Succeed Methodically
Success without methodology is just luck. Success in an ever-changing competitive world requires both that the company knows itself and its competitors well and that it has a good methodology:
- For determining the right things to be done, in the context of what the company wants to achieve, preparing the company and selecting what are the most important things to be done right away;
- For doing those things in the right ways, with the necessary and sufficient means for success, methodically and efficiently, evaluating and adjusting as necessary; and
- For learning – from both success and failure - and adjusting as the company and its markets progress along.
The basic stages of an effective business innovation methodology are:
- 0. WHY it is important to pursue business innovation seriously;
- 1. WHO is the company, what is its mission and values, what works and does not in matters of its practices;
- 2. WHERE is the company positioned in the market, its business models and its critical competitive imperatives;
- 3. WHICH of the many opportunities to innovate should the company pursue and what funding and resources are necessary and sufficient to succeed on the priority activities;
- 4. HOW to organize a corporate innovation investment portfolio with an appropriate metric score-card and comprising the chosen innovation projects with their budgets, plans, responsibilities and specific metrics;
- 5. GO&DO execute each of the portfolio projects properly;
- 6. WHAT is the evaluation of the corporate innovation portfolio results at appropriately short time intervals in order to make timely adjustments (including failing or enhancing some of the projects), extract and communicate valuable learning and continuing the process; plus undertaking in parallel throughout the entire process the nourishment and development of the
- 7. WE, the collective “we of the company”, its culture and its organizational structure.
The first three stages (WHO, WHERE and WHICH) address the determination of the right tings to do, while the following three stages (HOW, GO DO and WHAT) cover the doing right of the important things. As for the WE stage, it addresses the building of capabilities that are necessary to be developed in the right ways for the future.
In summary, the fundamental issue affecting business innovation success is the company’s leadership that needs to nurture a culture of entrepreneurship and pursue innovation comprehensively, competitively and methodically with the right metrics to ensure value.
