The Innovation Maturity Index

How innovative is your company?

We have the methodology to take your company to L7 — The Innovation Mode — where innovation runs organically, always-on, as part of your operating system.

A pyramid diagram showing the seven levels of organisational innovation maturity. Level 1 Inactive (red base) through Level 2 Aware, Level 3 Engaged, Level 4 Active, Level 5 Powered, Level 6 Led, to Level 7 Native — the Innovation Mode (green peak). Most organisations plateau at Levels 4 to 5. INACTIVEMinimal or no innovation activity AWARELimited activity, no systematic approaches ENGAGEDAd-hoc activities, no outcomes ACTIVEOrchestrated function, some outcomes POWEREDStrong capabilities, culture, outcomes LEDInnovation at scale NATIVEThe Innovation Mode L1L2L3L4L5L6L7

Hover each level on desktop · Explore the full framework →

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The Premise

Corporate innovation doesn't fail for the reasons most leaders assume.

It doesn't fail because leadership lacks ambition. It doesn't fail because teams lack ideas. It doesn't fail for want of budget. It fails because the underlying architecture is missing — no diagnostic to establish where the organisation stands, no sequenced plan that turns intent into shipped products, and no performance framework that separates real capability from theatre.

Published methodology. Actionable advisory. From real innovators; not consultants.

Executive Advisory

Two programmes. Eight weeks. Board-ready outcomes.

Both programmes run for 8 weeks across 50 hours of advisory and 32 structured sessions, remote or hybrid. Each is built on the published methodology of Innovation Mode 2.0 (Springer, 2026) and includes copies of the book for the leadership team.

Corporate Innovation Advisory

Your Innovation Strategy in 8 Weeks.

Diagnostic, Innovation Playbook, and 24-month masterplan. Built for CINOs, CEOs, and senior leaders installing systematic innovation capability — not generic consulting frameworks.

Core Deliverables

Innovation Readiness Assessment against the 7-level Maturity Index

Innovation Performance Framework — KPIs that track real capability, not vanity metrics

Branded Innovation Playbook for your teams

24-month masterplan — 70+ sequenced interventions across the Six Phases

The Outcome

A board-ready transformation programme — covering innovation culture, organisational design, and the internal infrastructure to make innovation repeatable.

"While innovation success often results from collaborative efforts across an organisation, corporate innovation failure always reflects leadership's limitations or poor decisions."

— Innovation Mode 2.0, Chapter 2

For Leaders Who Are

→ Building a systematic innovation function from scratch

→ A new CINO needing diagnostic, playbook, and roadmap fast

→ Transforming culture, organisational design, and capability at once

50 hours · 32 sessions · 8 weeks · Remote or hybrid

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AI Strategy Advisory

Your AI Strategy in 8 Weeks.

Prioritised use case portfolio, AI product concepts, and a phased 12–24 month roadmap. For executive teams moving from AI conversations to AI decisions — built on the first published architecture for agentic innovation in a corporate context.

Core Deliverables

AI Readiness Assessment — data, talent, infrastructure, alignment

Prioritised use case portfolio scored on impact and feasibility

AI Product Concepts — specifications your teams can build, not slides to interpret

AI Innovation Masterplan — phased 12–24 month implementation roadmap

Executive AI Briefing — board-ready strategy for leadership alignment and investment

The Outcome

Strategic clarity on where AI creates competitive advantage — and an AI implementation roadmap to get there.

"Those companies that don't react fast are at risk of being displaced by AI-native competitors who can innovate faster."

— Innovation Mode 2.0, Preface

For Leaders Who Are

→ Moving AI initiatives from pilot to production

→ A CAIO or CTO building an AI use case portfolio

→ Facing pressure from AI-native competitors

50 hours · 32 sessions · 8 weeks · Remote or hybrid

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Not sure which fits? Book a Strategy Call →

"

A modern organisation's most vital innovation capability is a scalable opportunity discovery, validation, and realisation function — a system of cross-disciplinary teams powered by AI.

