have presence.  They are large and have great substance.  But they can also bring great destruction as they unleash their energy.  These people often harbor hidden agenda.  The tornado of energy is released not so much to advance the cause, but to tear down the ideas of other in an attempt to perpetuate their own views and goals.

Nimbostratus are the clouds that yield steady rain.  It is sometimes uncomfortable to want in the rain, but as any farmer will tell you, you need water to grow crops.  The reason these peoples’ ideas often feel uncomfortable is that these concepts are grounded—they are novel enough to simulate that instinct to resist change, but grounded in enough reality to seem achievable.  These are often the most productive member of the brainstorming team.

If we want to stimulate more innovation rain, how can we do this?  Seed the clouds with knowledge.

Brainstorming doesn’t create new ideas.  It simply helps people tap into what they have forgotten they know.  The more relevant knowledge they have access to, the more ease with which they can access that knowledge in a useful way, the more likely they are to make the connections that produce that moment of creative synthesis.

Connecting innovation workers to the right knowledge at the right time is a key aspect of how you can increase the innovation productivity of your organization in brainstorming and other innovation activities as well.

Finding Sense ( and Dollars) In The White Space

Spring is a time of change and transition, just right for reading a new book on innovation.  “Seizing The White Space” by Mark W. Johnson is the latest volume to come from Innosight, and seems to be right the right thing for spring reading.  It’s a highly readable and very quick to get through if your mind has already made the transition to summer; yet, it is has enough chewy content for those of us who are still want to curl up hearthside with an interesting book.

Johnson puts forth what he calls the four box business model to capture the dynamic tension between three key aspects of the value system underlying a business.  Yes, that’s right – four boxes to capture three key aspects.  These are:

Customer Value Proposition – What is it that customer derives value from when your offering is selected.  Of course, given the Christensen heritage of Innosight it comes as no surprise that Johnson returns to the job to be done jargon to talk about the value proposition.  Personally, I was just happy to see the value-prop called simply and directly what it is.  (Okay, I’m just weary of some authors who feel compelled to try and coin new jargon for what is already a well understood concept.)

Profit Formula – The strategy for monetization of the Customer Value Proposition.

Key Resources and Process – The things, people, and processes that are needed to deliver the Customer Value Proposition.  Johnson separates the concepts of resources and process in his representation.  Hence, the four boxes to represent three key aspects.

While these concepts may seem pretty basic, there are far too many companies that seem to forget that this system, and more importantly, the need to harmonize and balance these elements of the system exist.  Ignoring some of Clayton Christensen’s best advice (be patient on revenues, but impatient about profit) many companies attempting to claim a white space opportunity as their territory burn through loads of capital to try and drive the revenue engine only to dilute the share value so much that no one can hope to extract value from the venture.

Throughout “Seizing The White Space,”  Johnson uses many examples and comparisons of how these various elements interact in both successful and failed business models.  The examples help to bring to life what could otherwise be a very dry and boring domain of study.  You will need to filter some of the discussion through your analysis.  Some of the issues around the cases studies are open to interpretation.

After addressing the questions of when and how to look at business model innovation, Johnson reminds us of how existing demands and practice of a going concern can block the organizations ability to define and implement a new system to attack a white space opportunity.

I enjoyed “Seizing The White Space” and certainly recommend it as a worthwhile read for innovation practitioners or managers responsible for considering, planning for, or executing on new business platform opportunities.

This is the fifth stop on a virtual book tour for “Seizing The White Space.”  Earlier stops on the tour can be visited at:

Working Knowledge – Andrea Meyer’s excellent blog

Blogging Innovation – A multi-author innovation blog maintained by Braden Kelley

Innovate on Purpose – Jeffrey Phillips thoughtful blog on innovation strategy and practice

FastForward Blog – An Enterprise 2.0 blog where Jim McGee review the book 
 
Yet to come on the virtual book tour is Dan Keldsen’s interview with Mark Johnson which will appear on the  Information Architected blog.

