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As innovation teams head off to the beach for their holiday breaks, it might be a good to time to reflect on some of the steps that any organisation can take to create a stronger culture for winning innovation.
This month's blog post provides an update on some of the practical measures that organisations can implement to change culture on a day to day basis. For example, creating the right environment that fosters greater risk taking; encouraging teams to think more like "start-ups" by exploring new ideas that go beyond the short-term; or simply encouraging people to use different creative thinking techniques to solve everyday problems.
The steps listed below are based on the latest results from an ongoing survey with our Zip-Zap Ideas® online collaboration platform, a tool that we use with leading brands to generate, refine and identify a pipeline of stronger insights, claims and concepts.
1. Use Smart Online Innovation Tools for Wider Collaboration
Rising to the top over the past 24 months is the trend by leading innovators to embrace new technologies that will strengthen and support “front-end innovation” activities. For example, the use of AI platforms or online tools to gather fresh insights; or online idea sharing platforms that maximise the “power of minds” with collaboration across more diverse teams. Our contribution to this space started in 2008 with our virtualHOTHOUSE® platform. This was superseded in 2020 with the launch of Zip-Zap Ideas®, a powerful online collaboration tool that is transforming the way teams share and create new ideas linked to a specific business challenge.
2. Setting Clear and Focused Goals for Innovation
A new measure that has emerged on our survey in the past 12 months is the importance of setting clear goals for innovation, with the right innovation focus. One of our contributors shared a paradoxical truth: goals must be clear enough to align team members, and also loose enough that team members have autonomy in how to reach those goals. Our most successful innovation projects start with an objective that not only provides a clear strategic focus, but that also inspires the innovation team with a direction and insights that encourage deeper creative thinking. Take a look at a blog post from September 2022 on how to define the focus for winning innovation.
3. Feedback That is Frequent and Constructive
Winning innovation rarely happens with a single Eureka moment. Instead it comes from a series of small observations, re-combinations of ideas and mini experiments that give us fast feedback, allowing us to adapt. This process of feedback and adaptation is one of four steps: Design, Build, Run, Analyze. Then start over. In large projects the cycle can occur thousands of times. It is vital that organisations look to embrace this culture but in a way that doesn't stifle change. In our experience, getting fast feedback from target customers to early ideas helps to provide this direction is a vital step in helping to guide the innovation process.
4. Encourage a Culture to Test and Learn
Closely linked to the step above, successful innovators have a continuous “test and learn” mind-set, with a culture to always learn and “try new things”. With some companies, such as Procter and Gamble, this is embedded into their annual business planning process, with every brand team having to present their “annual learning plan”. On day-to-day projects, the best teams we work with regularly develop and test new concepts, with good benchmarks in place to assess the true potential of a new ideas. For any business to survive, it is vital to have an open mind to learning.
5. Creativity Training and New Thinking Techniques
Running regular training provides another practical way of embedding a new culture of innovation within an organisation. One approach is to create an internal cadre of internal “innovation champions” who can help effect change on a daily basis. For example, with new skills and creative facilitation techniques to encourage different ways of thinking and to lead internal workshop sessions in a different way. Over the years we have run a creative facilitation training program called Hothouse Champions seeks to train and inspire a team of innovation disciples that includes "into the danger zone thinking".
6. Create The Right Structure for Innovation
Our experience is that non-hierarchical and “flat” organisations are often the most creative and innovative. Innovative organisations encourage debate, challenge and risk taking at all levels. They also have people and functions in place with clear responsibility for thinking about the long-term pipeline of new products and new services (and who are not judged by short term business results). For example, the creation of global “innovation speed teams” is something that we see with many of the successful companies who we work with.
7. Keeping Tracking Consumer Trends and Competitive Activity
The most innovative organisations we work with have smart people in place who take the time to truly understand the deeper needs of their customers and consumers. They also look to use agile techniques to quickly gather insights and trends that can inspire new thinking. This work is normally combined with a passion to understand the business impact of relevant market trends and broader “mega trends”. Conducting regular reviews of direct and indirect competition is also a fundamental step in identifying future gaps that an organisation can look to exploit.
8. Run Regular Innovation Workshop Sessions
In our surveys, most people say that running regular and well-run innovation workshops, with clear objectives and a good facilitator, provides energy and focus for new thinking. For example, we run 1-2 day Hothouse™ workshops where we use a variety of creative facilitation techniques to generate a wide range of ideas, with optional support from artists and creative agents. Leading ideas are then refined with immediate feedback from key stakeholders or creative-thinking agents. All our workshops are run using Zip-Zap Ideas®, an online platform that is used to capture, refine and evaluate early ideas, including the option for online evaluation with target customers and consumers.
Other Factors to Consider
In addition to the ideas listed above, there are many other small and practical steps that can be taken to drive a change in innovation culture. For example, changing the layout of the working environment can have a huge impact e.g. open plan but with “thinking and creativity zones”. Other techniques include a rewards scheme to encourage innovative behaviour including patent submissions; idea competitions with global teams; or regular sharing of new ideas and trends at business team level.