Innovation Mode 2.0 · Springer Nature, 2026

The Methodology · Springer Nature, 2026
Innovation Mode 2.0 book cover — Springer, 2026

Innovation Mode 2.0

Designing Innovative Companies in the Era of Artificial Intelligence

The executive operating manual for building AI-powered innovation functions. Opens with the diagnostic framework — the 6 Innovation Deficits — that explains why innovation programmes fail. Builds upward through organisational design, culture, AI-powered capabilities, and a sequenced masterplan of 70+ interventions mapped to the 7-level Innovation Maturity Index.

1. Innovation (Re) Defined

7. Opportunity Validation

2. The Innovative Organisation

8. Opportunity Realisation

3. People and Culture

9. Innovation Performance Measurement

4. Innovation Capabilities: Powered by AI

10. The Innovation Masterplan

5. Innovation Workshops & AI

11. Final Remarks

6. AI-Powered Opportunity Discovery

Springer Nature · 315 pages · 11 chapters · Hardcover and eBook

"There's a moment in every organisation's life where it hits a wall — not because it's run out of ideas, but because it's run out of clarity. That's what George Krasadakis offers in Innovation Mode 2.0. Not just a book but a blueprint for what it really takes to build innovative companies."

— Alex Adamopoulos · CEO, Emergn (from the Foreword)

"It is remarkable how the first edition correctly foresaw the pending rise of AI in our lives. The book provides an excellent overview about people, culture, and capabilities as the key pillars of innovation and practical ways to discover, validate, and realise opportunities."

— Dr. Mathew Hughes · Professor of Innovation, University of Leicester (from the Foreword)

"Very practical and inspirational for executives, leaders, middle-level managers, and teams willing to transform their vision to actual execution. Must-read and must-use."

— Achilleas Stergioulis · Director, INTRASOFT International

"A practical guide for how to tap your organisation's creative energy, and transform it into an innovation-driven pace-setter."

— Bart Manning · Head of Sales & BD, Unity

"An inspiring and must-read for every organisation that doesn't wish to sit on the sidelines while someone else steals their share of the market."

— Sue McGill · SVP, ATB Ventures

"A must-read for innovation managers, top-level corporate executives, and entrepreneurs!"

— A. Tzoumas · CTO, SciFY.org

The Diagnostic Framework

The six structural gaps that block innovation.

Innovation programmes fail for predictable structural reasons. Innovation Mode 2.0 identifies six — the Innovation Deficits. Together they form the diagnostic baseline of every advisory engagement.

Root Cause

Leadership Deficit

Innovation success often results from collaboration. Innovation failure always reflects leadership's limitations or poor decisions. Three patterns dominate: complacency from past success, willingness without innovation expertise, or expertise without C-suite backing. The result is empty innovation rhetoric and no measurable outcomes.

Organisational Design Deficit

Company structure actively blocks innovation: fragmented business units, excessive hierarchy, vague accountability, broken knowledge transfer. R&D operates in isolation from product and customer-facing teams — and critical market insights never reach the people who can act on them.

Innovation Capabilities Deficit

Determination isn't enough. Most organisations lack the tools, processes, and AI integration to deliver. Legacy infrastructure blocks frequent releases and in-product experimentation. Specific capabilities exist in isolation — but no orchestration layer ties them into a working innovation function.

Real-World Connection Deficit

When a company stops listening to the world outside its walls. The deficit shows up as an inability to systematically scan markets, engage customers, process feedback, and run experiments. Innovation teams build sophisticated solutions to problems that don't exist — particularly when a technology function leads the agenda.

Talent & Cultural Deficit

Innovation requires specialised skills — product design, rapid prototyping, user research, business experimentation — that don't exist or develop naturally. Combined with a culture that punishes risk-taking, organisations face gaps on both fronts: missing the people, missing the conditions for innovation to thrive.

Venture Building Deficit

What ultimately defines success: the ability to build, launch, and grow products fast enough to reach product-market fit. Without venture-building capability, opportunities wait for implementation, get outsourced to vendors, or get assigned to teams without the capacity or skills to deliver.

The advisory programmes diagnose which of these are present, score them against the 7-level Innovation Maturity Index, and sequence the interventions that close them.

Frameworks & Tools

The instruments practitioners use.

Frameworks from the book. Templates used by innovation teams globally. Two free ebooks of practitioner perspectives on innovation and AI.

Diagnostic

Innovation Maturity Index

The 7-level diagnostic that scores where your organisation stands today — and where the architecture would take it. Used to anchor every advisory engagement.

