Innovation project

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, said Lao Tze – a Chinese sage. An innovation project teaches the organization and its project leaders to fish.

The innovation project deals with creating a competitive edge over time – an edge that will be reflected in business results, marketing or technology. Our goal is to have a definitive impact on the organization. We measure the project’s success according to business parameters in the form of sales results, profitability, company value, and a sense of ‘before and after’.

A secondary goal is to leave the organization with intellectual property – patents, branding, new technology, and a network of experts that the organization may continue to use after the end of the project.

Goals for this kind of project should match the organization’s strategy since they can indicate a path that will change the face of the company.

The intellectual property invented during the innovation project is an asset that makes it possible to maintain a competitive edge for a longer period of time than with an idea for a single product.

In certain organizations, registering patents is important and raises its value while in others, it is enough to rely on knowledge to create products with long-term value and we take this into consideration.

An innovation project bears the management concept of a stock portfolio. In other words, some developments are bolder but riskier, while others have a higher level of certainty. The aim is that in any event, something substantive will be implemented that will affect the organization’s profits.

We offer two options for joining an innovation project:

• Hands-on management as external directors, as business development managers, or in a managerial position to be agreed upon with us.
• Innovation consultancy and appointment of a committed, senior contact person within the organization: a committed believer in innovation and senior enough to orchestrate moves and make decisions.

Examples of innovation projects that led to significant breakthroughs in profits, technology and company value can be found in our clients’ stories.

Brief description of the innovation project process

Every innovation project is managed slightly differently, since one can never step into the same river twice….The initial stages and setup are fairly similar. The continuation is different and will depend on the field, the nature of the organization and how fast the new breakthrough idea is discovered.  

 Stage 1: Management commitment and appointing a project manager

Management commitment to the project and the appointment of a contact person or project manager. It is important to make sure that the goal is considered essential for the organization, even though no one really has a very clear idea of how to get there within a period of 6-12 months. In projects where we manage hands-on rather than acting as consultants, there is also the stage of clarifying authority and the required resources.

Stage 2: Understanding the strategy, the market and the technology

Understanding the existing strategy, market and technology is achieved by applying various models and analysis tools, in accordance with the market and the organization. We have found it possible to define a number of primary principles to map out the odds of growth for both market and technology.

Key questions at this stage are:

1. Does the stated goal actually match the strategy and once achieved, can it lead to a business breakthrough?
2. What are the main thinking patterns that are possibly holding the organization back? These might pertain to strategy, organizational culture, market perception or technology.

Stage 3: Constructing an image of the future and a description of the gaps

An image of the future describes in detail how things will look once we manage to realize our intentions: how we will look and what our customers and competitors will be like.

To create this image of the future, where necessary we use experts from outside the organization or business unit in question. The openness to outside knowledge and expertise is an important facet of success. We invest great efforts in locating experts and professionals who can propose and support basic assumptions that differ from the existing ones. Our ability to locate and harness world-class experts is one of the advantages of working with us.    

Stage 4: The wish list and Methodical Inventive Thinking

At this stage, we set up a wish list and use the tools of Methodical Inventive Thinking to generate ideas and formulate new perceptions. This is the ‘ideation’ stage.

Stage 5: Testing, the “lab”, working towards a pilot or preliminary prototype

Once preliminary ideas have been suggested, we examine them. Since we are dealing with innovation, some of the ideas have never been tried out before. During the discussions, key questions arise pertaining to how the organization prepares itself for marketing, development and production.  

Business and technology breakthroughs often require structural changes. It is important to understand that innovation is a process that can reshape perspectives and the perceptions of how to manage the business of the organization in question.

While the earlier stages are structured and might resemble each other, the development and progress stages are very different, being closely tied to the particular organization, industry, development schedule and to the innovation learning of the and the level of risk it entails.

For further expansion we recommend Chapters 4 and 5 of: “Simple – Methodical Inventive Thinking, Problem Solving & New Product Development”, by Gideon Gilda, Panta Rhei Publications, 2010.

You may contact us and ask specific questions about whatever it is you wish to promote within your organization.

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