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The Process of Innovation
Posted by Paul Williams
As we spend time talking about innovation topics ranging from practical to philosophical, I thought it'd be helpful to offer information for those just getting started with this innovation thing.
Over a series of posts, I'll share with you notes I've made about innovation and the process...
The short definition I like to use for innovation is:
putting ideas to action... and that action making a difference.
(This also makes way for 'bad innovation'... actions that make a negative impact). It follows, to be an innovative person or company; you need to implement ideas that make a positive difference...
I have found that the person who has strong project management skills often makes a good innovator. They have the ability to lead through influence... can manage multiple priorities... is organized... and knows how to build relationships.
I've cobbled togrther what I call the Practical Tasks of Innovation... Not a sexy name... I'll have to work on trade marking something! If you were to create a job description for a person (or department) charged with 'innovation' these would be the key job duties.
Practical Tasks of Innovation
Monitor the Environment- be watchful for slight changes in trends.
Anticipate Opportunity - when changes do begin to occur, do they affect your products/services? If so, how?
Identify Opportunity - determine what your main objective should be to address these changes/opportunity.
Generate Alternatives - now that you have identified your challenge, generate ideas to address this situation. Brainstorm to generate basic ideas, strategy, and tactics.
Evaluate / Make Decisions - take your generated ideas and see which best meet the objective you outlined in the Identify Opportunity stage. What's going to the remarkable answer?
Champion - now that you have the best solution chosen, you may need to 'sell' this to your organization. Tell the story.
Implement - this is the action step... what turns idea into action and... hopefully someting innovative.
Over my next few posts... I'll explore each of these stages in more detail... and point you in the direction of resources that will help you.
As always... if you have additional thoughts... please join in the conversation and add comments!
I was reading the definitions on innovation and was curious about your perspective on project managers making good innovators.
From my perspective, innovation is not about putting an idea into action per se - that is execution (and no doubt good project managers are all about execution). For me, a more rigorous definition of innovation is the use of new tools (or previously existing tools used in a new way) to change how the world works, how people organize themselves, and how they conduct their lives.
From this definition, there are just innovators using or making inventions that change the economics - the rules - of living and working. It distinguishes between improvement (which may make an existing way of living more efficient) and invention (which is merely the tool sitting on the shop floor until an innovator uses it to break out of a box).
The definition also allows, as it should, for both positive and negative innovators. Innovation should be analyzed without value judgments. In my experience, nearly all innovations have had both bad and good outcomes from different points of view. A rule of thumb I use: "If someone didn't lose his job and another person didn't get a new one, it probably wasn't innovation." It might have been something else equally (or more) valuable, but it wasn't innovation.
There is a lot of confusion out there about this word, innovation. I believe it is because it is so closely associated in the mind with notions of improvement, novelty, inventiveness. We need a way to rigorously distinguish when something is innovation and not these other things.
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The Corante Innovation Hub is your starting point for keeping abreast of the best writing and thinking on innovation across the blogosphere and beyond. Here you'll find the field's most insightful observers and commentators tracking and reporting on its latest developments as well as weighing in on its future. For a full description of the Innovation Hub and the Corante Network in general, visit this page.
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OUR PUBLICATIONS:
1. John Wolpert on May 8, 2006 12:47 AM writes...
Hi Paul,
I was reading the definitions on innovation and was curious about your perspective on project managers making good innovators.
From my perspective, innovation is not about putting an idea into action per se - that is execution (and no doubt good project managers are all about execution). For me, a more rigorous definition of innovation is the use of new tools (or previously existing tools used in a new way) to change how the world works, how people organize themselves, and how they conduct their lives.
From this definition, there are just innovators using or making inventions that change the economics - the rules - of living and working. It distinguishes between improvement (which may make an existing way of living more efficient) and invention (which is merely the tool sitting on the shop floor until an innovator uses it to break out of a box).
The definition also allows, as it should, for both positive and negative innovators. Innovation should be analyzed without value judgments. In my experience, nearly all innovations have had both bad and good outcomes from different points of view. A rule of thumb I use: "If someone didn't lose his job and another person didn't get a new one, it probably wasn't innovation." It might have been something else equally (or more) valuable, but it wasn't innovation.
There is a lot of confusion out there about this word, innovation. I believe it is because it is so closely associated in the mind with notions of improvement, novelty, inventiveness. We need a way to rigorously distinguish when something is innovation and not these other things.
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