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 idea will likely not take a lot of time. In my experience:
- Many Innovators came up with ideas spontaneously. Their challenge was not time, but to find a sponsor.
- When soliciting innovative ideas that address key business challenges, Innovators from all across the corporation came up with ideas. That didn’t take a lot of time and I observed that the less time we gave for these “Innovation Challenges”, the more ideas we got.
- In some cases, ideas came out of ideation/brainstorm/hackathon sessions, which were typically sponsored by the relevant management and took a few hours. So no real time issue.
- To evaluate wether an idea was relevant, I asked the Innovators to complete a very simple “One-Pager“, describing briefly the problem, the innovative idea and the expected value this idea would create for the stakeholders. It took the Innovator very little time (less than 30′) to create this.
Experimentation. Once the idea had been selected, an experiment needed to be performed. That is when available time sometimes became an issue.
- To anticipate this, we helped to make the approach to an experiment as simple as possible. By developing a simple, easy to create “Reverse-ROI“, a few key assumptions/hypotheses were identified and quickly, qualitatively tested.
- Depending on the complexity of those assumptions, an experiment could be as simple as interviewing a few stakeholders: internally (e.g. to validate cost or compliance assumptions) or externally (e.g. to validate customer interest or usability assumptions). A bit more complicated concepts involved a MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Even this could be as simple as a drawing or a rudimentary collage.
- The Global or Regional Innovation Leader sometimes secured sponsorship of the manager of the Innovator. In that case, it helped to make specific agreements, e.g. to complete testing of the assumptions within 2 weeks and if the test failed to immediately stop.
- If the Innovator was in a geography with limited innovation experience, an expert team could be send in, to help the Innovator during the experiment stage, e.g. with technical, innovation or compliance capabilities.
Pilot. A full test may require significant resources, including time to plan, prepare, implement and measure. I noticed that time availability for the Innovator depended on several parameters, like:
- Department. If the Innovator was part of the marketing department, there was usually enough support from their management to pursue the innovation, as the innovation addressed a key commercial/business issue that would generate value for their brand.
- Management. If the manager of the Innovator was innovation-minded, there was often enough support for time allocation. In some cases, the global or Regional Innovation Leader could secure support/sponsorship from managers by creating a win-win situation (e.g. the opportunity for the manager to demonstrate the innovation at an upcoming business review with senior corporate leaders).
- Complexity. For a very complex and costly pilot, a small, dedicated team could be created with dedicated global resources. The local Innovator might then take on a more consultative role.
The ideal would be if Innovators can be relieved from their day job and dedicate themselves fully to their innovation. That is usually not realistic in a corporation. As described above, Innovation Leaders can “buy time” for Innovators in each stage of the innovation framework, by keeping the process as simple (lean) as possible and securing sponsorship from the Innovator’s management.
If everything else failed, there was always a Plan B: if the Innovator was passionate enough about their idea, they did find time to pursue it. I have rarely seen an innovation fail because of lack of time, it just took a bit longer.
As Charles Burton said:
“You will never find the time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.”
So, as Innovation Leader, I created innovative ways to support Innovators that lacked time, including simplifying the innovation process and securing support from my network.
More about this topic: “Time to Innovate: Reflections and Recommendations on Time Management for Innovation Managers” by Robert J. Crawhall.
What are your thoughts on this?
Click here for more of my blogs on innovation within corporations: Wim Vandenhouweele