The other day I was having a conversation with the Division President of a large company about innovation. I mentioned to him that in our 30 years in the innovation space, we have noticed that innovation initiatives tend to have a 3-5 year life. The pursuit of breakthrough innovation – “Big Bet” innovation that expands the opportunity for significant growth through expanding markets or creating new ones, takes time. The unfortunate result of changes in Corporate Will is that too often, just when investments begin to pay off with new platforms, new technologies, etc., the efforts are often abandoned.
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Topics:
Innovative Culture,
Communication,
executive sponsor,
Alignment,
Success Factors,
breakthrough innovation,
leadership,
strategy,
Strategic Goals,
decision-making,
breakthrough,
Transformational Innovation,
changing the game,
innovation decision-making
There are three ascending tiers of innovation that you can pursue. The level you choose will dictate the simplicity or complexity of the journey you will undertake. Unfortunately, far too many companies expect to achieve the highest levels of innovation while only providing the strategy, tools, and support for lower-level success, at best. The three levels are:
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Topics:
breakthrough innovation,
Incremental Innovation,
Transformational Innovation,
innovation portfolio
We are often asked if the best way to structure for innovation is top-down or bottom-up? The answer is both if you are going to succeed in the long run.
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Topics:
Mark Sebell,
Stage Gate,
structuring for innovation,
game-changing,
Innovation,
breakthrough innovation,
strategy,
growth,
decision-making,
Incremental Innovation
The over-arching truth about big innovation is this; “You Get What You
PlayFor,” because the processes and tools for managing core businesses don’t work when the goal is to identify and successfully introduce ideas that don’t exist today; true innovations not incremental ones. So you get what you play for and it’s who gets to play that makes all the difference.
When executives create teams to pursue breakthrough innovation they typically push the work down to the operating levels, just like they do so successfully with their core businesses. That sounds eminently laudable – after all, they’re “empowering” a group of hands-on people. They think they are too busy to deal with innovation but there’s another reason for taking that approach: Leaders don’t want to get involved in big innovation. They are afraid of it because they haven’t experienced it or been schooled in managing it; and bosses don’t like being visibly vulnerable.
Topics:
Mark Sebell,
Absurdity,
executive sponsor,
new ideas,
Skin in the game,
Innovation,
breakthrough innovation,
decision-making
Business Model Innovation is becoming a hot topic these days as business leaders increasingly recognize that disruptive innovation requires not only innovative products, but also fundamentally new business models. Recognizing this trend, the Product Development Manager's Association (PDMA) featured a full day Business Model Innovation Lab at their 2011 Annual Global conference. I had the pleasure of co-chairing the lab along with Matt Benson, Advanced Innovation Manager at Faurecia. Our panel of speakers consisted of Josh Suskewicz of Innosight; John Lynch, Head of Innovation at EMD Millipore; Philip De Ridder, Co-founder of Board of Innovation; and Creative Realities President Jay Terwilliger. We were also joined by an experienced and thoughtful group of participants, which made for an engaging and stimulating session. Here are a few of my key takeaways and some business model innovation tools that you may find useful.
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Topics:
Chris Dolan,
business model mapping,
Business Model,
breakthrough innovation,
new product development,
disruptive innovation
Topics:
Jay Terwilliger,
Relaxed Concentration,
creative thinking,
Innovation,
Collaboration,
9 Critical Success Factors,
breakthrough innovation,
Essentials for Innovation,
brainstorming,
creative thinking skills,
changing the game,
connection making
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