Success Factors for the Innovation Team

If  we accept that the innovation race will be won by a team rather than a lone individual, the next question is: how does that team need to operate? In We-Think, Charles Leadbeater provides insights into the framework that an innovation team must set up and share. Although Leadbeater focuses on online communities, the success factors he highlights apply whether the community meets online or in a more old-fashion way. As a matter of fact, Leadbeater got numerous insights from researching communities that were definitely not online, such as the Levellers, a political movement in 17th Century England and the mining industry in the 19th Century.

The success factors are:

• People – Core team & Contributors,
• Processes – Connect & Collaborate,
• Purpose – Co-Creation.

Creativity is not top priority for the emergence of an innovation culture

An injection of creativity serum for all employees – if such a thing was ever invented – is not what the enterprise seeking to become more innovative needs. Essentially for two reasons:

1. Firstly, creativity is part of human nature, though often repressed and suppressed. In the right environment it will naturally re-emerge and bloom. No need for chemical boost!
2. Secondly, and perhaps more counter-intuitively, creativity is only a small component of innovation, one that may not make the real difference: the creative enterprise is full of ideas, the innovative enterprise is full of cash.

Metrics to drive effective innovation that investors can buy

According to yearly McKinsey surveys, innovation is one of the top-3 priorities for around two third of companies. It is a critical enabler of differentiation and growth. To create a sense of urgency, align individual performance contracts, and convincingly communicate with investors about innovation, companies need to assess the effectiveness of and return on their innovation investment.

A question I am often asked is: “sure, but what metrics can we actually use?”.

Rapid prototyping enables you to start small and move fast

Rapid Prototyping allows an idea to take shape at a fraction of the cost of field-testing, so that many versions or options can be tested and either discarded or selected. With the advent of affordable 3D printers, Rapid Prototyping has become a very popular technique for the design of objects or parts.

But before being a technique Rapid Prototyping is a process that is critical to the successful implementation of an innovation funnel.