Innovation Management
Our goal is to help you develop an end-to-end Innovation Management System (IMS) as the core framework to maximize value and minimize time.
Our approach is designed for maximum flexibility and agility. It can be applied to businesses of any type and size in any industry. It is based on agile methodologies and the ISO 5600 family of standards.
Developing your IMS is a rich transformational journey that will require you to master its four core elements - the innovation strategy (the compass), the innovation process (the vehicle), the innovation culture (the driver) and the infrastructure (the highway).
Your Innovation Management System (IMS) is the end-to-end framework that contains the blueprint for how your business creates value from innovation activities.
The core elements of an IMS are interrelated and must be aligned with your business' overall strategy.
An effective IMS implementation requires a strong commitment from top leadership to drive the new strategic direction, empower the team to execute the innovation process, address the infrastructure requirements to support it, and nurture the organizational culture to sustain it.
Depending on your Innovation Maturity Index, which defines how large the gap is between your current situation and your innovation ambition, this might be a tall order.
Our approach, services and ecosystem partners will help you along the way.
Run the four innovation sprints to develop your IMS to maximize value and minimize time.
In just a few days (5 - 10), top decision makers (CxO's/Directors/Owners) and key stakeholders engage in a series of effective and constructive discussions facilitated by our advisors to capture the collective intelligence from inside the organization, understand the internal and external business environment, explore future scenarios, define, design, decide and validate your innovation strategy.
Not for the faint-hearted. The Innovation Strategy Sprint is an adrenaline-fueled experience, aimed to get you going faster than the speed of your industry and your market.
All four sprints are designed as intense co-creation exercises to accelerate adoption and change because people support what they help build.
0 PREPARE
This is a planning session where our advisors meet with top leadership to prepare for the Innovation Strategy Sprint.
The agenda, timeframe, participants and logistics are defined in this session. It all depends on your business' Innovation Maturity Index, therefore we jointly conduct a thorough and unbiased assessment of your current situation.
1 UNDERSTAND
This is the first of the five strategy sessions where our team meets with the nominated sprint participants.
The main activities are around exploring and developing a deep understanding of the external and internal business environments. The primary forces and megatrends shaping your industry and how you currently fit in it and the market(s) you play.
2 DIVERGE
During this session, our team engages the sprint participants in a series of activities aimed to address the core elements of your innovation strategy.
Thinking as broadly as possible, participants propose hypothetical answers to five simple but thought provoking questions that will eventually define your innovation journey:
Why? What? How? Where? and Who?
3 CONVERGE
During this session, our team guides the participants through a series of activities aimed to share and explore the different answers.
Among the rich ideas and insights, participants discuss its implications, potential barriers, strengths, limitations, and articulate the core themes while leaving cognitive biases aside.
4 DECIDE
After letting your core themes marinate overnight in everyone's minds, it's time to commit and make the best decision possible.
Our Sr. advisors will guide the participants through a meta-decision process (the process for deciding how to decide), achieve consensus and draft your new innovation strategy.
5 VALIDATE
This is the final session where our team encourages the participants to challenge the proposed innovation strategy and fine tune it.
We probe for common understanding and agreement among all stakeholders until a solid framework for developing and strengthening alignment is reached, hence achieving validation.
Just like the strategy sprint, this is a 5 - 10 day commitment where top decision makers and key stakeholders engage in a series of constructive sessions facilitated by our advisors to focus on the core of your innovation management system - the innovation process.
It is the series of activities that your team executes to turn ideas into profitable and responsible innovations.
The intent is to take a deep dive into the inputs, outputs, methodologies, tools, portfolio management, metrics, and everything required to execute the innovation process according to your innovation strategy.
0 PREPARE
This is a planning session where our advisors meet with top leadership to prepare for the Innovation Process Sprint.
The agenda, timeframe, participants and logistics are defined in this session.
It is the right time to bring the team members that will champion the design, implementation and day-to-day operation of the innovation process.
1 UNDERSTAND
This is the first of the five strategy sessions where our team meets with the nominated sprint participants.
The main activities are around exploring and developing a deep understanding of how to translate the strategy into day-to-day operations: idea generation and management, internal and external collaboration, design, prototyping, testing, validating and commercialization.
2 DIVERGE
During this session, our team engages the sprint participants in a series of activities aimed to address the core elements of your innovation process.
Though a guided simulation and other supporting exercises, your team practices Design and Systems Thinking in combination with Agile methodologies to draft hypothetical versions of the innovation process that will eventually get implemented.
3 CONVERGE
During this session, our team guides the participants through a series of activities aimed to share and explore the different options.
Among the rich ideas and insights, participants discuss its implications, potential barriers, strengths, limitations, and combine the best features to propose a final version.
4 DECIDE
During this session, participants make the best possible decision based on the different scenarios explored.
Our team guides the participants thought the decision making process until consensus is achieved.
