How do you manage technological innovation for success? Task completed successfully?

1 Define your innovation goals

The first step in managing technological innovation is to define your innovation goals. What are you trying to achieve with your innovation efforts? What are the problems or opportunities that you want to address? What are the benefits or outcomes that you expect from your innovation projects? How do you measure your innovation performance and impact? By defining your innovation goals, you can align your innovation strategy with your organizational mission, vision, and values, and communicate them clearly to your stakeholders. You can also prioritize your innovation initiatives and allocate your resources accordingly.

2 Build your innovation team

The second step in managing technological innovation is to build your innovation team. Your innovation team is the group of people who will execute your innovation projects, from ideation to implementation. Your innovation team should consist of diverse, talented, and motivated individuals who have the skills, knowledge, and experience to tackle the challenges and opportunities of your innovation domain. You should also consider the roles and responsibilities of your innovation team members, such as project managers, innovators, designers, developers, testers, and users. You should also provide your innovation team with the necessary tools, training, and support to enable them to work effectively and efficiently.

3 Foster your innovation culture

The third step in managing technological innovation is to foster your innovation culture. Your innovation culture is the set of values, beliefs, norms, and behaviors that influence how your organization approaches and performs innovation. Your innovation culture should encourage and reward creativity, experimentation, risk-taking, learning, and collaboration. You should also create a climate of trust, openness, and feedback, where your innovation team members can share their ideas, opinions, and insights without fear of failure or criticism. You should also celebrate your innovation successes and learn from your innovation failures.

4 Manage your innovation process

The fourth step in managing technological innovation is to manage your innovation process. Your innovation process is the sequence of activities and stages that you follow to transform your ideas into viable solutions. Your innovation process should be flexible, iterative, and customer-centric. You should adopt a lean or agile methodology that allows you to test your assumptions, validate your hypotheses, and refine your prototypes based on feedback from your customers and stakeholders. You should also apply design thinking principles that help you empathize with your customers, define their needs, ideate solutions, prototype solutions, and test solutions.

5 Leverage your innovation network

The fifth step in managing technological innovation is to leverage your innovation network. Your innovation network is the ecosystem of internal and external partners that can support and enhance your innovation capabilities and outcomes. Your innovation network can include your customers, suppliers, competitors, peers, experts, mentors, investors, and regulators. You should engage and collaborate with your innovation network to access new ideas, insights, resources, and markets. You should also seek and provide feedback, advice, and support to your innovation network to build trust and reciprocity.

6 Monitor and evaluate your innovation results

The sixth step in managing technological innovation is to monitor and evaluate your innovation results. You should track and measure your innovation results using relevant indicators and metrics that reflect your innovation goals and objectives. You should also collect and analyze data and information from your innovation projects and processes to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You should also report and communicate your innovation results to your stakeholders and decision-makers to demonstrate your value and impact. You should also use your innovation results to improve your innovation performance and capabilities, and to inform your future innovation decisions and actions.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?