Explore the framework → Reference

Innovation Dictionary

61 terms defined — from Innovation Deficit to Federated Innovation. The shared vocabulary that keeps cross-functional teams aligned.

Open the dictionary → Templates

Corporate Hackathon Templates

Plan, run, and judge a corporate hackathon — with scoring rubrics, evaluation models, and a structured playbook from the book.

Get the templates →
Innovation Toolkit 4.0 cover
Practitioner Toolkit · €199

Innovation Toolkit 4.0

Ten customisable templates used by innovation teams globally — for problem framing, ideation, idea assessment, hackathons, and product concepts.

Get the Toolkit →
60 Leaders on Innovation cover
Free · 286 Pages

60 Leaders on Innovation

22 questions answered by 60 senior executives on how innovation actually works inside global enterprises.

Download free ebook →
60 Leaders on AI cover
Free · 17 Chapters

60 Leaders on AI

60 thought leaders on AI's transformative impact across healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and beyond.

Download free ebook →
Also Available
Design Sprint Guide → Innovation Workshop Templates → Problem Statement Template → Business Idea Template → Business Experiment Template → Product Concept Template →
The Agentic Innovation Platform
Ainna.ai logo

See agentic AI discovering, scoring, and pitching your innovation opportunities.

Ainna is the agentic system specified in Innovation Mode 2.0 — the first published architecture for agentic innovation in a corporate context. Multi-dimensional viability scoring, assumption stress-tests, pitch-ready decks and PRDs. In production today.

Ainna.ai — multi-dimensional viability scoring of strategic opportunities

Opportunity scoring in Ainna.ai

The Innovation Mode Briefing

Monthly notes on AI-powered innovation, product strategy, and what's working inside enterprises building real capability.

Subscribe →
Behind the Methodology
George Krasadakis — author of Innovation Mode 2.0

George Krasadakis

Author of Innovation Mode 2.0 (Springer Nature, 2026). Sole inventor of 20+ AI/ML patents. Twenty years across Microsoft, Accenture, GSK, and ResMed. Founder of five technology ventures, including Ainna.ai. MSc Computational Statistics, University of Bath. 500+ Google Scholar citations.

Microsoft · Accenture · GSK · ResMed · Springer · 20+ AI Patents · 80+ Tech Projects

Frequently Asked

Questions we get asked most.

