Innovation Implementation

Innovation In Action

Innovation is "something different that creates value". It isn't the job of the few, it's the responsibility of the many.

• Identify innovation opportunities: generate fresh ideas or looking at problems from new perspectives.
• Prioritize potential innovations: After generating ideas, select the most promising solutions and come up with hypotheses to test.
• Design innovation experiments: experimenting with the proposed solutions in the real world.
• Build support for innovation: identify and win over key stakeholders, users, and team members
• Learn from success and failure: It’s not enough to innovate once. By reflecting after each project, you’ll build your skills for the next time.

Identify Innovation Opportunities

"Something different" doesn't need to be earth-shattering or new. What can you use from "off-the-self" to create something new? What can you combine in a new way? What can you do differently?

Don't trust ideas. Challenge and explore them. Cast a wide net (idea fishing):

• Observe: watch customers in action
• Question: ask "why" and "what if"
• Explore: visit new places and new things
• Network: talk to people of varied backgrounds and perspectives

Connect and reconnect your ideas as dots, remember ABCD (always be connecting dots). Connect the same dots over and over, in different ways. Don't jump straight to brainstorming solutions, explore the problem. Go beyond the obvious (something we are notoriously bad at). Try to understand what exactly are the jobs to be done.

Multiply your problems: creative solutions come from alternative definitions of the problem. Think about elevators: all the music, mirrors, coffee kiosks, notice boards distract you from the reality of how slow they are (instead of a new faster elevator).

Prioritize Potential Innovations

You can't pursue every potential, not even close. Make smart decisions, seek clarity, and especially figure out how you will test. Sort, combine, improve, and fine-tune your solutions. Encourage your team to participate and provide input, use questions to prompt discussion.

Then, decide on the highest priorities. Maximize impact (outcomes), and minimize effort (risk). Think of the following matrix:

	Low Effort	High Effort
High Impact	Easy Win	Bold Move
Low Impact	Incremental Change	Time Waster

• Easy Wins: Ideas that you should probably act on immediately. Why haven’t we already done this?
• Incremental Changes: Ideas that are easy to execute but may not be worth the effort. Is it worth our time?
• Time Wasters: Ideas that are probably a waste of resources. Why would we consider this?
• Bold Moves: Ideas that seem difficult to implement but might provide significant benefits. Can we reach the same impact with less effort?

Make your assumptions transparent, like your users, use-cases, when and where, the most important features, biggest risks, how it affects others. Assumptions are often unspoken, may not be true, and are sometimes conflicting. Surface then test your assumptions.

Frame your hypotheses: a testable idea is better than a good idea. Hypotheses are testable, give you a chance to prove or disprove your assumptions, may send you back to the drawing board, require little risk or investment, and you’ll always learn something new.

Design Innovation Experiments

A hypothesis is a theory about how your innovation will solve a problem. It’s based on assumptions about the challenge and about users’ responses to your proposed solution. Experiments can be small and inexpensive, even paper prototypes.

Define core hypotheses, assumptions, and key success criteria for your experiments. Design the experiment, using the most effective format, the right test subjects in the right amount/environment, what data you will collect (qualitative, quantitative, beware of confirmation bias), and how it will be run. Refine, and test again, and again. Test to improve rather than to prove. At the end, either launch or end the project and focus elsewhere.

Build Support for Innovation

Consider who can help you: decision makers, partners, champions, and users. Plan carefully before you pitch. Understand what you need from each person, what's on their radar (do your homework), and how you can frame your idea. Remember to manage up.

Engage with your genuine and authentic personality, your own brand. Find the courage to share your convictions. Remember to listen (ask for advice), and communicate the win-win. Invite people to reality-check you, tell a story, and think of key questions to ask.

Learn from Success and Failure

Remember that the goal is to innovate better, so it requires reflecting. If at first you don't succeed, try again. Look back, move forward.

When reflecting, understand what you will sustain, what will you improve, and what you will discard moving forward.

• Keep the focus on learning: be honest and avoid judgment or becoming defensive
• Look at the whole picture: Include a variety of perspectives. As much as possible, rely on data, not opinions.
• Get to the bottom of things: Use tools like Toyota’s 5-Whys to help you dive into what caused a particular problem or led to a solution. Get closer to the root cause.
• Think about improvements: Imagine how you would do things differently the next time.

Finally, remember to also learn from your successes.