The Two Biggest Barriers To Innovation
August 24, 2008
According to a recent BCG study, the two biggest barriers to innovation are:
1. Risk adverse culture and
2. Overly lengthy development times. Most executives thought that they did a poor job moving from idea generation to initial sales quickly enough.
But what should the astute innovation manager do to increase speed-to-market?
a. Use Speed Thinking - this can help everyone involved in the innovation process to think and act faster and better. Our process of ‘Start, Build, Evaluate and Do’ is ideal at any stage of the innovation process.
b. Fast-track the most important priorities. Not all innovation is the same. Some projects have bigger potential impact than others and should be given the green light.
c. Adopt a ‘Test’ mindset. The aim of innovation is to test new initiatives in the market as quickly and cheaply as possible. By doing so, you will learn what works at a faster pace than your competitors thus giving you an advantage. Paradoxically to succeed you need to fail faster!
d. Measure you speed to market and try and benchmark it against organisations outside your industry. I would select the software industry for example. This industry is built on speed so there are many lessons to be learned for slower moving organisations.
Ken Hudson
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