Boyd on Linking Strategy and Innovation

I read a nice post on Drew Boyd’s blog, Innovation in Practice, discussion the idea of linking innovation with company strategy.  In it, Drew discusses two models of interaction between company strategy and innovation:

Strategy informs innovation – in this model the company defines a strategy, then innovation efforts are pursued to find way to deliver on and enhance the value of the strategy;

Innovation informs strategy – in this model, innovation activity first generates scads of potential concepts which are subsequently mapped to a strategic evaluation model to select the innovation path that builds the optimal strategy.

Whichever approach you select, it is critical that your corporate strategy and innovation efforts are aligned.  Without alignment, you have no chance of achieving the level of execution required for successful innovation delivery.

However, I would like to highlight a third model: Innovation and Strategy inform each other.  In other words, you are only looking at half of the picture if the dialogue between strategy and innovation is a one way exchange. 

If you are responsible for strategy, you don’t want to lament “Gee, if I’d only known that was an option I would have set that as a strategic goal.”  As an innovation practitioner, you hate saying “Gee, if I had only known that was important, I could have helped achieve that objective.”

Optimal value is achieved through an on-going dialogue between these two drivers of corporate value.

Looking For The Innovation Silver Lining In 2010

As we begin 2010, I think it’s a great time to mention “The Silver Lining” by Scott D. Anthony.  The book which bills itself as “An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times,” touches on some very important themes that we should all keep in the forefront of our thinking if we are to maximize the potential of the innovation opportunity that are ahead.

This is a nicely written and very readable book in which Anthony reviews key innovation concepts that are always important, but especially so as companies find themselves challenged by a difficult environment.  Although some signs suggest improvements in the general business climate, we aren’t out of the woods yet, and the moves made by companies during transitional periods like this are particularly important.  So, the lessons of “The Silver Lining” are even more on point now than they were six or nine months ago.

Some of the key concepts addressed by Anthony include:

Focus – Or as Anthony puts it, pruning prudently.  He discussed how to identify what’s not going to be a winner and also how to identify where to invest in strategic experiments.

Using innovation to improve margin – This is a major area as companies need to continue to find ways to deliver bottom line performance in top line challenged times.  The techniques of simple tuning that yield incremental saving are no longer adequate.  For today’s needs, you need innovations that will drive new cost profiles.

Improving innovation productivity – Let’s face it.  Most organizations have a pretty bleak track record when it comes to innovation.  The generally poor state of innovation productivity is captured in the commonly cited statistic that it requires 3000 ideas to generate a single successful product launch.  Companies can and should do much better than this.  Anthony explores some strategies to begin moving down a path of higher innovation productivity.  He also makes a case for making innovation repeatable & sustainable in the enterprise.  This is essential for an organization to reach its potential.

Sharing the load – The need to open up the innovation process and integrate all of a company’s innovation constituencies into the process is presented.

Emerging markets – There is no arguing the dominance of emerging economies when we consider growth opportunities.  But, products developed for established primary economies don’t align with the new math of global economics.  Companies need must redefine products to fit a different economic paradigm.

My only complaint is Scott’s annoying attempt to coin the phrase “The Great Disruption” to describe the challenging business climate.  It really has no relevance in the discussion and has no real tie back to the terminology of disruptive innovation, so it just leaves an unpleasant taste in your mouth.

But, that is a minor discordant note in a book that otherwise keeps true to an important melody.  I highly recommend the “The Silver Lining.”

Finding New Market Opportunities Through Systematic Innovation

It has been more than a year since the bottom fell out of the financial markets, and companies around the globe are still struggle to figure out which way is up.  There are some early signs of hope, but the future is still is still masked by the murky cloud of uncertainty.  Companies must find ways to not just survive but thrive.  A return to growth is demanded by shareholders who feel the pain of depressed share prices.  But where to turn for growth remains the question of the day.

I have recently heard more companies than ever asking about ways to improve the health and effectiveness of their innovation programs.  This is a direct consequence of global market trends.  These companies understand that growth will not come from doing more of the same.  The engine of growth is change through innovation.

