What steps can you take to incorporate feedback into your innovation portfolio?

1 Define your goals and criteria

Before you seek or receive any feedback, you need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve with your innovation portfolio and how you will measure your progress and success. Your goals and criteria should be specific, realistic, and aligned with your personal and professional aspirations. They should also reflect your strengths, passions, and values as an innovator. Having a well-defined framework will help you filter out irrelevant or contradictory feedback and focus on the ones that support your objectives.

2 Identify your sources and methods

Not all feedback is created equal. Some sources and methods are more reliable, credible, and constructive than others. You should seek feedback from people who have relevant expertise, experience, or insight into your innovation domain, such as mentors, peers, customers, or industry leaders. You should also use methods that are appropriate for your stage and purpose of innovation, such as surveys, interviews, prototypes, or experiments. You should aim for a balance of qualitative and quantitative feedback, as well as positive and negative feedback, to get a comprehensive and objective perspective.

3 Analyze and prioritize feedback

Once you have collected feedback, you need to analyze it and prioritize it according to your goals and criteria. You should look for patterns, themes, and gaps in the feedback, as well as the underlying reasons, assumptions, and emotions behind it. You should also compare and contrast different feedback sources and methods to see if they agree or disagree on certain aspects of your innovation portfolio. You should then rank the feedback based on its importance, urgency, and feasibility, and decide which ones you will act on, ignore, or defer.

4 Implement and communicate feedback

After you have prioritized feedback, you need to implement it and communicate it to your feedback providers and other stakeholders. You should make a plan of action that specifies what changes you will make to your innovation portfolio, why you will make them, how you will make them, and when you will make them. You should also communicate your plan to the people who gave you feedback, as well as anyone else who is affected by or interested in your innovation portfolio, such as your managers, colleagues, or investors. You should explain how you used their feedback, what results you expect, and how you will measure them.

5 Evaluate and iterate feedback

The last step is to evaluate and iterate feedback, which means to monitor and measure the impact of the changes you made to your innovation portfolio and to seek and receive more feedback to improve it further. You should use the same or similar goals and criteria that you defined in the first step, as well as the same or similar sources and methods that you used in the second step, to assess the effectiveness and value of your innovation portfolio. You should also ask for more feedback from the same or new people, using the same or new methods, to identify new opportunities and challenges for your innovation portfolio.