Organization’s ability to innovate
Organization’s ability to innovate is the new must-have in business development. What we need is a shift in emphasis from operational competitiveness toward creative competitiveness —the capacity of organizations to create, embrace, and successfully execute new ideas.
In this very different environment, business leaders know that they need to adapt. But questions remain about how they can develop these attributes fast.
Why most companies fail in delivering innovation?
Many companies invest in innovation, but with poor results. The reason might be one of these obstacles.
1. Cultural issues and lack of experimentation
The culture at large companies is typically built on a foundation of operational excellence and predictable growth. Change-makers trying to conduct experiments are rarely greeted with open arms — especially when they’re working on an idea that may cannibalize stable businesses or upend today’s distribution model
2. Urging risk-taking while punishing commercial failure.
Companies encourage employees to experiment and punish them when experiments fail. Employees start playing safe and stop presenting innovative ideas.
3. Inability to act on signals crucial to the future of the business
How well does your company “pick up” on signals of change, and how well does it act on them? There’s awareness of disruptive startups entering their sector, or changing customer purchase behaviors. The problem is acting on those signals. When your “forward scouts” see something important, what mechanisms exist to set up collaborations with outside vendors or startups, or run a quick pilot test with a function or business unit?
4. The lack of innovation framework and understanding how to use various innovation tools
To really succeed in delivering innovation you need and innovation framework and an arsenal of tools in your innovation toolbox and the know how to use them.
Tools for organizational innovation
Innovation challenges differ from one organization to another. Just as each innovation is unique, so is an organization’s culture. The process of innovation that works in one place will not necessarily work in another. The best way to choose the right one is to try them in practice.
There are more innovation techniques and methods out there than you can imagine ( e.g. Design thinking, Jobs-To-Be-Done, Double diamond, Lean Startup, Google Design Sprint, Open innovation, Co-creation etc. ) and none of these have a single magic formula. Using and mastering some of these techniques is not enough for building an innovation capability to the organization. You need an innovation framework to make the innovation efforts successful. Innovation framework to guide and make it safe for employees to test various innovation tools.
How we help organizations to become more innovative
We help to transform innovation activities from a random project into a discipline. We evaluate and test different innovation techniques and methods in practice to find out which ones work the best for our clients and their culture.
1.Building understanding
-Current state evaluation, needs and requirements
2.Training
-Lessons on selected innovation methods
-Innovation framework. How frameworks are successfully used in larger companies.
-Choosing a method / tool for piloting
3.Learning by doing – start the first pilot
-Engage all stageholders
-Framing the challenge – finding the right problem to solve
-Define KPIs
-Understanding what success looks like
4.Taking steps towards innovation as a discipline – Innovation roadmap
-Taking the methods and innovation framework in to practice
