How can you develop a clear and compelling innovation strategy?

The pandemic brought in momentum like never before & changed the world, forever. A theory: Push & Pull - in equal measure. PUSH: As competition becomes compelling, as a pre-requisite to winning, up-front & continual Innovation must be the FIRST thing companies must ask IT providers for. Raise the bar to a whole new level. Case in point: Start Green on Day 1. No SLA-Holiday. Reverse-engineer. Innovate. PULL: Compelling innovation strategies require compelling people, compelling motivation, compelling technologies. Sift & assess people on “Growth Mindset”. Case in point: A repo of existing reusable automation assets analyzed based on projects & services delivered, potential benefit & FTE re-purposing. Not just a excel dump to figured out of.

🚀 Start with purpose-driven introspection! I'd emphasize the undeniable importance of understanding the 'why' behind any innovation strategy. Even the most technologically advanced efforts can go astray without clarity of purpose. As businesses embark on their innovative journeys, it's crucial to intertwine the organization's core values, goals, and stakeholder needs into a cohesive and compelling narrative. This ensures alignment and galvanizes internal teams and external partners toward a unified direction. As the tapestry of innovation continues to evolve and intertwine with technological advancements, it's pivotal to ask: Whose legacy and future are you shaping with your innovation endeavors? 🌌🧭

Beyond your internal considerations, explore the broader innovation ecosystem. Connect with industry peers, startups, research institutions, and think tanks.

Awesome perspective Nikhil. Outside in, is the way to go. One of the ways of looking at this is to measure Desirability which is more external, feasibility and viability

The essential requirement to invoke innovative thinking is "Attention to detail". It is about solving real-life challenges to bring acceleration in terms of one or more of the following: "Speed with Accuracy", "Efficacy", and "Ease of Use."

In assessing innovation capabilities, it's crucial to look beyond tangible assets. Mindset barriers often limit innovation more than resource constraints. Embracing a transformative, innovation-ready mindset can overcome internal resistance to change. It's not just about technology or expert opinions; it's about human perspectives. Engaging with a diverse ecosystem and recognizing mindset limitations are essential. True innovation thrives at the intersection of technology, strategy, and human capital. Let's challenge conventional thinking and harness our full innovative potential by emphasizing people and their visions.

Evaluating your individual innovation proficiencies encompasses an examination of your skill set, creative methodologies, approaches to problem-solving, willingness to take risks, ability to learn from failures, collaborative tendencies, spirit of experimentation, motivational drive, goal-establishment skills, and adaptability. Through contemplation of these elements and the establishment of targets for improvement, you can progressively strengthen your personal innovation prowess. Self-assessment and a commitment to a growth-oriented mentality are essential for evolving into a more proficient innovator on a personal level.

Innovation is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires a culture that not only embraces change, but can sustain it over time. Without the right mindset, structures, and processes, businesses risk stagnation after the initial burst of creativity. Start by building a safe-to-fail environment and fostering open communication and continuous learning. Leadership must commit and be the torchbearers of change. Adopt a test-and-learn approach to iterate and evolve your innovation strategy, ensuring it stays relevant as the business landscape shifts. While incorporating these elements into your company culture requires intention, commitment, and time, they can mean the difference between innovating once and being consistently innovative.

Consider establishing cross-functional and agile innovation teams within your organization. These teams should comprise individuals with diverse skills and backgrounds.

We all have to understand and accept that there are limitations to ones skills. The biggest challenge for any innovator is not able to understand their weakness and assuming that they (as an organization/team) can get it done without any help from outside. We might be able to learn and do things over a period of time. But, we need to understand that there is nothing wrong in relying on external design partners/experts to get some of the work done. Time to market is crucial when it comes to innovation. "The early bird gets the worm”

Set up learning loops. You should have a learning loop for your services, one for your business model, and one for collaboration. All learning loops should include something you do, a feedback mechanism to measure the impact of what you do and a way to go from feedback to learning. The learning loop may also include anticipatory learning and vicarious learning. Move through your learning loops quickly and often.

Prioritize customer-centric innovation by putting your customers at the center of your strategy. Gather deep insights into their needs, pain points, and aspirations.

In analyzing the innovation approach, several gaps become apparent. Despite a strong vision, there's limited cross-departmental collaboration. For instance, most organizations haven't fully integrated the marketing and R&D teams, potentially missing key insights. Furthermore, there's a heavy reliance on internal ideas, with limited external partnerships. Priorities: Foster inter-departmental collaboration, ensuring a holistic view of innovation. Explore external collaborations, diversifying the innovation pool. Regularly reassess the innovation strategy, ensuring alignment with market trends.

Financial & Account growth plans are historically made using existing knowledge of the client's technology roadmap and the opportunities for revenue it will bring. What these plans hardly every contain is the aspect of investment because we are so bottom-line focused! We truly miss seeing the "big picture" in this endeavor. So that's a gap. Driving innovation at a large-scale requires "large thinking and large planning". Gap: Chief Innovation Officer. If Innovation-induced revenue can be tracked as a separate stream by the CFO, we may as well see a new dimension appearing on the IT-horizon. Not planting a committed Innovation leader in your contract is another gap. Surely we can re-prioritize budgets to fit one in - to our mutual benefit!

To pinpoint innovation gaps and establish priorities, begin by evaluating your present innovation capabilities and clearly defining your innovation objectives. Delve into the opportunities and challenges within your industry and employ frameworks like the Innovation Portfolio Matrix, Innovation Ambition Matrix, or Innovation Scorecard to evaluate your ongoing initiatives. Rank these gaps and opportunities according to their impact and alignment with your objectives. Allocate resources, establish SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals, chart a comprehensive roadmap, and maintain continuous progress monitoring. Effective communication, alignment, and feedback mechanisms are essential for achieving success.

Roadmaps are well and good, and every journey needs one. But in real life, the map may not match the terrain in real life, and in military parlance, there is always the fog and friction of war. Therefore, this expectation that the map is not a rigid map must absolutely be made clear. There needs also be guardrails to help stakeholders raise red flags and change the maps.

Is my client using legacy systems, legacy applications, on-premises infrastructure? Is my client still using MS Excel for complex reports? Let Pre-sales/Sales bring in the Delivery Lead to bring in their value-prop as they are ones with the "nuts and bolts" and thus work jointly to put out a stellar unbeatable proposal. The DL then goes deep into each "pain-area" along with SMEs and presents at least 1 opportunity to innovate/automate per opportunity area and thus add value. These are costs, a firm must be willing to bear to get the "two (birds) in a bush". The more you show me how entrenched you want to be in my business to make me look better, the more I trust you to take on more work. In this you and I both win - big.

Creating an innovation roadmap is like drawing a path for your innovation journey: Start by knowing where you want to go. Plan the important steps to get there. Break it into smaller milestones. Decide who's responsible for each task. Set deadlines for every milestone. Use visual tools to make it clear. Share it with your team and stakeholders. It's like a map for innovation. Keep it simple and focused. Adjust it as you progress. It guides your innovation strategy. Ensures everyone is on the same page. A roadmap helps you reach your innovation goals.

Defining an innovation roadmap presents an excellent opportunity to drive culture change and gain buy in from the business lines. Ensure to bring in key teams and ensure diverse and holistic representation across the workforce and demographic/psychographic. Run sessions and create as a team to really make magic happen.

Lean Startup is good but not good enough in a corporate context. Even Steve Blank. the founder of the Lean Startup movement says that if you apply Lean Startup inside a company you will only get innovation theater. They say that innovation does not work because it does not scale. I say that innovation does not scale because Core is not prepared to support Scaling-Up. You need to thing broader and end-to-end, from meaningful search fields to a scaled-up business. There needs to be a dedicated validation and Scaling track that cares for the corporate context. And there needs to be a dedicated, transitional phase between validation and Scaling in which the operational issues of Core's support to de-risk and accelerate Scaling-up are aligned.

Despite what anyone says, innovation is uncertain terrain. Especially for the non-innovation folks for whom you’ll be working. Communicate, communicate, communicate! Engage people, manage changes, and stay prepared to talk about your initiative at the drop of a hat.

To carry out your innovation projects: Stick to your plan (roadmap). Follow a structured process. Think about what your users need. Start small, learn, and grow (lean startup). Work in small, iterative steps (agile). Listen to your customers' feedback. Be ready to make changes. Use helpful tools like the Business Model Canvas or Lean Canvas. Test your ideas. Keep learning and improving as you go.

