Innovation Leaders supporting Innovators This is the next topic in my series of how Innovation Leaders can help Innovators who have specific needs. Below are a few ways on how to help Innovators that need time to do their experiment. If one Googles “time to innovate”, most articles that come up discuss the creative (ideation) stage of innovation. In my experience, that is the stage that usually takes the least amount of time. It’s the next stages that are more problematic. I’ll discuss below the 3 stages of innovation (Ideation, Experimentation, Pilot) and how Innovation Leaders can help address Innovators’ time constraints in each stage. Ideation. Coming up with an…
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Is Innovation a science?
Absolutely! Some innovations happened by accident – think penicillin or Post-it Notes. However, those accidents are exceptions: most innovations happen through the scientific method. Why? Look how innovations in corporations typically happen. Someone defines a problem. An innovator comes up with an idea to solve this problem. The innovator has a hypothesis: reasons why that idea might work. The innovator experiments (e.g. with a prototype) to validate the hypothesis. If the experiment fails, the original idea is discarded or adapted. If the experiment succeeds, a larger test (a Pilot) is set up to evaluate the full implementation and value. If the Pilot is considered successful, it is broadly commercialized. This…
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The case for compliance
Innovation Leaders supporting Innovators This is the fourth blog in my series about how an Innovation Leader can help Innovators struggling with specific needs during their innovation journey. Below, I’ll describe the need to innovate “within compliance” in a heavy regulated industry like healthcare. Let me share one example and the steps the innovators and I took. 1. The problem. The innovator first identified a priority business issue. The case: a marketer in Africa needed a solution for young women who often forgot to take their daily contraceptive pill and thus became pregnant. She wanted the solution to be low cost and discreet (as most young women didn’t want others…
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The case for Learning
Innovation Leaders supporting Innovators In my series about how an Innovation Leader can help Innovators proceed through their innovation journey, I’ll discuss below how to help innovators learn from each other. Let me share one example and the steps the innovators and I took. The problem The case: an innovator in South Africa in our company told me that she wanted to evaluate the use of drones to increase the value of her offer to the government vaccine tender. She was currently losing this tender to a competitor based on price (this competitor could offer a lower price because their inferior product had a very low cost structure). She knew…
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The case of Resources
Innovation Leaders supporting Innovators One of my roles as Innovation Leader, was to identify promising innovations across the corporation. Part of this role was helping innovators as they went through their innovation journey. As Innovators had very different needs, I’ll discuss one “need” at a time in several of my upcoming blogs. Below, I’ll analyse the innovator’s need to find resources for a Pilot. Let me share one example and the steps the innovator and I took. 1. The problem. The innovator first identified a priority business issue. The case: in many developing countries, vaccines were not (easily) available when doctors recommended them to their patients: after a prescription, the…
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The case of Expertise
Innovation Leaders supporting Innovators One of my roles as Innovation Leader, was to identify promising innovations across the corporation. Part of this role was helping innovators as they went through their innovation journey. As Innovators had very different needs, I’ll discuss one “need” in several of my upcoming blogs. Below, I’ll describe the innovator’s need to find experts to collaborate on an experiment. Let me share one example and let’s follow the steps that innovator and I took. 1. The problem. The innovator first identified a priority business issue. The case: specific patients in Brazil needed vaccines for the prevention of pneumonia. These vaccines were available for free in dedicated…
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Innovators or Innovation Leaders?
Musing about who innovates… I often read articles that imply that the Innovation Leaders are also the Innovators. In my opinion, there is a simple definition and a simple difference between the two. Innovation Leaders, as I discussed/defined in another blog, focus on stimulating an innovation mindset in the corporation and on managing a portfolio of innovation experiments (i.e. guiding Innovators). Sometimes they are also responsible to scale successful innovations across their corporation. Innovators are the ones that create innovations: they come up with an Idea, they Experiment, they do a Pilot. If their innovation is successful, they may also lead its scaling across the corporation. There can be some…
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Going viral
Time for innovation One pandemic, the Plague of Justinian, helped to bring down an empire (the Byzantine), because of inappropriate responses. Another pandemic, the Black Death, created a society (Europe) that dominated the world for hundreds of years by triggering innovation, pulling millions of people out of poverty and boosting literacy. The current COVID-19 pandemic poses a critical challenge for many corporations. Innovation Leaders in those corporations have the capabilities and mindset to make a difference: they are experts in addressing the most pressing issues their corporation faces. As always, it’s important for Innovation Leaders to align with their Leadership what specific issues should be focused on. This will also…
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Speed
Preventing forever experiments All of us Innovation Leaders know examples of experiments that keep going on and on. Sometimes for years. Passionate innovators in our corporation might have a great idea and the best of intentions, but occasionally they just do not come to a conclusion. There are many reasons for those delays: no time due to other priorities set by their management, the replacement of a critical collaborator, etc. As Innovation Leaders, we then help innovators to overcome those barriers, by talking to their management, by connecting them with experts, etc. There is an approach that helps to anticipate delays. It is based on securing management sponsorship and on…
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It’s so easy
Just provide focus “As of today, everybody in the company must be innovative!” After an order like this from a CEO, a lot of things can happen. Someone may indeed come up with an amazing innovation which will create value for the corporation. However, most employees will have no idea what that CEO means with “innovation” and they might come up with ideas that are all over the place or they become frustrated. In order to avoid this, it is critical for a CEO to explain what innovation means to him/her. The guidance certainly needs to indicate that it is about creating “something new”. Then, most importantly, the CEO should…