The general understanding behind innovations is that they occur as a result of random happenings that lead to eureka moments. This view sees business innovation being bereft of discipline and a result of unconstrained activities. In reality though, companies or government agencies need to see it as an end-to-end process. Without formal innovation process pipelines, project approvals are dependent on lobbying the hardest or presenting the best demo. Hypothesis testing, customer interaction or understanding barriers to execution are seen as secondary. Instead companies must have an evidence-based innovation pipeline that will foresee the needs before any is proposed. A canonical Lean Innovation process needs to be established having specific steps. The first of these will be innovation sourcing that lists ideas, problems and technologies critical to invest in. Then the entire process needs to be curated for the specific needs. All probable options need to be listed in terms of priority levels to decide which ones to go for first. Management consulting giant McKinsey has developed a Three Horizons Model to ease out in this process. Post this the probable solutions need be explored and a hypothesis devised to be tested in a pilot. After this, the process needs to get adequate aid to incubate smoothly. Finally, the horizons need to be integrated under a system. Any changes to be incorporated must be refactored in now.

Source:https://hbr.org/2017/09/what-your-innovation-process-should-look-like

Uploaded Date:18 November 2017