One common question I hear is: “How can we find new markets more effectively?”  Fortunately, there are some straight forward answers that can help these companies get on the right track.  There are a few basic approaches to driving revenue growth:

• Finding new markets for existing products
• Extending the revenue life of products in their current markets
• Finding new applications for technologies or methods
• Entering adjacent markets

For each of these basic approaches, there are a number of systematic innovation methods that support the approach.  Yesterday, I had the opportunity to show a company how to apply one such method using repeatable innovation best practices to find candidate new markets to drive revenue growth.  The method I demonstrated is aimed at identifying a set of key technical capabilities, understanding the core value benefits delivered through the capabilities, isolating customer pain in new markets that represent need for the value benefits, and defining the market opportunities that exist at the intersection of the customer pain and the value benefit.

Showing how the theory of high performance innovation practices can be put into practice is always an enlightening experience.  For the people observing the demonstration, it provides a tangible proof point of what is possible through sustainable innovation practice.  For me, it is always a reaffirming exercise.  So it was yesterday as I showed how the voice of this company’s technology, the voice of the customer, and the voice of regulation were speaking in unison and suggesting a new multi-billion dollar market opportunity--an epiphany that had only taken me 30 minutes to identify by following the path of sustainable innovation, leveraging innovation best practices and technology to amplify the voices of innovation and hear what they have to say.

Understanding how to develop strategic innovation competence is a critical success factor for companies.  Whether it is the every day innovation needs of the enterprise in finding new ways to define and execute on operational excellence or the strategic Big I initiatives around developing new products and markets, innovation is the elixir to drive the health and success of the company.  Globally, companies are critically reexamining what they are doing to establish sustainable, high performance innovation as a value-driving core competence of the organization.  Are you?

Know Your Innovation Course

Flying was huge part of my father’s life.  He was the mechanic and navigator on a good will flight from New York to Bogota in the early days of flight.  That’s him on the left in the photo of the two man crew just before leaving on the trip.  Later, he toured South America demonstrating the latest fighter planes for the Curtiss Hawk company, and was a flight instructor to the Colombian air force.  He even wrote a book on air navigation.

So, it was no surprise that when I was eleven I found myself attending flight school and learning to fly sailplanes.  Among many things I learned in flight school was the importance of planning your flight and understanding how to monitor and make corrections to your course.  Whether you are operating under visual flight rules or instruments, you always need to know where you are, where are you going, and what path you intend to take.

Years later, after moving to Boston, I decide to learn to sail.  I trundled down to India Wharf and joined the Boston Harbor Sailing Club.  There I learned to handle ships of different sizes both in the protected harbor and on the open waters of the Atlantic.  I’ll never forget my final exam for the Club’s sailing certification course.  I found myself handling a 36 foot boat by myself in the middle of a raging thunder storm.  I’ll also never forget the time and attention spent on learning the rules of navigation on the open sea.

I find these lessons of flying and sailing are also very applicable to the world of innovation.  Too many practitioners approach innovation as if just thinking about it will yield big results.  But this is never the case.  High value innovation requires diligent planning and crisp execution.  This is true for both the every day incremental innovations that sustain the value of existing products and the breakthrough innovations that open up new revenue channels for the enterprise.

Some people argue that innovation isn’t predictable and therefore attempts to manage it are futile.  Fortunately, these individuals are simply mistaken.  It is certainly true that when we embark on the path of innovation, there are many unknowns and as consequence it’s difficult to be sure of the outcome.  But it is important that we not confuse uncertainty of outcome with predictability in the path of innovation.  That is to say, irrespective of the outcome there are well understood best practices of innovation that will reliably get you to the optimal conclusion more rapidly.  Sometimes this conclusion will mean canceling a project sooner because you have been able to identify quickly the flaws in the program and thereby avoid wasted costs.  Other times this will mean opening up a market sooner and with a higher value proposition.

When during the course of an innovation project you run across the unexpected rut in the road, having a well structured approach to innovation allows you to quickly analyze the issue and adjust your bearing.  Knowing how to systematically identify and select alternative paths to value spells out the difference between the winning execution that leads to high value creation and the being just another victim of the accidental school of innovation.

Remember, you can’t make course corrections if you don’t know what course you’re on.  Repeatable, sustainable innovation practice gives you the tools to plot the course to value creation and make the mid-course adjustments that are part of innovation.

Driving Growth Through Innovation

As I was perusing Chuck Frey’s Innovation Weblog this morning, I noticed a recent post by Charlie Alter titled “Demand innovation step 3: Finding new growth opportunities.”  In this article, seven principles are highlighted.  As I pondered the points, it struck me that the advice put forth in this article was actually pretty poor.  Let’s dissect the suggestions made by Charlie Alter and understand what a good innovation driven growth strategy should look like.