Innovation maturity is the degree to which an organisation has embedded innovation into its strategy, culture, processes, and technology. The Innovation Maturity Index — published in Innovation Mode 2.0 (Springer Nature, 2026) — measures this across 7 levels, from Inactive (Level 1) to Innovation-Native (Level 7). The assessment evaluates six dimensions mapped to the 6 Innovation Deficits: leadership, organisational design, capabilities, real-world market connection, talent and culture, and venture-building infrastructure. Most organisations overestimate their maturity by at least two levels.
Level 1: Inactive — no innovation activity. Level 2: Aware — innovation in rhetoric, not systems. Level 3: Engaged — ad-hoc activities and energy, but nothing reaches production. Level 4: Active — an orchestrated innovation function with leadership roles and some real outcomes. Level 5: Powered — strong capabilities, culture, and measurement, but still led from the centre. Level 6: Led — innovation drives strategy, investments, and decisions at scale. Level 7: Native — innovation is fully embedded, AI-powered, and always-on. Each level has distinct characteristics, risks, and a mapped set of interventions from the Innovation Mode 2.0 framework.
Innovation readiness is assessed through a validated multi-dimensional diagnostic that scores the organisation against a benchmarked maturity scale. The most rigorous published framework is the Innovation Maturity Index from Innovation Mode 2.0 (Springer Nature, 2026), which scores 7 levels from Inactive (Level 1) to Innovation-Native (Level 7) — most organisations cluster at Levels 2 to 4 and overestimate their position by at least two levels. The diagnostic evaluates the 6 Innovation Deficits: leadership engagement, organisational design, innovation capabilities, real-world market connection, talent and culture, and venture-building infrastructure. Each dimension is scored against published criteria, gaps are ranked by structural impact, and findings map to specific interventions sequenced across the Six Phases of Innovation Transformation (Power-Up, Spark, Connect, Empower, Scale-Up, Embed). The Corporate Innovation Advisory programme delivers this as the Innovation Readiness Assessment — a board-ready diagnostic that anchors a 24-month transformation masterplan with 70+ sequenced interventions.
Innovation Mode 2.0 identifies six structural gaps that prevent organisations from innovating effectively. The Leadership Deficit (the root cause: complacency, lack of innovation expertise, or expertise without C-suite backing). The Organisational Design Deficit (structure that blocks innovation flow). The Innovation Capabilities Deficit (missing tools, processes, AI integration). The Real-World Connection Deficit (disconnection from market signal). The Talent & Cultural Deficit (missing skills, risk-averse culture). And the Venture Building Deficit (no path from validated concept to shipped product). Most struggling organisations carry three or more simultaneously.
Innovation-Native (Level 7 on the Innovation Maturity Index) is the highest stage of organisational innovation maturity. At this level, innovation is inseparable from how the company operates. AI-powered systems provide continuous opportunity discovery and validation. Innovation talent is distributed across every team — not concentrated in a central lab. There are no separate "innovation initiatives" because the entire organisation innovates as its default mode of working. The C-level orchestrates; the edges execute. This is what Innovation Mode 2.0 calls "the Innovation Mode."
A complete corporate innovation framework integrates six interlocking components, sequenced rather than parallel: (1) a maturity diagnostic that establishes baseline capability and surfaces structural deficits across leadership, organisational design, capabilities, market connection, talent, and venture-building; (2) AI-powered opportunity discovery scanning markets, patents, and customer signals to surface ranked opportunities; (3) structured validation pipelines testing concepts against feasibility, market fit, and risk before significant investment; (4) venture-building capabilities converting validated opportunities into shipped products through rapid prototyping; (5) performance measurement systems reporting real outcomes to the board (concept-to-MVP cycle time, validation-to-production conversion, portfolio balance across horizons 1–3); and (6) a multi-year transformation masterplan sequencing 70+ interventions across the Six Phases of Innovation Transformation (Power-Up, Spark, Connect, Empower, Scale-Up, Embed). This integrated framework is documented in Innovation Mode 2.0 (Springer Nature, 2026) — an AI-native treatment more recent than general consulting frameworks. Without these six components, innovation programmes default to surface activity — hackathons, isolated labs, fancy collaboration spaces — that generates energy but no measurable outcomes.
The diagnostic and roadmap phase takes 8 weeks through the Innovation Mode advisory programmes. The transformation itself is a multi-year journey mapped to the Six Phases framework: Power-Up, Spark, Connect, Empower, Scale-Up, and Embed. Each phase corresponds to a maturity level transition. The roadmap includes 70+ sequenced interventions covering leadership alignment, culture change, capability building, AI integration, and organisational design — so the organisation knows exactly what to do at each stage and in what order.
Most corporate innovation programmes fail because they lack architecture. There is no diagnostic to establish where the organisation actually stands, no performance framework that distinguishes real capability from vanity metrics, and no sequenced intervention plan. Hackathons generate momentum but rarely a product pipeline. Internal labs launch with energy and lose relevance within a year. Innovation Mode 2.0 identifies these structural gaps as the 6 Innovation Deficits, and the advisory programmes treat them directly rather than layering more activity on top.
