You're a business strategist who wants to build an innovative team. How do you start?

Begin by clearly identifying your innovation goals to establish an innovative team as a business strategist. Your goals should clearly state what you intend to accomplish through innovation, including creating new products, enhancing current services, or expanding into new markets. Make sure your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Their alignment should be with the company's main goals and they should tackle important obstacles or opportunities. Setting explicit innovation goals directs and focuses your team, driving their creativity and efforts towards creating meaningful and significant outcomes.

Innovation is a very broad term. So the very first step is to define how you intent to use innovation to develop and/or implement your strategy. Once you have an understanding on WHY you need innovation, then you can proceed to define the specific goals and milestones you'd like to reach. In my experience, sometimes innovation goals can be as simple as "disrupt the status quo" because you are simply trying to penetrate an existing market.

It's a common mistake to jump into recruitment or training without a strategy. Knowing what innovation you're chasing is key. Your innovation goals must be crystal clear and perfectly aligned with your business objectives. Start with a vision to empower your team towards meaningful innovation.

To build an innovative team as a business strategist, start by defining a clear vision and purpose that emphasizes creativity and forward-thinking. Cultivate a culture of openness and experimentation, where team members feel empowered to share ideas and take calculated risks. Encourage interdisciplinary collaboration to foster diverse perspectives and approaches. Invest in professional development and training programs to nurture creativity and critical thinking skills. Implement agile methodologies to promote flexibility and adaptability in problem-solving. Lastly, recognize and reward innovative contributions to reinforce the importance of creativity within the team.

To build an innovative team, start by defining clear goals and values ??. Recruit diverse talent with varied skill sets and backgrounds, fostering creativity and collaboration ??. Establish a supportive culture that encourages risk-taking and learning from failure ??. Invest in continuous training and development to keep skills sharp and knowledge current ??. Embrace technology and adapt to industry trends to stay ahead of the curve ??. Ensure legal compliance and ethical standards are upheld to protect the team and the business #Innovation #TeamBuilding #StrategySuccess ??.

Selecting the perfect team post-project setup is often a myth. Reality demands we work with what we have. Fostering an environment where existing teams can think differently and innovatively is crucial. True innovation blooms in teams taught to think differently, together.

If you know your innovation goals, you first need to make an assessment of your current team. Make sure you understand their strengths and gaps vs. delivering to the innovation goals. Once you have the baseline, you can then define the type of skills or capabilities or experiences that are needed to complement the existing talent pool. It's also important, beyond getting people with the "right" skills, that the new team members will collaborate and work effectively with the existing team and with the other new members. Even if the new team members are being redeployed from other parts of your organization, you have to make sure they complement the existing team.

As a business strategist aiming to build an innovative team, begin by choosing your team members wisely. Look for individuals with diverse backgrounds, skills, and perspectives that complement each other. Seek out creative thinkers who are open to new ideas and approaches. Encourage collaboration and foster an environment where team members feel empowered to share their thoughts and take risks. Provide resources and support to nurture innovation, such as training programs or access to cutting-edge technologies. By assembling a dynamic and diverse team, you lay the foundation for fostering innovation and driving strategic success.

After identifying your innovation objectives, evaluate your current team's capabilities. Assess their strengths and weaknesses in relation to achieving the innovation goals. With this understanding, outline the skills, abilities, or experiences required to enhance your team's performance. Additionally, ensure that the new additions to the team not only possess the necessary skills but also mesh well with the existing members and collaborate effectively. This is crucial whether the new members are sourced internally from different departments or externally.

Construir un equipo sólido y diverso es clave para impulsar la innovación de manera efectiva. En mi opinión, al elegir los miembros del equipo innovador se deben considerar los siguientes aspectos: Diversidad de perfiles y habilidades: Es fundamental reunir un grupo diverso en cuanto a experiencias, conocimientos, personalidades y formas de pensar. Esto fomenta un intercambio más rico de perspectivas y evita los sesgos de pensamiento grupal. Se necesita un equilibrio de roles como creativos, analíticos, técnicos, de dise?o, marketing, etc. Mentalidad innovadora: Más allá de las habilidades técnicas, se deben priorizar cualidades como la curiosidad, la apertura mental, la adaptabilidad y el apetito por el aprendizaje continuo.

In my experience, the most important piece of establishing the process is not reinventing the wheel. Start with an existing process that is used in other parts of the organization or at other organizations that are in the industry. And then adapt the process to make it efficient and fast for the innovation that you are trying to deliver. Make sure it's aligned to your goals and to the composition of the team.

Disney has a great example of how to structure process for innovation with it's use of Blue Sky sessions. In these sessions teams are encouraged to generate wild ideas without constraints. This encourages creativity and allows for the exploration of unconventional concepts. This paired with Failure Tolerance, cross-disciplinary collaboration and employee empowerment has fostered a structure environment promoting creativity and innovation. I ask you, how can you learn from these Imagineers to learn and adapt their strategies in a way that can benefit your team and company?

Creating a structured innovation process tailored to the organization's specific needs is crucial for effectively channeling the team's efforts. In my view, some key aspects to consider include: Alignment with strategic goals: The process should be designed to drive the previously defined innovation objectives, whether they are disruptive or incremental innovations in products, services, business models, etc. Flexibility and adaptability: While a framework provides structure, the process should not be rigid. It should allow for iterations, adaptations, and pivots as new learnings are acquired.

