Innovation, innovation, innovation
Innovation, innovation, innovation – how often do we hear this word these days. Important to make it tangible. This article provides insights into how to consider implementation of innovation within your organization. Innovation takes time and discipline – it is not an easy fix but needs to be embedded into a Company’s DNA.
A New Model to Start Innovation
The start of innovation is described by Wikipedia as the messy getting started period of a new product development process. It is in the front end where the organization formulates a concept of the product or service to be developed and decides whether or not to invest resources in the further development of an idea [i]. The ‘front end’ is the informal start of innovation and defined as “fuzzy” by many due to its lack of process and structure. Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt and Birgit Verworn state on this: “Within the innovation process, we believe, the early phases (“fuzzy front end”) to have the highest impact on the whole process and the result, since it will influence the design and total costs of the innovation extremely. However, the “Fuzzy Front End” is unfortunately the least well-structured part of the innovation process, both in theory and in practice.”
15 obstacles are hindering innovation at its start
As speaker on innovation I have been traveling around the world meeting innovators, managers and CEOs in different cultures: from Canada to Cape Town; and from Turkey to Tokyo. I start my workshops asking them the direct question, “What are your main struggles at the start of innovation?” From all these workshops I identified fifteen obstacles which may block you during the fuzzy front end along the path towards a successful new business case:
- Unclear strategy
- No priority for innovation
- No market need
- No insights or inspiration
- No time
- Lack of resources
- No internal support
- Politics
- Insufficient skills
- Fear of failure
- No fit
- Too slow
- Not feasible
- No business model
- Not original