Radioscopy of an Innovation Shortcoming

It happens everyday:  process slows down innovation which turns out a grueling race. Don’t get me wrong: innovation is a process that needs to be managed (‘Creative Tension‘). But stage process don’t flow without meaning.

Going through a fictional innovation story detailed below, we sort out 2 lessons  around ‘Feature Team’ and ‘Leadership’, that would be worth tested in your next innovation challenge.

September 2012 –> February 2013 : getting approval

1. Because you need to dig into the concept, define a strategic positioning, investigate business model, produce a deck of slides, and get the various marketing teams aligned on a joint baseline (>> November);
2. Because the project must be approved by the Innovation Committee, that another file format must be fulfilled, a slot found in the agenda, and that it’s not so easy in this period of year, at end of year (>> February);
3. Because the boss’s boss wants to make sure all marketing teams are on the same page, and as he’s not available at Innovation Committee meeting, you have to set up a dedicated meeting with all stakeholders (>> March);
4. Because the presentation to the boss’s boss would be completed without appropriate support of relevant resource such as the innovation project leader, and, in a budget cuts context, would drive to one-half approval, the one that the boss’s boss figured out, and which had been previously approved by the Innovation Committee (>> April);
5. Because the team corresponding to the budget cut got then demobilized.

‘Can we go for development now?’ asked the innovation project leader. Hold on, you’re almost there, just a few more things besides:

September 2013 –> on-going : getting ‘buy-in’

Now that the mock-up stages the concept in a resounding way, innovation project leader shall seek buy-in and delivery support from the national business units, which brings additional :

Feature Team and Leadership

How well documented a stage-gate process might be, it doesn’t grant you for success, and neither for speed. For innovation to step-in, meaning must prevail: product development rules are relevant when they add value, not chasing smaller and smaller, suppressing autonomy to lead to dull or hollow upshot; otherwise innovation flow must find ways to circumvent to match market speed. In the long run, the best rules are the ones which are collectively shared and experienced. Activating collective intelligence is innovation purpose and span:

1. When innovation team is not a fully dedicated Feature Team (assembling all necessary skills such as product marketing, design, development, customer experience, device supply), one is going to stop and queue at every trade desk. Never will you form a unified team, bonded in faith and deep conviction. Furthermore, moving from one desk to another, breaking things in pieces, your risk losing the consistency of the innovation story;
2. Without Leadership, innovation is governed by budget regulation, committee without inspiration, and work service planning, which only fits for incremental innovation. Without vision and conviction, collaborative innovation ends up to contractual agreement instead of sharing competencies fruitfully, unraveling flexible open innovation, fostering creativity and disruption.

image credits: radioscopy-choq-fm, letsgo-com, fastcompany.com

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Nicolas is a senior VP at Orange Innovation Group. Serial innovator, he set-up creative BU with an international challenge, and a focus on new TV experiences. Forward thinker, he completed a thesis on “Rapid Innovation”, implemented successfully at Orange, and further developed at nbry.wordpress.com. He tweets @nicobry