Executing innovation projects systematically: Follow your innovation roadmap. Apply design thinking for user insights. Use lean startup for MVP and testing. Employ agile development for flexibility. Continuously learn from customers. Iterate based on feedback. Manage resources efficiently. Use relevant tools and cross-functional teams. Monitor and adapt. Prepare for scaling. Effective innovation execution turns ideas into results through a dynamic learning and adapting process.

If you look at your business through the lens of the business model canvas, then there would be a huge opportunity for innovation. take customer segments from the business model canvas and think about new ways that you could create new segments in an existing market. each nine "building blocks" of the business model canvas has the potential to disrupt an existing market.

Keep your goals within reasonable scale. The clearer they are and the easier they are to wrap your arms around, the easier it is to evaluate success or failure

Many innovation focused departments in large companies fail, or lose funding because they cannot clearly elevate the value they created. To that end, as suggested by someone here, its critical to set clear and measurable goals, and track to them. Secondly, those teams need accountability of the goals, as well as supported with frameworks, resources and autonomy (2 sides of the same coin) to operate like businesses and find ways to capture the value from the innovation, including but not limited to internally , externally, through partnerships, spin-offs, licensing etc.

Can monitor through simple steps like. Identify Program Goals and Objectives. Designing an efficient strategy for monitoring. Designing an Effective Report Management System. Recommendations for Project Improvement. Ensuring Guidelines and Recommendations are Followed. When outcomes are measured and reported, it fosters improvement and adoption of best practices, thus further improving outcomes

Uma etapa muito importante e desafiadora ao mesmo tempo: medir, tangibilizar os resultados e retroalimentar sua estratégia de inovação. Inicie monitorando a % de iniciativas que são convertidas e implementadas, diagnosticando etapa a etapa, para saber onde atuar com maior intencionalidade. Depois, qualifique o que é esperado de cada projeto (índice de sucesso) e defina métricas para o acompanhamento. Nesta etapa, o foco é no resultado, e não na ação. Por último, mantenha indicadores complementares que possam traduzir nível de aculturamento e engajamento para com a Inovação (maturidade).

Don't try to achieve the perfect result before you launch your product. I've seen many innovations fail because the team behind them kept finding ways to improve the product a little bit. At some point, even for a good solution, it's just too late.

Innovation, by definition, requires doing things differently. It means challenging norms and looking for alternate paths for big returns. It is natural to see resistance from your organisation - peers, colleagues and sometimes management. Plan for this in your innovation strategy and comms planning, as even if you're able to prove an idea, you will need the collective strength and support of the organisation to make it successful.

Today, we still engage in a more comfortable process of preparing a comprehensive plan with goals, tactics, budgeting, and call-it strategy. This planning process is not the way to make strategy, especially in an ever-changing business environment and tech-enabled life. Many strategy presentations start with analyses of the market, not a scenario, not a range of outcomes, or a few versions of the future. And that’s the last thing you hear about uncertainty in the strategy (presentation). A sharp and viable strategy addresses the future as well as the present. Being able to effectively respond to an ever-changing business environment means mastering change and efficiency gains. Strategy is a journey, not a project.

Remember that innovation is often an iterative process. As you progress, be open to revisiting and refining your innovation ambition. Flexibility and adaptability are essential as you gather more insights and data during the innovation journey.

Innovation may happen in a space where new thoughts and ideas are free to grow, mutate or die. It does not have to result from filling gaps or solving problems. True innovation is frontline creation which craves bravery and vision.

Write. It. Down! The often ignored and most vital thing. Write your strategy down. Most people create a strategy, that turns into a mission statement, maybe some OKRs and a roadmap. Then lone behold in 6 months time no one remembers half of the “why”, or the guiding principles that led to the mission statements and roadmaps. You’re left with a hollow direction, a number of one off actions, and no clear way to assess the success of what you’re doing or adjust the strategy effectively to changing conditions. What’s the current situation. What challenges does that present. Whats your long term aim. What guiding principles will you follow. What one off actions will you take. When will you review it. Write it down, then distribute it.