Building a Competency in Innovation
Tony Ulwick
Jan 20, 2011
By Strategyn CEO Tony Ulwick
The innovation process is central to everything that a company does. But despite its importance, most companies’ innovation report cards are no better now than they were 20 years ago. As a result, executives are searching harder than ever for more effective ways of improving their returns on innovation efforts. The ultimate goal in many companies is to build a competency in innovation.
To lead this charge, CEOs have established high-level innovation program teams and tasked them with finding ways to become more proficient at innovation; they have appointed chief innovation officers, vice presidents and czar’s of innovation. Regardless of their title, these innovation managers are typically responsible for four very important tasks. They must:
- Locate or create a highly effective innovation process and practices,
- Convince senior managers and others to adopt that process and all the practices and language that it requires,
- Teach workers how to execute the selected innovation process, and
- Install the infrastructure that makes that process part of the organization’s operating DNA.
We have been working to advance innovation as a business process for nearly two decades and have concentrated specifically on these four tasks. As a result, we have developed a set of ideas and frameworks that managers can follow to ensure that they adopt and institutionalize an effective innovation program. This article highlights key elements of our thinking for each of the four tasks.
