10 New Ways to Boost Innovation Impact

If you're in the innovation game, you know how tough it can be to stay ahead of the curve. That's why I share with you ten ways to boost your innovation impact. Check them out in this article below ...

The pressure to produce game-changing ideas, while keeping up with daily demands, can feel overwhelming. To help you push through those barriers, we’re not just looking at “best practices” – but at "next practices" – the ones that will truly set you apart. These aren’t just trendy buzzwords, but actionable steps to improve your impact and effectiveness.

Let’s dive in!

1. Co-Create with Your Customers Forget just listening to your customers – actually build with them. Co-creation allows your customers to feel part of the innovation process, which means real insights and faster product-market fit. This can be as simple as beta testing or as complex as setting up customer advisory boards. They know what they need, so let them guide you.

2. Measure Beyond Revenue Most innovation teams are judged purely on financial returns, but that's a narrow view. Start measuring impact on user satisfaction, sustainability, and long-term brand growth. These are the real game changers that help your innovations live on, and they’ll give you a clearer sense of your long-term effectiveness.

3. Embrace Fail-Fast Culture (but Don’t Forget to Learn) We’ve all heard “fail fast,” but the key is not just to move on quickly – it’s to learn from every failure. Establish a structured way to review failures, capture key learnings, and spread that knowledge across the team. Failures can be goldmines for insights if you extract the lessons.

4. Hack Your Own Products Become your own disruptor. Put together internal hackathons where teams from different departments come together to challenge and reinvent your existing offerings. This helps reveal blind spots and can lead to surprisingly powerful incremental improvements.

5. Build Cross-Functional Teams If your team consists only of R&D and marketing, you’re missing out. Diverse, cross-functional teams – think finance, operations, sales – will give you broader perspectives and unexpected ideas. In innovation, creativity comes from connecting dots that no one else sees.

6. Adopt Agile and Design Thinking – Everywhere You’ve probably experimented with agile sprints or design thinking in certain areas, but these methodologies should be baked into the DNA of your entire company. When your whole organization thinks iteratively, is empathetic to user needs, and can pivot quickly, that’s when you unlock real innovation potential.

7. Foster a "T-Shaped" Skillset Culture Encourage your team members to become T-shaped professionals – having deep expertise in one area, but also a broad understanding of other disciplines. This overlap in knowledge promotes better collaboration, as individuals can speak each other's language and contribute to more well-rounded innovations.

8. Leverage Open Innovation Look beyond your walls for inspiration. Open innovation is about sourcing ideas from outside your company – whether from startups, universities, or even your competition. Set up partnerships or innovation challenges where outside minds can contribute, and you’ll be amazed at the breakthrough ideas that come in.

9. Prototype Fast and Often We all know prototypes are essential, but most teams still don’t do enough of them. Rapid prototyping isn’t just for testing the product – it helps you explore the problem more fully and sparks fresh ideas. Don’t wait until you’re halfway down the path to prototype – do it early and often.

10. Reward Long-Term Vision, Not Just Short-Term Wins Innovation teams often feel pressure to deliver immediate wins. But the best innovations take time to mature. Create incentives that reward long-term strategic thinking rather than just quick, visible results. This will give your team the freedom to take bold risks and work on bigger, transformative projects.

Conclusion: Staying ahead in innovation is not about following what’s worked before – it’s about constantly pushing the boundaries. These ten "next practices" will help you rethink your approach, increase your impact, and drive more meaningful outcomes. Start small, experiment with one or two, and see how it transforms your innovation game. Keep pushing – the future belongs to the bold!

Ps. When you want to boost your personal skills to lead innovation as facilitator and create a culture for innovation with a proven method, I would love to welcome you personally in Cascina Caremma near Milan, learning the proven FORTH innovation methodology, from 8-13 of June 2025. Send me a direct message via LinkedIn, or email me at [email protected] to get a full brochure, and schedule a personal call to register for the course.

Innovative regards,

Gijs van Wulfen

LinkedIn Influencer, Speaker on Design Thinking Innovation, Founder FORTH Innovation method, author of six Innovation Books, Global Number One Thought Leader on Design Thinking 2024

Ps. Click on this link to boost your skills to lead innovation with the FORTH innovation method.

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