How can you ensure innovation risk management is integrated into your strategic planning?

We may consider factors like IP management, Business and Commercial Model from the start of defining the goal. How does this help? Filter problems within the range of exploration to exploitation.

If your innovation is technical, you need to ask expert if your innovation can be achieved and most important working with expectations.. too many innovations are just IP that cannot become love because that the engineering part was not possible ..

That's ideas are very clear but I think it is very important to have someone, that has been the chief for any innovation project because this person can give you any support in any stage of your innovation. Generally the person that began in any moment any project are kindly and good partner. Go !!

In my experience innovation is successful if the goals are clear at the outset, as well as thresholds where you draw the line and cancel. It’s not easy pulling back from expensive innovation projects (e.g.research) but the key is to time it right, know when to stop and assess, then be ready to let go rather than try to pull it through beyond the point of no return.

Risks can be the building blocks of your innovation project scope. How, you may ask? It is often difficult to scope and manage an innovation project due to the fact that there are a lot of unknowns and thus defining tasks and next steps could be daunting. By defining the risks and the likelihood/impact they have you have the ability to see what is known, unknown and needs to be de-risked for the technology to ever exist. I always try to coach hardware startups working specifically on tech innovation to: 1) Define risks for each sub-system 2) Define the likelihood and impact 3) According to the severity of the risk, prioritize and create de-risking test plans And there it is, now your team can innovate systematically!

You should identify and know your key contributors (advisors, subject matter experts) and continue to consult them throughout in order to mitigate your risk and maintain a balanced/informed approach. Great success comes from a great team. And great teams are organised, focused and work really well together. I highly recommend Atul Gawande’s book The Checklist.

Developing your risk mitigation strategy is usually the early stages of your technology development roadmap (notice I did not say product development roadmap.. that happens later.). Usually early stages of innovation start with uncovering unknowns by prototyping, testing and observing. Afterwards you start getting a sense of risks and then you can tighten your test scopes to answer specific questions by controlling your variables. Not every risk is created equal and usually innovation projects are bandwidth constrained so strategically developing test campaigns that can benefit from each other by front loading non-destructive tests and finishing off with destructive tests to optimize test article usage.

The key in risk mitigation is to remain alert, informed and agile. Effective risk mitigation is built on continuous screening, assessment and deep understanding of risks. This is no one off static exercise. It’s a repeatable, frequent process during the innovation project. And its success depends on the ability to think outside the box rather than believe that good risk mitigation is following the same checklist. Stay one step ahead and learn to anticipate risk and the different shapes and sizes it comes. Open your mind to all possibilities, brainstorm risks and then plan and address them. Prioritise.

Using a ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ approach to risk often comes up with great ideas. Scoring risk in terms of how likely it is to happen x severity gives an overall score - which obviously helps with ranking. Then run through these to verify if your scores/importance are correct.

Communication is key to all success and it’s the foundation of collaboration. It’s about three things: (1) being articulate, setting expectations and clarity of consequences; (2) building a robust network of supporters amongst your audience/stakeholders and they expect clear, timely and efficient communication; (3) surrounding yourself with experts who you communicate with to deliver successful innovation.

I always think more brains are better than one when they collaborate. It’s great to learn from your own experiences. But even better if you learn from others through sharing. For every success you have, think how to oay it forward and how to share your experience with others.

Innovation is more than just new tech; it's about shaping our future. In my role as a strategist, I consistently looking for new and innovative pathways, and when within an enterprise, risk management remains front and centre. For business leaders, reflection is key now more than ever. Traditional strategies, like focusing on horizons 1, 2, and 3, might be evolving. I would say it's essential to consider new strategies, perhaps envisioning what 'Engine 2' might look like, especially if you believe your less innovative 'Engine 1' might start to lose momentum.