How (and why) to boost your corporate innovation process in times of crisis
I recently had the pleasure to speak to RGI in their first online Innovation Summit, where I shared my thoughts on ‘managing innovation in times of crisis’. Here are the summary points.
Why invest in innovation during times of crisis?
1. To increase your opportunity discovery bandwidth. The world is changing rapidly and the ability to spot high-potential innovation opportunities, early enough, becomes a survival trait for businesses.
2. To improve the ‘state of mind’ of your company. Innovation can strengthen the connection among employees and teams, it can fix the morale, the shared attitude.
The key elements and actors for corporate innovation process during lockdown.
How to empower the innovation process in times of crisis?
1. Make the innovation process more ‘available’. Provide all the innovation resources via digital means; make your innovation channel always on.
2. Make the innovation process more ‘flexible’. Remove bureaucracies; Make your corporate innovation process simpler, faster, and asynchronous.
3. Ensure your innovation process is ‘purposeful’. Connect innovation with the purpose of your organization; innovate with a purpose.
4. Increase the ‘bandwidth’ of your innovation process. Enable the company to spot and evaluate more innovation opportunities, faster.
But how to drive the above improvements?
1. Reflect your innovation process through a digital home for innovation: The Innovation Portal.
Present the Innovation process, the context, and the innovation Calendar. Your purpose, big problems, and ideas along with a timeline for your innovation activities and plans.
Provide a digital toolkit for your corporate innovation process. Innovation tools, templates, and services that empower people to innovate with digital means — while working remotely.
Diffuse Innovation Knowledge. The output of your innovation process, along with training material, innovation stories, and a ‘Gateway’ to the ‘community of innovators
Provide Access to Innovation Assets. A demo space for innovation artifacts — where people can discover innovation deliverables — prototypes, designs, case studies, experiments - all the innovation assets you produce in your innovation process.
Check also: The Innovation Culture Defined: What it is and How to Develop it.
2. Emphasize the innovation message: Innovation is the means to achieve a bold purpose
Review your innovation purpose. Ensure that your purpose is still relevant; re-frame it as needed to reflect the new order of things. Adjust your innovation process.
Communicate the purpose. Explain how your innovation program and your flexible innovation process can help to better serve this purpose.
Set the Innovation Agenda. Create the Corporate Innovation Agenda — the focus areas for innovation and how they are linked to the organizational purpose; along with problems worth solving and high-potential ideas waiting for further exploration. Make it the cornerstone of your innovation process.
3. Establish a stream of problems worth-solving
Adjust your innovation process to handle problem submissions: Innovation is not (only) about ideas. Adjust your innovation process to also welcome ‘problems worth solving. Invite people to innovate, also by submitting problem statements; Add ‘problem submission’ to the innovation gamification scheme
Handle ‘Problems’ as ‘innovation assets’. Expand your innovation process to allow regular evaluation and prioritization of problems — based on their importance and relevance to your innovation strategy.
Establish a Backlog of Problems. Make the problem backlog visible via the Innovation Portal — an ongoing ‘call to innovate’ where people can discover important, prioritized problems that need great solutions.
4. Establish an always-on ideas channel
Make Idea Submission ‘always-on, accessible by all’. Make your ideation process available to all, at any time: Encourage people to share any idea, in or out of context. Ensure there is a prompt and meaningful response.
Make it Self-Service. Introduce a simple ideation process > submit & discover ideas through the Innovation Portal. Initiate ‘Lightweight Hackathons’ and ideation sessions. Simplify and streamline not only ideation but your entire innovation process.
A model for ideas. Provide innovation templates - for ideas, problems, product concepts: Help people articulate their ideas, or product concepts and features. Provide ideation event templates: Standardize the ‘idea generation events’- e.g. brainstorming. Help people organize ideation events remotely, using digital means.
5. Establish an always-on opportunity discovery panel.
Perform regular reviews — evaluate problems and ideas. Establish a regular review program as part of your innovation process: a panel with the right experts, to evaluate and prioritize problems and ideas; based on objective criteria. The goal is to provide the tools to spot more high-potential ideas, faster.
Set up an action plan - incorporate it into your innovation process. A high-potential idea; then what? The team must be able to trigger the right process and forward ideas to the right teams/ stakeholders to take action, immediately.
Educate your innovators. Adopt an educational attitude: Provide constructive feedback to innovators; act as innovation mentors. Ensure that the innovation process is visible and fully understood. Reflect your innovation process through a simple innovation playbook.
Check also our unique Innovation Toolkit - a collection of seven innovation templates that empower teams to frame problems, shape ideas, run hackathons and more.
