How to be innovative?

People and organizations pay a lot of money to learn how to bring innovation into their lives and businesses. I wonder how many of them are surprised when they learn that part of the answer is a willingness to fail. That's right! Innovation usually comes from a multitude of ideas but most of them unfortunately don't make the grade. And of the ones that do, most will eventually be discarded. For example, only 20% of new molecular innovations in the pharmaceutical industry ever get into the marketplace. There are numerous other examples of big corporations committing huge resources in the search for that elusive blockbuster product. These organizations recognize that a continuous stream of new ideas and thinking is necessary to stay competitive and to survive in today's modern business world. What unites successful innovators is a willingness to take risks.

Break the rules

It seems that the ground rules of how to be innovative are first break all the rules. People and organizations that are conservative in their thinking and unwilling to change generate few new ideas. So if you are working in a company and you want to contribute to new innovations the first thing is to get them to agree to give you some time to be freethinking and creative. Companies like Google are world renowned for giving their employees a certain amount of creative time each week. Although many ideas and suggestions will flounder, it's the small numbers that make it over many hurdles that help drive innovation.

Encourage Brainstorming/Creativity

A powerful approach to encouraging innovation is the use of brainstorming among groups of people. Any and all ideas are encouraged and captured in these lively sessions using posters, whiteboards or electronic means e.g. mind mapping software. Try to mix up the people involved so that very different viewpoints and opinions are represented. Make sure that people understand that the best results often come during follow-up sessions. But don't delay! It's important that you go from idea generation to prototype implementations as quickly as possible otherwise momentum is lost and time to market increased.

This Mindmap can be viewed here : Innovation Mind Map

Managing your Project....

There is a sting in the tail of innovation and that is how do you implement multiple ideas with limited resources? In the business world this requires very competent project management based around a series of metrics. For example, some companies might decide that 10% of this year's sales must come from innovations produced in the previous two years. Others set fixed deadlines on how long the project can run for - from innovation to market launch. This introduces discipline into how many projects can be active and sponsored by senior management at the same time.

Too Innovative????

Sometimes learning how to be innovative is not the issue especially in organizations packed with creative and bright people. These folks are simply too innovative but the problem is that their focus may be on ideas which are ahead of their time. In plain English, there is not yet a market for what they dream up! To protect against this type of innovation swamping all of the Company's time and resources, a sensible idea is to have say two thirds of innovation projects focused on existing products and markets, and the other third on future possibilities. This is called hedging your bets!