I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
Rudyard Kipling (1902)
Here is a simple template to create your company’s innovation strategy:
- WHAT:
- Determine what business lines are to be innovated.
- Determine what products or services within those business lines need innovation.
- Establish a portfolio model that compares innovation output from one business line to another.
- Rank order business lines based on the strength of their innovation portfolio pipelines.
- WHY:
- Determine how much innovation is needed. Use a tool like Map-the-Gap.
- Tie innovation to a strategy framework such as The Big Picture.
- Focus innovation exercises to link directly to the strategy framework.
- Use the framework to identify market adjacencies.
- WHEN:
- Schedule innovation workshops at the front end of the business cycle to help determine what projects will get funding in the next budget cycle.
- Schedule innovation workshops after the planning cycle to jump-start new initiatives for the upcoming year.
- HOW:
- Choose specific methods of innovation to be used based on efficacy and results.
- Combine different methods to leverage the strengths of each.
- Integrate the methods by using the output of one as inputs for the others.
- WHERE:
- Set aside space with the specific purpose of conducting innovation workshops.
- WHO:
- Form innovation “dream teams” to maximize the success of innovation efforts.
- Schedule training on how to use innovation methods.
- Examine the company’s innovation culture to diagnose where it is weak.
- Establish an innovation competency model.
- Designate and empower commercial leaders to drive innovation efforts.