Establecer un proceso de innovación estructurado y adaptado a las necesidades específicas de la organización es fundamental para catalizar los esfuerzos del equipo de manera efectiva. En mi opinión, algunos aspectos clave a considerar son: Alineación con los objetivos estratégicos: El proceso debe estar dise?ado para impulsar los objetivos de innovación definidos previamente, ya sean innovaciones disruptivas o incrementales, en productos, servicios, modelos de negocio, etc. Flexibilidad y adaptabilidad: Si bien un marco de trabajo brinda estructura, el proceso no debe ser rígido. Debe permitir iteraciones, adaptaciones y pivotes según se obtienen nuevos aprendizajes.

Once you have the dream team, develop a structured innovation process that guides your team from ideation to implementation. Incorporate methods such as design thinking, agile methodologies, or lean startup principles to encourage rapid experimentation and iteration. Create checkpoints or milestones within the process to review progress, gather feedback, and make necessary adjustments. Empower team members to take calculated risks and embrace failure as a learning opportunity within the innovation process.

You don't build an innovative team, you build an environment where people can be creative. This means a culture of being deeply concerned about problems that face us, because problems inspire creative thinking. Also means a culture of freedom to express, non judgmental, merit, respect, collaboration, security, and most importantly --LED by a leader who is respected by this team.

As the leader of the team, you have to clearly define the WHY: what are the reasons the team is there, why are we working on innovation, what problems are we trying to solve. In my experience, once you have that overall alignment the leader then serves as the Northstar for the process AND as a cheerleader for the rest of the team, when they face doubts or hardships.

Leaders must actively set the tone at the top by providing their time and energy to foster a culture that values creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration. A leader can use several tools to cultivate an innovative team, such as encouraging brainstorming sessions and honest feedback, establishing cross-functional collaboration among project teams, and implementing an agile work structure. In promoting a culture of open communication, experimentation, and continuous learning, leaders empower employees to unleash their creativity and drive innovative problem-solving initiatives.

Innovation culture within your organization will play a key role. Cultivate an environment that encourages creativity, collaboration, and open communication. Encourage team members to share ideas freely and provide constructive feedback to one another. Recognize and reward innovative thinking and contributions - dare to try mindset. Celebrate successes and acknowledge efforts to foster a culture where innovation is valued and incentivized. Promote a mindset of continuous learning and improvement. Encourage professional development opportunities, knowledge-sharing sessions, and exposure to external sources of inspiration.

Fostering a culture of ongoing learning and curiosity can differentiate you. Motivate your team to engage in experimentation (tied to strategic objectives to avoid squandering resources) and recognize that every setback is a progression towards achievement. Learning to embrace failure is challenging. Establish a rapid iteration process, where concepts are swiftly created, evaluated, and improved upon based on input. Few organizations effectively learn from their missteps.

Like any process, an innovation process is something that can be improved. Thus, make sure that you have clear measures on what success looks like and that you are automating the measurement of the KPIs. This data will serve as the basis to determine if the targets are being met, what are the areas that can be improved, and (in many cases) what are the key actions that need to be taken to improve the process of innovation.

A culture of continuous learning and curiosity will set you apart. Encourage your team to embrace experimentation (linked to strategic goals otherwise it is just wasting resources) and to understand that each failure is a step closer to success. It is hard to learn to fail. Implement a process of rapid iteration, where ideas are quickly developed, tested, and refined based on feedback. Not many organisations learn from their failures.

Innovate relentlessly: Treat innovation as an ongoing process, not a one-off event. Learn and iterate based on feedback and data. Adapt to evolving customer needs, market trends, and opportunities. Challenge your team continually for new and improved ideas. Building an innovative team requires dedication, but the rewards are worth the effort.

Embrace a culture of experimentation and iteration. Encourage team members to test hypotheses, gather feedback, and refine their ideas based on real-world results. Establish mechanisms for capturing insights and lessons learned from both successes and failures. Use this feedback to refine your innovation process and improve future initiatives. Stay abreast of industry trends, emerging technologies, and competitor activities. Encourage team members to attend conferences, participate in workshops, and engage in networking opportunities to fuel their creativity and stay informed.

Today, companies compete on business models beyond products/services. Hence, I would start building a holistic team able to identify innovation opportunities across and within all the dimensions of the business model, with a prerequisite of clarity on the strategic purpose and how innovation will support it. Here is a non-exhaustive list of potential innovations per dimension. VALUE PROPOSITION INNOVATION ACROSS 4 DIMENSIONS ?? functional (product/service) ?? emotional (brand) ?? experiential (customer experience) ?? societal value (purpose) CLIENT INNOVATION ?? client engagement process before/at/after transaction INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION ?? value chain efficiency ?? asset utilization PROFITABILITY MODEL INNOVATION ?? revenue model

For innovation to thrive, break down departmental silos! Encourage open communication and knowledge sharing. This can be achieved through cross-functional teams, collaborative workspaces, or even team-building activities.

An innovative dream team must be strategic, tactical, agile, and fast. The core responsibilities of the dream team should be as follows; - Defining the strategy and having a clear roadmap towards the goal. - Creating a framework for innovation. - Lead by example. - Communication in this context is critical. - Measure the progress towards the goal regularly. An innovative team can have various profiles depending upon the industry but mostly the team members should include, - Strategists - Innovators - Technologists - Product Experts - Program Managers - Intellectual Property Experts The team must ensure the right balance between innovation and business as usual, by identifying the real business opportunities with the right focus.