5 VALIDATE
This is the final session where our team encourages the participants to challenge the proposed innovation strategy and fine tune it.
We probe for common understanding and agreement among all stakeholders until a solid framework for developing and strengthening alignment is reached, hence achieving validation.
This is the third, and typically the most emotion-loaded sprint. Also compacted in 5 - 10 days, top decision makers engage in a series of effective and constructive discussions facilitated by our advisors to address your innovation culture.
Nurturing a successful culture of innovation is widely regarded as one of the hardest leadership challenges of our times. It presents an organizational paradox with unique elements that are frequently considered contradictory, and even undesirable in other successful organizations.
The intent is to assess and understand all the explicit and tacit elements, decide, and validate a roadmap to nurture an innovation culture that sustains the innovation process.
0 PREPARE
This is a planning session where our advisors meet with top leadership to prepare for the Innovation Culture Sprint.
The agenda, timeframe, participants and logistics are defined in this session.
The key question to prepare for the sprint sessions is: How can we nurture the innovation culture for maximum performance?
1 UNDERSTAND
This is the first of the five strategy sessions where our team meets with the nominated sprint participants.
The main activities are around exploring and developing a deep understanding of the prevailing attitudes, behaviors, explicit and tacit elements that define your current organizational culture.
From governance, structures, policies and leadership styles, to how people work together.
2 DIVERGE
During this session, our team engages the sprint participants in a series of activities aimed to design the core elements of your innovation culture.
Thinking as broadly as possible, participants propose hypothetical solutions to the following questions:
How to establish a safe space for candid expression and experimentation?
What are the changes in expectations, metrics, rewards, structure, and roles?
3 CONVERGE
During this session, our team guides the participants through a series of activities aimed to share and explore the different answers.
Among all the rich ideas, participants discuss its implications, potential barriers, strengths, and aggregate the core elements to form the solution set that makes more sense.
4 DECIDE
After letting sit overnight in everyone's minds, it's time to commit and make the best decision possible.
Our Sr. advisors will guide the participants through a meta-decision process (the process for deciding how to decide), achieve consensus and draft your new innovation culture roadmap.
5 VALIDATE
This is the final session where our team encourages the participants to challenge the proposed innovation culture and fine tune it.
We probe for common understanding and agreement among all stakeholders until a solid framework for developing and strengthening alignment is reached, hence achieving validation.
This is also a 5 - 10 day commitment where top decision makers engage in a series of effective and constructive discussions facilitated by our advisors to address your innovation infrastructure.
By now, you have a winning strategy, an efficient process, and a team of leaders and champions ready to change the world. How about the infrastructure that will support it all?
The intent is now to take a deep dive into the required infrastructure elements that will enable your end-to-end Innovation Management System.
Everything from the internal and external physical and virtual workplaces, the collaboration tools, idea management, open innovation management, knowledge management, intellectual property, legal, and commercialization systems.
0 PREPARE
This is a planning session where our advisors meet with top leadership to prepare for the Innovation infrastructure Sprint.
The agenda, timeframe, participants and logistics are defined in this session.
It is time to think about how the innovation process and its intrinsic creative engine can be more efficient by the use of empowering infrastructure.
1 UNDERSTAND
This is the first of the five strategy sessions where our team meets with the nominated sprint participants.
The main activities are around exploring and developing a deep understanding of the existing infrastructure elements and how they compare to an ideal infrastructure that supports the day-to-day operations and the innovation strategy.
2 DIVERGE
During this session, our team engages the sprint participants in a series of activities aimed to address the core elements of your innovation strategy.
Thinking as broadly as possible, participants propose hypothetical answers to questions like:
Are the physical and virtual places conducive to carry out the innovation activities?
3 CONVERGE
During this session, our team guides the participants through a series of activities aimed to share and explore the different answers.
Participants discuss its implications, potential barriers, strengths, and articulate the core elements that make up the best possible solution.
4 DECIDE
After everyone had the chance to let the proposed solution sink in overnight, it's time to make the best decision possible.
Our Sr. advisors will guide the participants through the decision making process until achieving consensus.
5 VALIDATE
This is the final session where our team encourages the participants to challenge the proposed solution and fine tune it.
We probe for common understanding and agreement until a solid framework for developing and strengthening alignment is reached, hence achieving validation.
Wrap-up session
Now you have gone through all the core elements of your Innovation Management System (IMS). Congratulations! This is the first big step towards realizing your vision, but the real work has just begun.
We get together for a final session to digest everything and develop valuable insights that will prepare you to execute all the follow up activities more effectively.
Keep in mind that spaced-repetition techniques are the best way to learn anything. The format of these agile methodologies, techniques and tools you've just went through during the sprints are designed to maximize output in minimum time, but like anything requiring mastery, you would need to run several iterations of these and more advanced innovation sprints as you increase your Innovation Maturity Index.
