Innovation Program - What and Why

The innovation program is specific to the organization and its vision. There are two primary reasons for the Innovation Program:

• During stable times when the business is functioning well, the objective of the innovation program is to apply or combine existing or emerging tools, methods, and processes in new ways to dramatically improve functions or create new functions that support the vision. This is not making existing processes more efficient to achieve a somewhat better process, it revolutionizing processes to achieve functional improvements that are multiples better than old functions.

• During times of disruption when the vision or supporting strategic plan are threatened by events that pull the organization out of a strategic mindset, the Innovation Program can be focused on a strategic span of the disruption. The strategic span is a focused effort that involves a small number of carefully selected staff seek ways to keep the organization moving toward the vision. In the event that the disruption is too great, the strategic spanning team must recognize this quickly and make suggestions for updating the vision to align with the new reality.

Innovation is not a serendipitous result from having a creative staff, although having creative people in your organization is a must for a good innovation program. There are five crucial elements for a successful innovation program.

1. Leadership involvement from top organization leadership. If leadership is not part of the program, it is likely to be abruptly terminated by accounting when it fails to produce an immediate positive cash flow. One thing to keep in mind is that the innovation program is like an insurance policy or like a long term investment - it is not something that will generate income in the short term.

2. Engagement of creative thinkers throughout the organization. Your organization needs creative people in all functional areas. You can screen for creatives when hiring, or you can train existing experts to seek solutions more broadly - or better yet do both. Then you'll need encourage creative problem solving - even for mundane problems.

3. A process for soliciting and evaluating prospective innovations. You'll need a review panel of intelligent and energetic staff who see the cup as half full, but don't have the answers to innovation opportunities. The panel will not be solving problems, it will be reviewing opportunities to assess upside potential and level of investment needed. Staffing of this review panel can make or break your innovation program.

4. An ability to fund and staff the launch of high value innovation opportunities. The innovation will need to be supported with a budget and commitment of qualified staff who will be available to launch innovation opportunities. The organization should set aside some fraction of operating funds to be able to support projects that might create new offerings during stable times and allow strategy to jump to a new support structure during times of disruption.

5. A formal process for tracking results of all innovation investments. This is a job for your Program Management Office - get them on board early.