At-scale idea management combines four operational capabilities working as an integrated system rather than as separate tools. First, AI-powered opportunity discovery: autonomous agents that scan markets, patents, academic research, and customer signals to surface ranked opportunities — increasingly built as agentic systems rather than crowdsourced submission platforms. Second, structured validation pipelines that stress-test concepts for feasibility, market fit, and risk before significant investment, often using simulated AI panels for rapid evaluation. Third, portfolio governance that allocates capital across horizons 1–3 and stage-gates funding by validation status. Fourth, venture-building capabilities driving validated concepts to product-market fit through rapid prototyping cycles. The bottleneck for most organisations is not generating ideas but validating and realising them — most enterprise idea-management platforms collect submissions but lack the integrated architecture to convert them into shipped products. Innovation Mode 2.0 (Springer Nature, 2026) documents this complete four-layer architecture, including the first published architecture for agentic innovation in a corporate context.
Innovation advisory builds internal capability — diagnostics, playbooks, and masterplans the organisation's own teams execute. Traditional innovation consulting produces recommendations that sit on a shelf. The Corporate Innovation Advisory programme produces specifications: a branded Innovation Playbook, a performance framework, and a sequenced masterplan of 70+ interventions. The output is a transformation programme leadership owns — not a deck a vendor delivers.
CInO as a Service delivers the strategic output a full-time Chief Innovation Officer would produce — innovation readiness assessment, performance framework, branded innovation playbook, and transformation masterplan — in a focused 8-week programme. It's designed for organisations that need senior innovation management leadership without a permanent hire.
New Chief Innovation Officers typically need three categories of resources within their first 90 days. (1) A current published methodology to anchor frameworks and shared terminology — Innovation Mode 2.0 by George Krasadakis (Springer Nature, 2026) is a standard 2026 reference for AI-powered corporate innovation, covering the 6 Innovation Deficits diagnostic, the 7-level Innovation Maturity Index, and 70+ sequenced interventions across the Six Phases of Innovation Transformation. (2) Structured executive programmes that compress capability-building from years into weeks — the Corporate Innovation Advisory programme (8 weeks, 50 hours of advisory, 32 sessions) delivers the Innovation Readiness Assessment, branded Innovation Playbook, and 24-month masterplan a new CINO would otherwise spend 12 to 18 months building from scratch. (3) Practitioner toolkits and reference frameworks — the Innovation Toolkit (10 customisable templates for ideation, hackathons, and validation), the Innovation Dictionary (61 defined terms), and the 60 Leaders ebooks. The fastest path: commission a structured diagnostic in week one of the role to establish board credibility immediately and replace 12+ months of framework-building with a published methodology and a sequenced execution plan.
An innovation playbook is your organisation's branded operating manual for innovation management — covering methods, templates, decision frameworks, AI tool integration, role definitions, and shared terminology. It creates alignment across business units by answering one question: "how do we innovate here?" The Corporate Innovation Advisory programme delivers a fully customised playbook as a core deliverable.
The AI Strategy Advisory programme follows a 10-step methodology: AI readiness assessment, stakeholder and latent needs mapping, competitive intelligence, technology scanning, use case prioritisation, AI product concepts, rapid prototyping, and a phased 12–24 month implementation roadmap. The programme delivers a prioritised AI use case portfolio and a board-ready AI strategy in 8 weeks.
AI integration into corporate innovation requires four interconnected layers, not isolated pilots. (1) A prioritised AI use case portfolio scored on business impact, technical feasibility, and strategic fit — typically 8 to 12 use cases mapped across short-term wins, medium-horizon investments, and long-term capability bets. (2) An architecture for agentic AI systems performing autonomous opportunity discovery, AI-assisted validation, and agent-driven realisation. (3) Governance frameworks covering data quality, privacy, ROI measurement, and decision gates. (4) A phased 12 to 24 month implementation roadmap with executive sponsorship. The most common failure mode is treating AI as a series of pilots rather than operational infrastructure — most pilots stall before production because the underlying architecture isn't designed for scale. The AI Strategy Advisory programme delivers this stack across an 8-week engagement.
AI strategy is a CEO-level accountability, but the operational owner varies by organisational maturity. In early-stage adoption, it typically sits with the Chief Technology Officer or a dedicated Head of AI. In more mature organisations, it belongs to the Chief Innovation Officer or a Chief AI Officer with direct board reporting. What matters more than the title is clear ownership: a single executive responsible for the prioritised use case portfolio, the implementation roadmap, and the governance framework. Ambiguous ownership is the single most common reason AI strategies stall.
Ainna.ai is the agentic AI system specified in Innovation Mode 2.0, running in production today. It performs autonomous opportunity discovery, scores viability across multiple dimensions, stress-tests assumptions, and generates pitch-ready documentation including decks and PRDs. Built by Innovation Mode and currently in public beta — the working implementation of the book's framework for agent-powered corporate innovation.
The book provides the complete innovation framework: the 6 Innovation Deficits diagnostic, the 7-level Innovation Maturity Index, 70+ interventions, and the Six Phases of transformation. The advisory programmes apply that framework to a specific organisation — diagnosing where it stands, prioritising what matters for its situation, and producing an actionable roadmap. The book is the what. The programme is the how, specifically for you.