How to Foster and Measure Innovation in your Company

Last month, I’ve shared with you my biggest resolution for the year that’s just begun: stop treating innovation as a buzzword. In that article, I used Scott Berkun’s fantastic definition that says that innovation is a significant positive change. In that sense, innovation has to be a process through which we need to find new and better ways to do things that result in a notable outcome.

All of that sounds pretty nice - in theory. For a lot of us enfevered by the idea of creating something new and impactful, though, devising that something and actually creating it can be a herculean task. And that’s without considering the oh-so-important aspect of measuring the results of that innovation.

That isn’t a small detail. If innovation is a process (and I strongly believe it is), then we have to have some sort of indicator to measure the success of its outcomes. If we don’t find a way to estimate the impact of our ideas down the line, we risk falling into the abyss of calling ourselves innovators just because we can think of something different - not because that something different actually works.

So, since I’m diving into my new year’s resolution head-on, I thought it’d be nice to share with you how we are tackling innovation at BairesDev.  

From Thought to Revenue to Thought Again

As a nearshore development company that offers tailor-made digital solutions, I see BairesDev as a knowledge company. Even when we create digital products for our clients, our main asset is our expertise, our know-how. I think that’s the case with most tech companies that take ideas and turn them into services.

So, our innovation process always goes down the same path: we start with a thought and try to end in some sort of revenue-producing concept (I say “some sort of revenue” because I don’t want you to think that innovation necessarily has to end in a financial gain). In other words, we go from the most human aspect of the journey (the generation of ideas) to the benefits it can give us once it’s done.

It’s all part of a cycle that starts with our collaborators and their ideas to the development of the process or product innovation to end up in an outcome. After assessing that outcome, we can then go back to square one with new feedback that can improve the next cycle and so on. By walking that path on a loop, we ensure that we are always on our way towards more innovation.

The simplicity of that 3-step process might fool you into thinking that the innovation process is something easy and straightforward. It isn’t. There are plenty of things involved in it that need careful attention for the process to go about smoothly. For instance, the generation of innovative ideas requires a specific company culture, spaces and tools for their development, a strategic vision that supports them, and proper management that inspire them, among other things.

After that, the implementation of those ideas is another challenge in and by itself. From finding the right moment to integrate those ideas into the normal way of doing things to picking the perfect people to lead the change, there’s plenty of work there too. And that’s without considering the final step, in which we take a look at the whole process and value it to get insights and inform the next cycle.

While all of the 3 steps are crucial for the process, I’d like to discuss a couple of them that I feel are always the ones that demand the most attention: how to foster innovation and how to measure it.

How to Maximize your Team’s Innovation

The best thing about the 3-step process detailed above is that it provides a lot of information in the simplest of ways. Even when it doesn’t seem like it, take a closer look and you’ll find what I mean. For instance, the first step (the one about thoughts) is hiding a strong declaration in plain sight: for your company to be innovative, you need to invest in your teams. 

The human capital is essential for innovation. The people you work with (ALL the people you work with) can generate disruptive ideas that can change how you play the game for good. Under such a light, investing in their development is a no brainer, simply because more radical and unexpected ideas can only come from people that are constantly evolving and who are encouraged to give their best.

Let me give you 2 quotes to back up this claim. The first one comes from Dutch business executive and business theorist Arie de Geus, famously known for saying that “the ability to learn faster than competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.” The other is one that’s widely (though without proof) credited to Albert Einstein: “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

If innovation implies change by its own definition, then we have to do things differently to get different results. And we can only do that by improving ourselves and our human capital, something that can only be achieved through constant learning. You can see where I’m going with this: the only way to be more innovative is to give your collaborators the space to develop and learn. Doing that can be the significant change we are promised by innovation.

Now, how can you do that? Well, in my experience, it’s always great to go beyond the mere seminars and online courses. You have to plant the seed of curiosity in the people you work with. Don’t settle for the roads you know, encourage everyone to find new streets of thought, and reassure everyone that failure is just a temporary setback on the way to success.

Also, it’s highly important that you don’t isolate innovation from day-to-day activities. Everything you do on a daily basis can be improved and changed so when you compartmentalize the innovation from the execution, you’re negating your company the possibility to identify the opportunities that appear almost spontaneously as you work. 

Measuring the Success of Innovation

The last step in the process is quite tricky but is fundamental. Evaluating the journey from thought to implementation to see how it all went is one of the most basic things you can do with pretty much all business processes. Yet, doing so isn’t that easy when it comes to analyzing innovation and its effects.

Surely, you could tackle it like a lot of business owners I know: just focus on how much financial revenue the innovation reported and decide from there. However, I feel like going with that is incredibly reductive. Naturally, we all expect new ideas to end up boosting our profits and showing a healthy ROI. But when it comes to innovation, focusing solely on that will leave some other important lessons you can take to keep growing.

A multidimensional approach that takes both quantitative and qualitative indicators is what seems like the best course of action here. Even when researchers and academics can’t still agree on which are the best ones (or even offer a comprehensive list), there’s a consensus about the need to develop a more cohesive set of tools that allows us to better measure innovations “in the wild.”

As if that wasn’t enough, there’s another challenge in measuring innovation. Though common sense might take us to measure the outcomes of innovation after it’s been implemented, academics suggest that we have to start measuring it at the earliest possible time. That brings me to the question: how do you measure the value of thought? (I told you this was going to be tricky).

I don’t have the answer, but I do have a method - being creative! There are lots of indicators already available we can use and a lot more we can develop according to our company-specific needs. Combining soft and hard indicators in both the first and last step of the process (a.k.a. the generation of ideas and its outcomes) can lead us to better understand the value of the whole process.

Indicators like the number of ideas, the percentage of leaders trained in creativity techniques, R&D expenditure/investment, the number of new products, and the time span between the idea and its implementation are all proposed indicators that can help you measure your innovation. You can find a very comprehensive list in the research I’ve linked above (which I strongly suggest you read).

The basic take you should get from all this is that you need to measure innovation in some way that makes sense for you and your team. Understanding how well (or not) you’re doing in your own innovation process is the only way you can improve it. And that understanding will only come from using more indicators than just “how much money does it bring for the company.”

Talking the Talk, Walking the Walk

When I made my new year’s resolution I was both excited and a little bit frightened. Excited because, well, resolutions do that! They allow us to think of us under better light, living in a brighter future where we fulfill all our goals. And frightened because new year’s resolutions can be broken at any time without a second thought.

Fortunately, when I shared my intentions of innovating BairesDev processes across several areas, my collaborators greatly supported me. And that’s when it hit me - the human aspect of the process is quintessential for its success. If you’re trying to be more innovative this year, then you need to lean on your team and trust they’ll have your back.

After all, true innovation will need everyone on board which, in turn, will bring a shift in your company culture. By providing the necessary spaces, embracing failure as a necessary evil, and using metrics to enhance the whole process, the herculean task of driving innovation will stop being something only a demigod could tackle and will be at your arm’s reach.