How to Form an Innovation Strategy - Scott Anthony. By Scott Anthony | 9:06 AM August 19, 2008 Companies just starting innovation efforts often begin by getting a group of people together and telling them “It’s innovation time!” I’ve never seen efforts like this succeed in meaningful ways. Instead, we suggest that companies begin innovation efforts by creating an innovation strategy that details clear targets and tactics. Clear targets help internal innovators know what they’re shooting for. Then think about the sources of growth. Next, look at what’s already in your development pipeline. Now, calculate the gap (it will almost always be a gap) between where your projections suggest you will be and where you want to be. Then think of the tactics that are on and off the table.
One way to make the tactical options tangible is to use this “Goals and Boundaries” visual (from Chapter 1 of The Innovator’s Guide to Growth). The figure (download it ) represents the “goals and boundaries” of innovation. Looking To Hire And Keep Great Innovators? Focus On The 3 Rs. The following is an excerpt from Relentless Innovation: What Works, What Doesn’t--and What That Means for Your Business by Jeffrey Phillips. Innovation relies on people more than other processes. This reliance on employees, management, and executives in an organization requires that the “right” people are attracted, and then given the appropriate tools and techniques for a sustained innovation success. Their passions and capabilities also must be ensured to align with the needs and expectations of the firm.
Let’s take a closer look at the three Rs. Recruiting The first way to transform a BAU culture to a more innovative one is to change the kind of people you hire. Innovators understand that introducing people with deep skills but with different or complementary perspectives adds value to the existing “operating model” but it also adds new emphasis to innovation skills. Recruiting new people with different cultural backgrounds and skills is relatively easy. Retraining Rewarding. What Apple’s Steve Jobs Learned in the Wilderness. But the Jobs of the mid-1980s probably never could have made Apple what it is today if he hadn’t embarked on a torment-filled business odyssey. , the chief executive of , overlooks this. In August, after the ouster of as the chief executive of , Mr. Ellison said in an e-mail to The New York Times that the H.P. board had made “the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.”
Actually, the Apple co-founder wasn’t fired. Mr. Suppose Mr. It’s hard to see how anything like that would have transpired. “I am convinced that he would not have been as successful after his return at Apple if he hadn’t gone through his wilderness experience at Next,” said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a technology consulting company. Mr. Advisers from universities told him that he should keep the price under $2,000. Mr. In this period, Mr. Next’s computer hardware and software were filled with innovations that drew a small, but devoted, following. Start-up Step 1: A Culture Plan.
I used to think that company culture happened naturally. After starting and building five companies, I've learned that great culture doesn't just happen—you need to make it happen. In general, a company's most expensive asset is its people. So it surprises me that so many companies fail to develop a culture or "people plan" to invest in and grow that asset. When I started my most recent venture, the Rubicon Project, an online marketplace for buying and selling ads, the first thing I did was create a blueprint for our culture. I talked with the founding team about the kind of organization we wanted to build and the values that we'd instill to guide our employees. We didn't start with a business plan, product roadmap, or marketing budget.
Why? Here's how to design your "people plan": 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Companies like Google, Zappos, and Southwest Airlines are famous for their cultures and attribute much of their success to it. Customer Journey Mapping Resources On The Web. Last updated: 17 September 2011Originally published: 10 May 2010 Service design can be traced back to the writings of G. Lynn Shostack in the early 80s. [1, 2] Though not new, there is a lot of talk these days about service design. In the past 5 or so years we’ve seen a service design renaissance, so to speak. Literature on service design is thin(ish), relatively speaking (i.e., compared to other disciplines like psychology), but does extend back for decades.
