The role of a Product Innovation Department
This article was originally published on LinkedIn on February 12, 2020. Migrated to Medium and edited on September 2022.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-22-role-innovation-department-cesar-miguel/
If you are unfamiliar with the concepts of Adjacent Possible, Adjacent Viable and Adjacent Acceptable coming from the Opportunity Vacuum framework, please read the previous article since the following article relies heavily on these concepts.
As we said before, the role of an innovation department is to create the Opportunity Vacuum so that innovation can happen organically inside the company. But how do we do that?
I love a quote from Eric Schmidt, Alphabet’s (Google) CEO
Innovation can’t be owned or ordained, it needs to be allowed. You can’t tell innovative people to be innovative, but you can let them.
As such, the innovation department must be the lighthouse of the company on ideas and technology, business and market, and users and social acceptance.
GRABBING THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE
It is difficult to be the one expanding the boundaries of the body of knowledge. This is usually done by research departments, universities and very recently (and rarely) moonshot departments of companies spending big budgets on research/innovation (like Google X).
If the role of the innovation department cannot be to create the adjacent possible, it is nonetheless to monitor and test it.
> By scouting and monitoring trends and bleeding edge technologies: the innovation department is an idea collector.
> By testing technologies and concepts on sandboxes and controlled environments.
> By driving Open Innovation initiatives to connect with the outside world:
- The classic relations with Universities and research facilities
- The often feared corporates from sectors with transferable concepts
- The all-fuzz Start-up ecosystem
Side note 1: Is it a problem if we are not the first ones using the technology?
The short answer is “No”, as long as we are among the first on the other two adjacents… Otherwise it cannot be considered innovation, it means others are already doing it, business model is proven and users are well adapted… let’s call it for what it would be: pure and simple catching up. But maybe this topic deserves a separate article…
PROJECTING ON THE ADJACENT VIABLE
As we saw previously, corporates can hardly be the one that create the adjacent possible unless they heavily invest on in-house R&D.
Owning the business side can help innovating, and for that we require Business-savvy resources.
Our business experts master the core business, they know the legacy and current limits but are open to imagine outside the current boundaries. A big part of their day to day is :
- monitoring the market through benchmarks of competitors
- business trends (decentralisation, peer to peer economy…)
- monitor alternative business models on other sector that could eventually be transferable
DESIGNING FOR THE ADJACENT ACCEPTABLE
This is the space for the various UX designers (yeah, there is not a “single omni-potent” UX designer…). Here are some examples:
· Run surveys (quantitative)
· Do interviews and observations (qualitative)
· Request sociological, ethnographic, behavioral… studies
Yet the adjacent acceptable remains the most elusive since it is at the heart of the emotional responses of humans.
The innovation department must be the closest to the users to be able to address the very early adopters… We are used to address masses, and this exercise is very difficult for that reason: volumes are low, populations might be biased at first… Extrapolating from this is complex and requires vision and methodology.
It is also at this point, when designing the adjacent acceptable, that we have to take in consideration concepts like high observability to speed up further adoption.
CONNECTING AND SHARING THE 3 ADJACENTS
We have 3 different goals at 3 different adjacents, requiring 3 different meta-profiles… We need something to stick them together: innovation facilitators, connectors and communicators. This is a skill set on its own and should not be underestimated. Who is going to align stakeholders, connect the dots internally and externally so that the 3 adjacent-explorers meet?
Keep in mind that an innovation department that lacks coherence and proper communication channels is doomed to remain isolated and waste all efforts on incongruent initiatives.
THE ROLE OF A PRODUCT & INNOVATION DEPARTMENT
If you are familiar with the AGILE world, you might have guessed some of the similarities in profiles… Yes, an innovation department must be unequivocally pluri-disciplinary:
- In charge of the Adjacent Possible: typically profiles like Lead techs, Developers, Tinkerers, Creatives…
- In charge of the Adjacent Viable: typically profiles like Product Owners, Business model experts, Entrepreneurs…
- In charge of the Adjacent Acceptable: typically profiles like UX designers, Human science experts
- Innovation support: typically profiles like Trainers and Evangelizers, Facilitators…
So what is the role of an innovation or product (discovery) team?
To explore the unknown and uncertain on the 3 spaces in order to reduce this uncertainty and shed light for the company, creating the Opportunity Vacuum at the intersection that will make innovation emerge.
Leave a comment, follow, re-share this article if you learnt something or want to react. Knowledge is also ever-expanding, only if we dare to build upon each other’s and share it.