Alter: “Shift from a “Product Centered” sales growth strategy to an “Economic Centered” model”
 
Better Advice:
Customer/Market Centric innovation is the most effect path to growth hands down.  Focusing on the term Economic Centered can lead to serious problems for a company.  The last thing you should want to do is get sucked into the vast gaping void of commodity hell.  Yet, this is exactly where you will end up if you make economics the central piece of your innovation strategy.

The keystone supporting the architecture of your business and innovation strategy must be value.  It is the value proposition that gets customers to buy; it is highly differentiated value that drives market share attainment; it is tight full product value alignment that builds customer affinity.

This high value delivery is achieved by immersive understanding of the opportunity space defined by your target customer’s unspoken needs, goals, and aspirations.  While Alter does acknowledge this, the emphasis on economics is wrong.  The focus must always be on the customer.  Customer focus leads to high value delivery.  Deliver high value and the economics will follow.

Alter: “Stop relying on developing the latest blockbuster products and develop a series of evolutionary”

Better Advice:
Sorry, if you want to be the leader, you can’t pick between ‘Big I’ and ‘little i’ innovation.  The only winning game plan is to pursue both.  Strategy and tactics are two sides of the same coin.  The evolutionary innovations that provide incremental value enhancements to your existing customers are very important.  It is these everyday innovations that sustain the value of your existing revenue channels, help ensure the ongoing profitability of the business, and can provide the cash needed to fund new opportunities.

However, becoming reliant on incrementalism is a go out of business strategy.  It is this mindset that creates the environment for disruptive market change.  By focusing too tightly on the current needs of today’s best customers, companies become inured to the constantly changing market/customer ecosystem in which they operate.  They stop changing and developing.  In an ever changing world, when you stop changing, you start dying.

Learn to eat your own lunch before someone else does.  In parallel with the incremental innovation, companies must engage in continuous reevaluation and innovation of their products, their services, and themselves.  It can be scary to think of creating a new product that may undermine an existing cash cow.  But always remember that someone is going to do it.  Isn’t better if that someone is you?

Look for new markets, too.  You can tap into vast new revenue opportunities and extend the revenue life of your current products by applying simple sustainable innovation practices.  Can you identify new communities of users for your existing product?  What is the fundamental component of your offering that is the source of its value?  Can that component be retargeted to a different space where it can enjoy a second revenue identity?  Are there licensing opportunities to be had?

It is these two approaches, self re-invention and white space development, which should be at the heart of your strategic innovation thinking.  With the dual tracks of tactical and strategic innovation, you will ensure both the short-term and long-term success of your company.

Alter: “Look at the size of your business, no matter how large or small, for the advantages it represents”

Better Advice:
It is always import to look at the elements of your business and consider how they can be leveraged to competitive advantage.  But never try and justify the status quo by focusing solely on the positive.  Every aspect of your business, its size, your organizational design, your sales mechanism, etc., presents both advantages and disadvantages.  You need to understand both sides and consider how to optimize each element of the whole to deliver maximum customer value and corporate performance.

Taking the specific issue of organization size as an example, don’t assume your current configuration is the right one.  Does your size and organization really fit the optimal business model for your market and target customers?  The answer to this question may change the way you think about the business.  You might find you need to grow the organization to map properly to the business model and growth goals; perhaps you will find that you have excess capacity that must either put to a value driving use or trimmed out.  You might even come to the realization that a fundamental shift in the business model is important.

Alter: “Make sure profitable growth is driven through every level of your company”

Better Advice:
On this point, I fully agree with Alter.  Every company must maximize its return on investments.  Every dollar (Euro, Pound, Yen, etc.) which is misspent detracts from that attainment.  As Charlie advises, do redirect those wasted resources into activities that can drive revenue and value growth for the company.  This is as true for a start-up as it is for a major enterprise.  As Clayton Christiansen put it, “Be patient on revenue, but impatient on profitability.”  One doesn’t have to look far these days to see the wreckage of start-ups that became proof points for this when their venture capital partners decided to turn off the funding flow.

