Create An Innovation Strategy

An innovation programme has, on average, 18 months between the time it's started and its cancellation. Most such programmes are cancelled because the innovators involved haven't connected themselves to results quickly enough. Why do innovation teams fail so often?

The main reason is that they've neglected to define their overall vision of what innovation should mean in their organisations.

You'd be surprised to discover the number of innovators I talk to who are unable to articulate their organisation's innovation strategy.

You know you are dealing with someone in this category when you ask the question “why does your company have an innovation programme” and it takes more than a sentence to answer. Deciding the future direction of an innovation team is a critical, fundamental decision that will shape everything that happens subsequently.

It is a decision, though, that isn't especially complex, as there are only three options from which to choose. Option one is simple: don't bother with innovation at all.

Instead, continue doing what has traditionally worked well, and accept that “back to basics” – meaning eliminating things which are not core – is very reasonable. Continuing the business practices appropriate two decades ago can, in many cases, work well. Not doing innovation at all is a perfectly acceptable strategy, so long as everyone agrees up front. An alternative approach is Play-2-Win innovation.

You have such an innovation strategy when you can say that innovation is going to be the front and centre source of all competitive advantage for an organisation in the future.

Innovators doing Play-2-Win are a relatively large investment in the short term, but (if they are any good) highly profitable in the long term.

The final innovation strategy is Play-Not-2-Lose, which is what you have when you decide the purpose of innovation is to maintain parity with competitors. This is an approach that doesn't result in massive financial returns all at once, but does tend to create steady improvements long term. Choosing which of these strategies to follow is actually a matter of evaluating your organisation's risk appetite. Deciding which strategy to adopt up front is a critical thing to do, because everything that follows will be different depending on which choice you make.
If you've decided its time you considered Innovation Strategy .

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