Innovation is not bound by a set of rules and regulations. Like every innovator, you also have your own thought process and system of work. However, getting a bit of inspiration from your peers goes a long way in improving your own processes. That’s why we spoke to entrepreneurs, founders, innovators, managers in our circles to gather 5 best practices for innovation managers like yourself to drive better results.
Explore 5 Best Practices for Innovation Managers
1. Emphasize Continuous Improvement
When you are working in an innovation team, you need to improve yourself every day. Innovation does not happen out of the blue, it is the amalgamation of these small improvements.
So, the first thing you need to do as the team leader is to analyze your department’s current state and identify the areas with room for improvement. The next step is to set a plan — sort out how to improve and allocate a time budget for it. While focussing on continuous improvement, you may not notice drastic changes in say just a month. But the long-term results may actually surprise you!
Whether it’s regular brainstorming sessions, sprint weeks, or even gathering ideas externally — little improvements go a long way. For more, check out what happens when you get 1% better every day:
2. Figure Out What Your Customers Actually Want
While developing a product, you should always keep in mind your target audience — Is the product good enough for them? Will they pay for it?
Therefore, you need to figure out the requirements of your customers and constantly work on your products to include the features they want. Direct feedback from customers is valuable but that is not viable in all cases. Moreover, it will give you hundreds of opinions, which might leave you clueless! So, you should conduct thorough market research and also trust your vision.
3. Foster an Innovative Culture
To innovate, you should be ready to accept change with open arms and be ready to look outside the walls of your own organization too. Creating a company culture that supports creativity and innovation is very important for successful innovation management.
Foster an environment of trust and open communication, encouraging all the members to share their ideas even if they think they are not good enough. Make them understand that it is okay to try and fail — failure is not taboo. On the contrary, every failure is an opportunity to learn and get better. Even better — integrate ideas from others as well! An external look can help you see the trees in all the forest!
4. Set Goals Carefully and Track Them Regularly
We have spoken a lot about ideation and planning but what comes after that? The real deal — execution. Evaluating the progress of projects is crucial to decide if you are on the right path. This is why you need to set good key performance indicators (KPIs) and track them from time to time. It will give you an overview of how you and your team are performing as well as what needs to be improved. Tracking your goals might also reveal certain hidden issues which could have slowed down the whole process if they were left unnoticed.
To learn more about successful goal setting, check out John Doerr’s OKRs method:
5. Promote Open Innovation
While we don’t doubt that you work with an excellent team, can you say that all the smartest people in the world are in your team? No, right? So, what do you do?
Apart from utilizing your internal team’s brilliance, give external engineers, entrepreneurs, innovators, scientists, skill teams, and many others a chance. People with diverse areas of expertise provide you with fresh perspectives and open up new business opportunities. This open interaction can solve some of your most pressing business challenges and open new doors. Whether your Open Innovation approach consists of a Startup Call, Accelerator Program or Hackathon is up to you – the world of innovation is yours!
Do you have more best practices for innovation managers? Get in touch & let us know!