Alter: “Develop lots of small or even maverick ideas for growth rather than a few large ones”
        “One simple rule is that the more ideas for growth the better”

Better Advice:
More is not always better.  Contrary to the popular mantra that you need to throw as much stuff against the wall to see what will stick, the go generate a ton of ideas approach to innovation is counterproductive and a legacy view of the world that tenaciously hangs on because sometimes something does in fact stick.  When you have too many ideas to wade through, the sea of ideas itself becomes the roadblock to innovation.

Companies have limited resources and cannot afford to waste cycles winnowing down a mountain of questionable and mostly incremental concepts looking for that one gem.  Rather than letting a million flowers bloom and die only to find that in doing so they have depleted the nutrients in the once fertile ground that was your business, you are much better off selecting a handful of high quality ideas that have a much better chance of success because you can properly focus your energies on tending the innovation garden.

This is fundamentally where needs led innovation diverges from the old school thinking of idea first innovation.  By clearly identifying the target audience, their needs, and then applying sustainable innovation methods to find the best way to deliver value to that audience through a brilliant solution that meets the needs, you will have the surest path to corporate value creation.  In short, you don’t need 3000 ideas to create one new product, you just need one.  Sustainable innovation practice is all about identifying the one idea the first time.

Alter: “Form a small cross-functional team and visit your best customers to determine what types of challenges and problems they encounter during their business processes that “surround” the products or services they buy from you”

Better Advice:
On the surface, this is basically good advice.  Understanding the entire use model and eco-system that your product or service is a part of can help you develop many good strategic insights.  However, always remember the limitations of your current customer experience.  Today’s best customers may not in fact be tomorrow’s high value customers.  Be wary of the pitfalls of steering the future course of your enterprise by always looking in the rearview mirror.

Do pay attention to your top customers, as they can help you understand the requirements for on-going incremental innovation as well as give you insights into easily entered adjacent markets.  But don’t neglect your underserved customers.  Understanding their issues can give you insights into vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a disruptive agent.  Also remember to listen to all the voices of innovation: the voice of the customer, the voice of technology, the voice of regulatory influence; and the voice of your business.  When you can properly harmonize these different voices, you are properly orchestrating the business strategy for innovation.

Innovation Lesson From Ratatouille

The animated movie, “Ratatouille”, tells the tale of a most improbable hero who dreams of being a great chef.  This hero is a rat named Remy.

Inspired by the great chef, Gusteau, this unlikely protagonist wends his way to Paris, and with Gusteau’s words, “Anyone can cook!”, echoing in his mind, Remy find success and happiness as a chef.

As we come to learn in what is sure to be a Disney-Pixar classic, anyone can cook, but not everyone can.  This is true in many of life’s endeavors and we should all bear this in mind when it comes to innovation.

Anyone can innovate, but not everyone can.

Current trends of companies toward opening up the innovation process to customers and partners show broad acceptance of the concept that innovations can come from anyone.  More interestingly, these same trends suggest that not everyone will be the source of great innovation as many companies are feeling dissatisfied with the quality and relevance of recommendations coming from within their extended innovation ecosystem.  This leads to an interesting question.  If innovation can come from anyone, why is it that not everyone can innovate?

Letting stand the assertion that anyone can innovate, I’ll suggest that the innovation gene is something with requires environmental stimulus to be expressed.  Remember that at its core an innovation is a response to a situation, and not just any response, but a response that creates value by solving a problem inherent in the current situation.

In essence, to innovate someone must:

• Recognize a problem
• Understand the problem
• Have access to the information required to identify a solution

It’s these latter two points that are the hurdles which prevent many people from being substantial contributors in the innovation process.

Too often, in the rush to solution, the crucial steps of understanding the problem is bypassed.  This leads many would be innovators down the path to catastrophe as they end up with a creation that doesn’t actually address any ones needs.  The disciplines of sustainable innovation practice are useful to help keep people focused and ensure that the right questions are identified the first time.

