It's that time of the year again. Dan and his senior management team are at their annual strategic business meeting. They're feeling pretty good having just come off of a few years of success. As they get into the their planning discussion, a sinking feeling starts to come over the team. Where's the 2008, 2009, 2010 growth going to come from? Do they have enough in the pipeline? Has success inadvertently led them into the danger zone? Have they taken their eye off the "innovation ball?"
Hit it out of the park, by infusing an innovation culture into your organization. Below is a Part I excerpt of the "LEADING INNOVATION Question Bank" covering process (based on SolutionPeople's Accelerated Innovation Process) and designed for leaders who want to enable, inspire and drive innovation. Stay tuned for excerpts from Parts II & III covering the other aspects of culture such as strategy, communication, reward & recognition, structure, learning & development, and work environment.
LEAD-to-INVESTIGATE
- What mechanisms, processes & methods are we using to determine what is needed, wanted or wished by our customers?
- What percent of our strategy should be focused on incremental innovation versus breakthrough innovation?
- How should we fund, resource and organize our innovation strategy?
LEAD-to-CREATE
- How might we collaborate with customers, suppliers, partners, employees, academia, or competitors?
- How might we form whole-brain teams for diversity of thought?
- What innovation tools might we provide?
LEAD-to-EVALUATE
- How could we evaluate ideas, prototypes, and concepts?
- Who could be on the evaluation team?
- How could we nurture ideas, but know when to stop developing them if necessary?
LEAD-to-ACTIVATE
- What internal and external networks must be created & leveraged to bring our product or service to the desired market?
- Who from the "investigate, create or evaluation team" must be included?
- What roadblocks must I, as a leader, work to eliminate?
Corinne Miller - Innovation Consultant, Facilitator, Trainer & Coach at SolutionPeople
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