Innovating takes teamwork. Properly selected teams using a facilitated systematic method will outperform ad hoc teams using divergent, less structured methods such as brainstorming. How do you create the โdream teamโ for an innovation project? There are three key factors: team roles, diversity, and processes.
Roles
A carefully selected team for innovation will have specific roles that can make or break it, not just during the innovation sessions, but afterward too. The most essential role, not surprising, is the leader. The team โcaptainโ is the one who gives momentum and direction to a team in terms of where it will innovate. Here is the catch. The team leader must be a full participant in the innovation workshops. The leader cannot be an occasional, part time member who surfs in and out while attending other business. That shows a lack of commitment. The leader misses opportunities to reward team members and misses the sense of team direction and excitement around new ideas. The leader also plays an essential role of being the โbrakesโof the group โ stopping ideas that he or she knows do not fit the vision of the franchise or company. This prevents teams from wasting time on weak ideas so they can channel their ideation in more productive areas.
People often ask when is the best time to innovate: early in the pipeline process, middle, or late. Teams tend to resist innovation late in the process when they are busy launching a new product. Teams tend to resist innovating in the middle of the NPD process because they are too busy developing the next generation product. Teams tend to resist innovating early in the process because they are too busy developing franchise strategy.
So when is the best time to innovate? Anytime.
Early in the process, you need innovation to develop a large stock of potential novel product ideas. Tie these early ideas to your franchise marketing strategy. This makes your strategy more robust and believable.
Early in the process, you need innovation to trigger modifications or enhancements to the product now in development. This gives you potential differentiating features that you can still build into the new product.
Late in the process, you need new concepts just when launching a new product to show your company and your customers that you have a sustainable pipeline of ideas behind you. This gives you credibility.
Innovating is like putting in golf. Never leave yourself short.
Katie Konrath has the right idea when she tackles this question, โCan you make me be more creative?โ
Yesterday, I was talking with a couple friends when one asked two of my favorite questions. โWhat happens when someone canโt think of any ideas? You canโt force them to be more creative, right?โ I rubbed my hands together, thrilled at the challenge that was coming. Actually, I can.
Her approach is to combine ideas and concepts that seem pretty silly at first, but then she mentally forces these constructs to have some sort of value or purpose. This, in essence, is a systematic approach to innovating that can be trained and repeated.
The key to becoming extremely effective at innovation is to learn all the tools and templates that help create an initial, undefined construct, or what innovation researchers call โthe pre-inventive form.โ This ability to apply a template, then find a useful purpose for the for what comes out of that template is what allows one to innovate on demand. Templates โmakeโ people innovate.
Katieโs also recognizes the value of involving many people in the use of innovation templates. Innovation is a team sport. Diverse, cross-functional teams using a facilitated process can overcome the inherent challenges people face when when innovating.