Signaling the importance of innovation What is an Innovation Room? I’m referring to those dedicated spaces in corporate office buildings, typically the size of a mid to large size conference room. They look different than the other offices: often colorful, little or modular furniture, relaxing seats, loaded with innovation-stimulating technologies (3D printers, Amazon Echo’s, VR/AR tools, interactive screens, etc.). The purpose of these Innovation Rooms is to provide a dedicated, innovation inspiring location, where groups can gather to work on innovative solutions. In our company Innovation Rooms have been established in many countries. Those areas are specifically created to allow employees and customers to brainstorm, ideate and experiment with business…

Investing effectively in innovation Innovation needs resources: time, people, passion … and budgets. Many innovators do not need large amounts of money. Certainly not in the early stages, when ideas are run by a few customers and key assumptions are checked. In my experience, budgets for these early stage experiments were easily provided by local (operational, country) management. In some cases, local management didn’t have the resources, or didn’t want to invest in the innovation. This could be because the the innovation was not addressing a priority issue for their part of the organization. However, some of those innovations did have potential value for the broader corporation. In that case,…

Collaboration for innovation across divisions Many wars have been won through “divide and rule”. Successful innovation in corporations is just the opposite: “collaborate and win”. When employees from different departments meet and bring together their expertise and networks, magic can happen. In practice, it’s a bit more complicated. How to find the right collaborators in the corporate maze? How to secure sponsorship from leaders in other divisions? How to reward collaboration across divisions? An example. The IT organization had created a small team (3 people) in the IT hub in the Czech Republic. Their assignment was to create innovative, structured IT experiments in healthcare, based on cutting edge technologies. They…

Using a common language Over time, large corporations create their own language, acronyms, processes, procedures. These usually developed naturally. Everyone attaches the same meaning to key terms, helping to create efficiencies and a unique culture. It is important to also establish a common language for innovation. It’s not necessary to overcomplicate or overdo it. However, if one part of the organization defines experimentation as coming up with an idea, while another group thinks it means doing a pilot, there is a risk for confusion. This will complicate global innovation stimulation and support. A few basic agreed upon definitions can go a long way. Some of the ones I really secured…

Innovation champions Large organizations typically have many company-wide initiatives going on. To piggyback on those is a very effective way to further innovation objectives. As an example, my corporation created an HR program to accelerate the general management capabilities of very promising young employees who were less than 5 years with the company. These carefully selected employees were provided with 2 annual assignments in different countries and divisions. They also had to allocate 20% of their time to an “action learning project” in a team with 3 of their peers. The program was sponsored by the CEO. I regularly experienced a need for extra manpower to help develop innovation stimulating…

Expanding the central innovation team without increasing bureaucracy As I advocated in my earlier blogs, I strongly believe in a small central innovation team. This team should support passionate local innovation leaders across the globe and should track exciting innovations. One of the reasons I want to limit the size of the central innovation team is to limit the number of innovation-stifling processes typically created by large teams. However, small can be too small. I faced a bandwidth challenge when more and more countries (up to 80) created the position of local innovation leader. They created these positions because they saw the results from the early adopting countries (about 30).…

Tracking and sharing innovations Innovation is dynamic. Innovations can start every moment. They change continuously. They fail frequently. Multiply this activity across 100 countries, 10 brands, 5 divisions and its clear that an innovation leader cannot manage this number of initiatives with an Excel spreadsheet. The simple solution is to buy one of the many off the shelf software programs and roll it out across the organization. It’s fast. It has been tested. It looks professional. However, the software program may not address specific needs. Does it help the innovation leader to identify new innovations, to prioritize innovations, to track ongoing innovations, to manage Innovation Challenges/competitions, to connect innovators, to…

Keeping the central innovation team lean Creating a large team generates the need for processes, meetings, coordination, etc. This relates to my earlier blog “Process kills innovation”. In many corporations where innovation needs to be stimulated, there is a need for a central accountability to provide focus, increase communication, alleviate barriers and track innovation efforts across the organization. There are several benefits of keeping this HQ team very small, e.g. 1-2 people: Simplicity: innovators don’t need to go through several levels to get input or ask for support; business teams know where to share new business needs that need innovative solutions Speed: decisions are made fast as there is no need…

Connecting innovation leaders to stimulate innovation The impact of innovation leaders within a corporation increases if they can share learnings and challenges with colleagues who are also excited to create change. One of the most practical ways to create an innovation mindset in a large organization is to establish a network of passionate innovation leaders, especially if those leaders are embedded in the business teams and supported by their leadership. These catalysts can create small “flames of innovation”, which, taken together, can over time generate a major “innovation fire” across the company. I have seen it happen. I also learned how not to do it. When I started in my…

Based on a real story of an innovation leader in a large corporation There are as many definitions of Innovation Leader as there are innovation leaders. This is about my experience. The position of Innovation Leader in the company I was working for, was created 5 years ago, because the commercial leadership identified a major challenge. Many innovative experiments were happening across the company, but successful ones from one country were not reproduced in other relevant countries. The reason was that there was often no awareness of the innovation beyond the local entity and no good understanding of the business value of the innovation. So my assignment from the leadership…