Yet even when people do have a deep understanding of the problem, that doesn’t mean they will see the path forward to a high value innovative solution.  Contrary to popular belief, people don’t get stuck at this point because they know too much.  It is precisely because they don’t know enough that they are subject to mental inertia.  History teaches us that great innovation happens at the nexus of information.  It is this convergence of knowledge that leads to the insights that drive innovation.  However, access to relevant knowledge is difficult, and the problem is getting bigger every day.

So, what is an organization to do if they want to enable more of their workers and partners to be innovation value creation agents?  How can you equip more people to innovate?  Here are two things that you must do to properly prepare your innovation workers for success.

Provide training on innovation skills and best practice.  This is a key part of building a sustainable innovation culture.  (See this post for more on this.)

Enable them through knowledge.  The best way to find great innovation concepts isn’t thinking outside the box, it’s redefining the box.  Your employees need seamless access to information from both inside the enterprise and outside.  They need the information in a form that they can readily assimilate, in the context of their work, and when they need it.  Only in this way are you truly knowledge enabling them by helping them see through the impenetrable fog of data and recognize the actionable knowledge they need.

Give your knowledge workers these tools and you will be amazed at how much more productive your innovation efforts will be.  Not everyone can innovate, but you can certain put your employees in the position where they can by giving them the basic skills and access to information necessary.  You can increase your organization’s innovation capacity by enabling more people to express their innovation potential.

Don’t Be Afraid to Start Innovation

“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Are you still talking about innovation, but not acting to make it happen?  It is striking to look at the large number of companies in which the volume of chatter about being bold and innovative is in stark contrast to the deafening silence of their actual achievements in building innovation as a value driving core competence.  Why is rhetoric-performance gap so large?

In many cases the problem is very simply that the designers, engineering, and knowledge workers tasked with making innovation happen are overwhelmed by the challenge of innovation and just don’t know where to start.  They fear that embarking on the journey of innovation is fraught with risk.  The reality is that inaction is more risky than innovation.

Here are five simple concepts to start on the road of innovation.

Start small
Many of us think of innovation as finding the next big thing.  But innovation happens on a continuum.  There are big “I” innovations, and there are small “I” innovations.  Going after the big “let’s create a new industry” type of innovation can be a bit daunting if you don’t already have some confidence in your ability to drive innovation.   So, start with smaller more attainable goals.  Most big successes start with more modest beginnings.  There is nothing wrong with incremental innovation.  These small steps general yield value and can help you develop your innovation framework.

Practice on every day issues
Practice makes perfect, and most of us have opportunities to apply innovation thinking more often than we realize.  Imagine you manufacture a product and you see a number of complaints from users stating that it’s inconvenient to adjust the pressure regulator.  You might decide to try and make it easier to adjust the pressure regulator.  But, what if the reason your users are complaining is that system requires constant readjustment of the regulator?  Maybe you would be better off not making adjustment easier, but making the system more stable so adjust wasn’t needed as frequently?  What if you made the pressure control self-adjusting so users didn’t have to think about it at all?  Why is pressure such a sensitive parameter of your system?  Maybe you can simplify your design so that pressure is no longer a critical operational parameter.  The point here is that even the simplest of issues contains innovation opportunities.  Explore them.  You will find this not only leads you to better solutions, but also helps you build facility with the tools and methods of innovation.

Use what you know
Most major organizations have accumulated a trove of institutional wisdom.  A common lament of these companies is “if we only knew what we know…”  What a shame it is that so much value goes unrealized as companies fail to implement the right systems to harness this intellectual capital.  Invest in design intent based knowledge retrieval technology today to help you understand the lessons of the past and visualize the future.

Focus on value
Whether you are pursuing a big innovation or a small one, value is the end goal.  Innovation must deliver value to the customer and value to the company.  Make sure you always keep this in mind and measure your own efforts by this standard.  This will not only help you gain confidence in your innovation capabilities, but also leads into our next point.

Everybody likes a winner
Many practitioners feel it is an uphill battle to sell innovation in their organization.  They are right, because no one wants to buy innovation.  People are interested in the outcomes of innovation.  If you are consistently creating and delivering value for your customers and your company, you will attract support—strong support.  In my own tenure as an active innovator, I have never found it difficult to gain support for my projects because I have a track record of successful high value creation, and every project I pitch is framed in the context of the value to customers and the business.  I never talk innovation; I talk business and deliver through innovation.