What Is Innovation, and Why Does It Matter?

Innovation is the most important long term goal of any company,

your job is crucial, but not easy.

Problem: Innovation can be frustrating, confusing, and ambiguous

If Richard Feynman, widely hailed as one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, feels like a stupid ape trying to put two sticks together when working on a new problem, then there must be something missing.

The answer is to develop frameworks for innovation that are separate from, although compatible to, normal company strategy.

Solution: Have a Process

• Innovation =/= strategy

• Strategy is clear and concise, innovation is messy

• Strategy is about achieving objectives, while innovation is about discovery

• The only way to ensure progress is have a process for discovery

Now that your have your process down, what are the key concepts of innovation you need to learn?

The Three Pillars of Innovation

Competency: Every organization has its own history and set of capabilities which determine its innovation competency.

Strategy: Resource allocation is critical to strategy and therefore needs to be an integral part of aligning innovation to strategic objectives.

Management: Even the most competent

firm which deploys resources wisely

still needs to manage innovation

effectively.

The Innovation Management Matrix

Basic Research

• To discover something truly new, neither the problem nor the domain is well defined.

• Much of your time is spent no only brainstorming ideas, but identifying which areas should be focused on.

Breakthrough Innovation

• Even with a well-defined problem, organizations can get stuck.

• Tough problems are solved through synthesizing across domains.

• For instance, Watson and Crick solved the DNA problem by combining insights from chemistry, biology and X-ray crystallography.

• Many companies are learning to embrace open innovation in order to pull in diverse resources.

Sustaining Innovation

• Big companies, no matter what they do, always want to get better at it.

• Every year, our cameras produce more pixels, our computers get more powerful and our household products become “new and improved.”

Innovation isn’t always about reinventing the wheel, take

a product people love and make it better

Disruptive Innovation

• Disruptive innovation is hard because its value isn’t always immediately apparent.

• A growing trend is for companies to establish innovation labs, where they can test and learn without excessive risk.

Your Innovation Portfolio

• While focus is important, no company should limit itself to just one quadrant.

• Develop an effective innovation portfolio that has one primary area of focus, but also pursues other quadrants. Innovation is, above all, about combination.

• Innovation boils down to effective management, being able to infuse core principles into everyday operations.

With BrightIdea, you have all the tools you need to organize, manage, and execute your innovation program. Good luck!