Service design is by nature interdisciplinary, drawing attention from people in sales, marketing, product management, product design, interaction design, and user experience. A cornerstone deliverable in service design, in general, is a map of the service process. More recently, “customer journey maps” (CJMs) have emerged, which are very similar to service blueprints. Typical elements of CJMs include: Other descriptive and contextual elements may also appear, such as quotes and photos. Bob Apollo. . * Mary Jo Bitner, Amy L. Dale Cobb. Don’t Build A Company To Sell, Build It To Last. Last June, Silicon Valley-based startup Evernote closed a round of funding. When describing its business strategy, CEO Phil Libin took a cue from The Social Network and said, "[A billion dollars isn’t cool.] You know what’s really cool? Making a hundred year company. " Wise venture capitalists salivated over the line.
The best entrepreneurs don’t build to get bought, they build for a century. Another thing happened last summer: IBM quietly became the first computer technology company to enter the “100-year club,” joining the ranks of blue chip companies like ExxonMobil, Johnson & Johnson, and General Electric. IBM established its engineering clout by building mainframes for governments and major corporations. Thomas J. Throughout its history, IBM has worked to instill this claim throughout its employees and outside its walls.
Designers often talk about the power of process in problem-solving. Why “Infographic Thinking” Is The Future, Not A Fad. We get a lot of infographic pitches. Almost all of them suck. Why? Because while they may well be "information plus graphics," they often lack what designer Francesco Franchi calls "infographic thinking. " This isn’t just "how to make some numbers and vector graphics look clever together. " It’s a narrative language--it’s "representation plus interpretation to develop an idea," to quote Franchi. Franchi issues a lot of wisdom we’ve heard before--"If we don’t have content, we can’t have design," "You have to be informative but also entertain the reader," etc.
"Infographic thinking" doesn’t let designers to interpret a narrative visually; it lets them invite the viewer [to] join in the process of interpretation, too. [via Stellar Interesting; Image: Jakub Krechowicz/Shutterstock] Is Innovation Too Messy To Be Managed And Taught? Hardly. As an innovation consultant, I found the recent Co.Design post “Do Innovation Consultants Kill Innovation?”
Troubling. Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen are right to castigate much of the innovation consulting industry, which is unfortunately full of firms that have rebranded themselves as innovation experts. Just peruse the website of any large consulting firm. Yesterday’s management, brand, or operations consultant is today’s innovation guru. The problem these consultants run into is that most of them have no ability to actually create an innovation, and so they fall back on what they really know how to do: They analyze.
The authors attack innovation processes, arguing that “the difference between success and disaster is largely defined by the selection of a good team--not by its processes.” The authors believe innovation “should be an attitude that organically runs through the culture of an organization.” Pixar is a rare exception. How Any Company Can Think Like A Startup. Common wisdom states that startups are hothouses for creativity and innovation, while large corporations are too jammed up with bureaucracy and hierarchy to push the envelope and arrive at new solutions. It’s why more and more companies are trying to “think like a startup,” some even forming smaller divisions that can operate more nimbly and loosely within the larger structure.
But is it that simple? Is simply being small and new a recipe for creative thinking, and if so, what happens when a startup gets bigger, and older (presumably everyone’s goal)? How can we define what’s working so well at the startup level, in order to cement these principles as part of a company culture that can be maintained throughout growth? My branding and design consultancy works almost exclusively with startups, but in my previous life as a brand planner at large global advertising agencies working on multinational clients, I had my share of exposure to how the “other side” operates. 1. 2. 3.
Scaling A Business Is Hard. At the onset of 2012, many start-up executives around the world are sticking their copy of Lean Start-Up on the shelf, leaning back, and bemoaning the fact that they have a new set of challenges ahead of them. Although there is a plethora of advice now being given about how to find product-market fit for your fledging start-up, there's a dirty little secret out there: Once you've achieved product-market fit, the hard work really begins. Scaling is hard.
After three or four years of jamming on your start-up, you've finally crossed a few million in revenue, gotten north of 10-20 employees, and it's all starting to click. Now the pressure really begins. Your employees start doing what I call "phantom equity math" (if this company were worth a billion dollars, I'd become a multimillionare!) Yet, the hard scaling challenges and decisions that will enable true value creation, not just interim progress, are all ahead of you. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Why should each of these decisions sound limiting?