Managing a portfolio of innovations
Innovation Leaders have to manage multiple innovative initiatives across the corporation. How can a framework be put in place without overcomplicating the process? A case study:
I decided to keep this framework as simple as possible and to organize innovations in 3 groups (and one additional group for those successful innovations that were being scaled to multiple countries or brands). The 3 groups were:
- Focused Ideation
- Criteria: an new idea that provided a potential solution for a priority business/customer problem
- End result: a “one-pager“, a short overview of the problem to be solved, the innovative solution and the potential value that would be created
- Example: the addition of a QR code on the medicine package to help patients connect easily to a video on how to self-apply an injection for a fertility medication (solving for a major barrier for the use of the treatment)
2. Quick Experimentation
- Criteria: an initiative that was in the stage of testing a few key assumptions. This typically happened in a qualitative way to learn fast or to fail fast
- End result: a partially validated reverse income statement, which provided guidance wether to proceed to a full Pilot
- Example: demonstrating a mock up of the QR code on the packaging to patients and physicians confirmed the assumption that they liked and would be willing/able to use the proposed innovative solution
3. Full Pilot
- Criteria: testing a controlled, fully implemented innovation, typically quantitatively
- End result: specific metrics (like return on investment, increased access, increased market share, customer satisfaction), which provided the basis for a recommendation to scale the solution to additional geographies and/or brands
- Example: the Pilot included a group of customers who received packages with QR codes. The results showed that there might be a 5% increase in brand market share for a 90% lower cost than a traditional approach, which was a visit to a nurse to get the injection
This framework was very simple to set up, to track and prioritize innovations and to communicate about the innovation pipeline to the organization. I typically tracked about 50 initiatives, spread over the 3 groups. Innovations moved at different speeds through this framework. Failing ones were continuously replaced with new ones.
As the leadership team had identified 3 priority business/customer problems that needed innovative solutions, it was easy to track the number of innovations that addressed each of those 3 problems in each of the above pipeline groups. This helped to fill gaps, e.g. by organizing Innovation Challenges in the corporation or through Open Innovation Challenges.
As Bansi Nagji & Geoff Tuff said:
“The companies we’ve found to have the strongest innovation track records can articulate a clear innovation ambition; have struck the right balance of core, adjacent, and transformational initiatives across the enterprise; and have put in place the tools and capabilities to manage those various initiatives as parts of an integrated whole.”
So, as Innovation Leader, I created a practical, simple framework to actively manage a constantly changing portfolio of innovations across their life cycle.
More about this topic: Managing Innovation Portfolios by Ralph Ohr and Kevin McFarthing
Please share your thoughts or experiences below!
More of my blogs on innovation: Wim Vandenhouweele