Who says innovation is just for start-ups? Michael Millar explains how you can develop the next big thing in places where innovation may not be a priority.
Trying to drive innovation in a corporate environment is a mixed blessing.
There is (in theory) access to expertise and budget and support structures.
But what’s that coming over the hill? Oh no, it’s the Corporate Bureaucracy Monster!
It has talons made of procurement, fists toughened by legacy IT systems, many corporate silos for tails, and the blazing eyes of executive politicking.
I’ve done battle with this beast in some of the biggest firms in the world. Here are my six steps to subduing it…
1. Back yourself
Before you do anything else, take a look in the mirror and recognise you’re the one to change the world in your own little way.
It’s very easy to think successful innovation is the domain of people blessed with genius, good timing, and loads of luck.
In most cases it is nothing of the sort.
Successful innovation comes from finding a new way to solve a problem or meet a need, creating value for your customers, and improving the bottom line.
And make no mistake, if you’ve spotted a problem or opportunity, there’s no better person to get stuck into it than you.
It is your experience – your immersion in your area of expertise – that has brought this opportunity to light.
It is your understanding of customer needs, trends, inefficient processes, and/or shifting marketplaces that puts you in pole position to update a product or create a whole new service.
You. You. You.
As such, you are the ideal person to drive innovation. So, back yourself. (And remember, if you don’t, how can you expect anyone else to take a gamble on you?)
2. Build support
You can’t battle the Corporate Bureaucracy Monster all by yourself. You’ve got to get the right colleagues on your side if you are going to drive corporate innovation.
Here’s how I’d recommend you do that quickly and effectively:
- Put together a list of core stakeholders that you’ll need to involve to obtain the buy-in and support you need. Obvious candidates for this are the product owner, your manager, the budget holder, and friendly clients/customers (for validation)
- Once you have that shortlist, create a longer list covering everyone who could help or hinder you within your organisation. Do this by dividing them into four groups of people who would be involved in the delivery of your project:
- Those that are / would be responsible for actions and outcomes
- Those ultimately accountable for those outcomes
- Those who you’ll want to consult due to their expertise or place in the hierarchy
- The people you’ll need to keep informed along the way, so they aren’t out of the loop
- When you know who those people are, put yourself in their shoes, asking what they want and how your idea would benefit them. This will allow you to tell a story and pitch your ideas in a way they will understand. There is simply no more powerful way to sell an idea than telling people what’s in it for them – both in terms of the benefits they’ll get and the risks they’ll avoid
If you take these steps early on – combining what’s important to your audience and what you need from them – you’ll save you a lot of time and stress later on.
Make quick, effective gains by stripping your idea back
Michael Millar
3. Overcome intertia
Unless you’re very lucky, you’ll be pushing innovation on top of everything else you’re already working on – and you’ll be doing it with less money than you need.
On top of that, when it comes to IT and tech, most big firms focus their resources on just keeping the lights on. Opportunity suffers at the hands of the daily grind.
This means you’ve got to make the best use of the time and resources available to make rapid progress.
To get off to the best start, take the data and insight you have, workshop ideas with key stakeholders, and quickly create a basic prototype.
Doing this will allow you to make quick, effective gains by stripping your idea back, clearly focusing on a core customer journey, and getting to a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) fast.
You will also better engage with your stakeholders and demonstrate early progress – both crucial to keeping the right people interested and on-side.
I simply cannot stress enough the benefit of quick wins.
And there’s no escaping that we’re pushing our 5-Day Prototype as a solution here, and we make no apologies for that.
It is the ultimate antidote to inertia. There is simply no better way to bring ideas to life and get momentum behind you.
4. Encourage creativity in others
If you’re in a leadership position, do whatever you can to foster a culture of corporate innovation within your organisation. (If you’re not, show your leaders this article and tell them Smpl – a company founded and run by some wildly successful entrepreneurs – sent you.)
Create systems that encourage anyone to suggest new ideas. Then build the processes to facilitate quick, cheap experiments to validate those ideas (again, workshops and fast prototypes will be crucial to this).
You don’t need to spend lots of money (although wouldn’t it be nice to have something like Google X or Disney Accelerator?) I’m talking about creating spaces and forums where people can have the autonomy to:
- act like entrepreneurs
- connect with the support they need
- test their theories
You’ll quickly find there’s nothing like a sense of control over destiny and connection to a purpose, to inspire colleagues to innovate.
5. Manage over-enthusiastic leaders
As discussed, getting quick wins and momentum can be crucial.
But some firms have leaders who try too hard to innovate. They are positively brimming with momentum.
They have an idea that they just know has a billion pound/dollar/euro market that is waiting, chewing its fingernails in suspence, for the day this wonder service is released.
And now they are keen to impose the duty for delivering this fabulous innovation on you.
When you ask them how they know what a success this Big Idea will be, they just do.
Of course, you can’t just say, ‘No, sod off’. But charging headlong into projects like this can be equally career limiting.
Not only could it be a very expensive mistake, but your Dear Leader will lose interest when it doesn’t come off.
And you can be sure they won’t be left carrying the can for the cost and the time wasted. This will, in turn, make justifiying future innovation even more difficult.
The key here is to embrace their enthusiasm and put a system in place to test their idea. This way you are performing an objective validation, not judging them or taking a side.
Vibeke Lavik Bjaanes, Innovation Manager at SR-Bank, one of Scandinavia’s biggest banks, set out her in-depth innovation validation process for us here.
In a nutshell that process is:
- Generate ideas
- Evaluate ideas
- Score ideas
- Test viability
- Create an MVP
- Scale and hand over to product owner
Again, we cannot recommend our 5-Day Prototype enough, particularly for getting the testing of ideas and winning stakeholder buy-in. Here’s Vibeke talking about why that works:
6. And finally …find the right partners
There’s a very good chance you’ll need to find someone external to your organisation to bring your idea to life.
Getting the right partner is crucial. Here some key questions you should be asking yourself:
- What track record do they have? (This doesn’t need to be in your industry, but rather in terms of navigating complex systems and finding innovative solutions )
- Do they have the expertise across the whole design & development process? (Working between different companies/agencies can get disjointed, confusing, and stressful very quickly)
- How do they charge? (Be wary of ‘time spent’ models. They encourage delay and high costs as firms spend as many hours as possible on your project)
- Who exactly will own and run your project on their side? (All-too-often you will be pitched the A-team, while inexperienced staff deliver your project)
- What are their response times? (There’s nothing worse than asking questions and being met by deafening silence for days at a time)
Before you go, check out what it’s like to work with us, courtesy of the fantastic Vibeke from SR-Bank:
