INNOVATION: Burrowing into the buzzword

When a word is considered as a 'buzzword' its meaning and impact have been diluted. It tends to get overused and so, undervalued. Sometimes it's bandied around so much that it makes our eyes roll. Innovation has been a buzzword for years.

Innovation has been a buzzword for years.

However, given that innovation really does matter; that we really do need creative ways of solving a myriad of problems in every organisation and that we really need to be offering new ways of thinking to foster sharper minds, I wondered if we shouldn't take the time to make the word - and by extension our initiatives - work harder.

Here are just some of the questions we could ask. (I would love to see what my network of sharp minds would add!):

• WHY? What is the reason for innovation for us? Why does it matter? What is the urgency for us? Where does it fit in our business? How is it connected to our strategy, our broader goals, our value proposition and our purpose? How will we arbitrate between short term and long term goals? How have we made sense of this? Why would people get on board? Have we found a way to speak to both their head and heart?
• MEANING WHAT? How will we define it? What will be considered innovative in the business? What will be the criteria for an innovative idea? Will we snob the small stuff or see any change that adds value as 'innovative'? How will we define what we are working on to guide participants and help convergence? What could be the filters that we apply to any ideas beyond Desirability, Feasibility and Viability? Can we develop new filters that matter to us? Design for the vulnerable? Design for the different? How will we scan for blindspots in our efforts??Can we ask different questions of an idea, such as: "Who is this idea excluding?"
• WHERE? We innovate with constraints so why wouldn't we pick a strategic focus? Should we go for two speeds: low hanging fruit to get some runs on the board and a focus on some longer term or more transformational changes. Or should we select a lead dimension: If it’s processes that are clunky in your business. Work on that and improve your operational excellence. If you have fallen behind in serving the customer, focus on that. If your product or service offering isn’t differentiating, try to nail that…
• WHY US? What gives us legitimacy? What will be our role in the space? (curator? manufacturer? integrator? educator? enabler?) Are we the right ones to be doing it or should we be looking to partner or nurture a start up?
• WHAT'S IN THE WAY? What is holding us back from innovating? Fear of failure? Mixed messages around risk and mistakes? Inadequate funding? Short-term thinking? Or is our thinking stuck? Are we falling into the traps of the 100 or so biases operating in our minds at all times. For example, the HiPPO effect (where we tend to defer to the highest paid person's opinion and, potentially, cast aside the best ideas), STATUS QUO BIAS where we fear the loss that we equate with change or COGNITIVE FIXEDNESS where we lock things into structures, functions and relationships and cannot imagine alternatives...
• HOW? What will be the method(s) we use to do things differently across all horizons (incremental/ breakthrough and transformational) and in any part of the business? How will we embed this? How will we help teams understand what tools work when and why? How will we select a method for a workshop or a problem? How will we channel ideas? How will we test our hypotheses? What will be our experimentation approach??Will we be open to mixing methods and discovering what works best and for what purpose? How will we know when a given tool or method is sharp or blunt?

How will we know when a given tool or method is sharp or blunt?

• WHO? Who, in the organisation, will innovate? Are we hoping everyone will do so across the organisation? How will we ensure that the right people are involved? How will we ensure diversity? Who will be trained? Who will sponsor ideas? Who will be the champions? How will we support our champions??Have we added time on innovation to job descriptions and the way we reward people?
• HOW WILL WE MAKE MONEY? What the business model will be? How can we leverage the current client base? What existing resources do we have that will serve us in this new space??Apply an innovative mindset to your business model and explore alternative ways of working.
• WHEN? What will be the pace of activities in the organisation? What sort of stage gates will we create? Once we have things underway, how will we make innovation activities something that doesn’t need to be planned? Can we move beyond "doing innovation" to making it something in everything we do? How will we sustain this over time?

Can we move beyond "doing innovation" to make it something in everything we do?

• WITH WHAT? What resources will we allocate for this at this? How will we ensure that no one feels as though innovation isn't just more on their plate? What structures and resources need to be added?
• WHAT THEN? How will we reward and recognise those who are seeking to keep our organisation relevant? How will we fuel them??
• HOW WILL WE KNOW If WE HAVE SUCCEEDED? What might be the size of the prize? What do we think success will look like? What is it costing us to get it (whatever we are going to work on) wrong? How are we communicating progress? How will we track our efforts along the innovation process? What will we value? A shift in mindset? Propensity to change? Appetite for change? Less risk aversion? Or will we be focused on # of workshops, # of converged ideas? quality of the ideas (see convergence questions) # of ideas through a certain stage gate? # of experimentations?...
• SO WHAT? What is in it for the employees, stakeholders, customers? How are we telling the story inside and out? so our people care? how have we got them on board? what is the external story we are telling? Have we updated our value proposition?

Organisations need sharp minds that can generate and implement innovative ideas.

If we are going to innovate - and not just stage innovation theatre, we need to challenge how we go about it, be strategic and constantly ask questions and explore different angles to see what we might have missed.

Get in touch.

Helping teams ask and answer these - and other questions - is what I do.