4 Ways to Empower Sustainable Innovation

In the innovation management space, there are numerous ways to produce and process change. As an innovation analyst for several innovation strategy teams, I’ve seen everything from a three-step innovation process to a fourteen-step innovation process. The challenge of defining an innovation program by a process, however, is that it implies that there is a natural end to innovation. The truth of the matter is that for innovation to be truly meaningful – it must be continuous. And for it to be continuous, the process needs to be cyclical.

So how do successful organizations create sustainable innovation plans – ones that will deliver impactful change on an ongoing basis? Well, there are a few key earmarks for those initiatives and here are four of them to get you started:

Offer new resources. Every day there are new trends, technologies, and research that teams have to assimilate as they think about new solutions or ideas for their organization. With access to a rich set of information, innovators can think of ways to build on these trends or avoid reinventing the wheel for solutions already exist. Providing (and encouraging) access to external knowledge empowers fresh perspectives for new, big ideas internally.

Prompt conversation. The best innovation programs are always looking for new ideas, but studies have shown that sometimes asking a question is the best way to occasion creativity in all arenas. Questions jump-start solution-oriented thinking – oftentimes the ideas that arise are related to the question being asked, but sometimes the ideas that emerge are wholly unrelated – they just needed a prompt in order to begin thinking of new suggestions once again. Asking new questions on a rolling basis is absolutely essential to sustainable innovation.

Utilize notifications. Numerous communications professionals will tell you that notifications are one of the most effective means of remaining top-of-mind when you’re asking people to return to a platform. If your innovation software can help you communicate with your network of innovators, make sure that you’re optimizing the platform notifications.

Celebrate success. The best way to build momentum for innovation programs is to showcase what it has already accomplished. Celebrating success helps the innovation network feel as though they are a part of something larger, it helps leadership to justify allocating more resources to the initiative. It inspires confidence that change is possible and it gets people dreaming again about what’s next. Be sure to have some results that you can share so that the whole team is excited about what’s coming down the line.

To hear from some thought leaders who are successfully promoting sustainable innovation, join a complimentary webinar with speakers from Detecon, the Department of Energy, and IdeaScale on December 9^th at 9 a.m. PST. Register here: http://bit.ly/1xVnpUu

How do you build sustainable innovation? Can innovation serve different departments in every business?

4 Ways to Empower Sustainable Innovation