Rethinking innovation: How to manage ideas systematically

Table of Contents

  1. Summary
  2. Introduction
  3. Current innovation strategies
  4. Challenges of open innovation
  5. The rise of narrow innovation
  6. The response: systematic innovation
  7. Lean innovation
  8. Algorithmic innovation
  9. 4 ways innovation will evolve through 2013
  10. Key takeaways
  11. About Haydn Shaughnessy

1. Summary

For the past 10 years two themes have dominated innovation practice. The first is the innovator’s dilemma. The second is open innovation. Both need rethinking if companies are going to successfully manage and benefit from fast-changing market opportunities.

Innovation activity is growing across many more markets than in the past. A rising proliferation of techniques, coupled with changing market conditions, means that today companies must manage many more projects and risk resources across a much wider panoply of options. At the same time, initiatives such as APIs and content syndication as well as mobile devices and apps are forcing companies to serve narrower markets. This narrow innovation has hardly registered as a genre, but it is being practiced in areas like media, telephony, travel, and anywhere else apps are found.

These challenges are driving systematic innovation, a process derived from Six Sigma quality practices that embrace two key concepts: lean innovation and algorithmic innovation, a key driver of innovation in companies like Samsung and Intel. Innovation will continue to evolve in 2013 and beyond, through:

  • Enterprise crowdfunding
  • Narrow innovation strategies
  • A rebirth of manufacturing
  • Moving from Six Sigma to algorithmic innovation

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