Perspectives on Innov8rs SoCal

What a treat to have the Innov8rs.co team in Los Angeles for the past couple of days. It was a rare opportunity to catch up with so many old and new friends in the beautiful setting of the Skirball.

Many thanks to Hans Balmaekers and the team for hosting and inspiring us. To Brian Solis and Gina O'Connor for kicking off day 1 with the appropriate balance of imagination and pragmatism.

Some reflections on the themes and my takeaways:

1. We've reached dominant design on the innovation process, but adoption is still shaky.

Every expert has their own process, but everyone would agree that they're now basically the same. Whether you use jobs or human centered design, have 3 process stages or 5, call it ideation or opportunity spotting - all innovation processes drive customer-centricity, hypothesis-driven approaches, iterative solution development, and embrace milestone based investments.

However, despite all the experts being on the same page - innovation teams inside large organizations are often only somewhat aware of, or poorly implement these processes. The issue - these processes are anathema to how big companies work, and innovation teams have short shelf lives - so there is constant flux in teams and lost knowledge.....few companies have the opportunity to benefit from a mature innovation team that is well integrated into the ongoing strategy and operations of the organization.

2. AI platforms will drive a step-change in adoption of best practices at the "front end of the funnel", not to mention a 10x boost to throughput, 5x boost to rigor, and perhaps even a 2x boost to creativity on average....

I won't be the only one who was wowed by what the U+ team and chief evangelists Sean Sheppard & Jan Beránek shared with the group. A few well-framed questions about the type of innovation opportunity, potential customers and competition - and the AI generates, in a couple of hours, what would typically take an innovation team a few months (if not more). A robust business case, replete with the myriad assumptions and thoughtful analysis - including interrogable personas. This is a game changer for innovation teams looking to bring speed and a level of rigor to business model development and spend more time on validation vs. idea generation.

But more importantly, it solves problem 1 above - if you leverage a platform for the front end, you don't need to stand up an experienced innovation team and develop a methodology; the shift from innovation as a "team with knowledge and a methodology" to "innovation as a service" eliminates some of the adoption challenge.

3. Additional value creation in this space will come as organizations increasingly approach innovation as an enterprise capability.

Innovation is not a "thing" that can be bolted on to an organization, but instead it must be woven into the organization. Innovative organizations build the capacity to innovate into how they lead, how they set strategy, how they stand up the engines (internal and external) to identify, shape and create new sources of value for customers.

Multiple speakers and conversations highlighted the interconnectedness of the various internal systems, and more importantly the various enabling modules (e.g. CVS, internal incubation teams, venture studios, strategic finance, portfolio management solutions, etc.). I met great teams from Mach49 , High Alpha Innovation , and Future Foundry who have elements of the this capability, and many other vendors who provide the glue (software, talent, training, consulting) to develop your system.

If your organization wants to become more innovative, there are tried and tested approaches to take systematic steps in do so.

4. The challenge that organizations will face in the future (and face today) is linking Innovation to strategy and leadership.

In my talk, I shared thoughts on how to better align innovation teams and their activities with enterprise strategy and the needs of the executive team and shareholders. I continue to believe this is the missing link. While most innovation teams focus on product-market fit, they miss the the fit between the problem the executive team needs solved (money, fear, & hope!) and the solution that the innovation team provides.

Many organizations treat innovation as a "nice to have", but for select organizations - it should clearly be a "must have". Executives must go on a journey to align on whether this is true for them, and then invest and act accordingly!

All in all, a great event, a fantastic chance to catch up with so many folks, and even some former colleagues ( Elliott Parker !) who has a new book out (link) next week....