The 4 underlying principles of all innovation processes

Embarking on innovation projects and initiatives can seem like a daunting task for most organizations.

This might be because of the following reasons:

• The impression that innovation is a messy process (it really isn’t)
• The multitude of different innovation methodologies (lean methodology, design thinking etc.) makes it hard to tell which one is right for your organization. You might have even tried a few, maybe some worked or they all didn’t.
• It might seem like only very smart people can be innovators. (not really)

All innovation methodologies and processes have 4 basic underlying principles or fundamentals. Learning and understanding these basic fundamentals will give you a better appreciation for innovation and hopefully help you decide which innovation methodologies you want to subscribe to, whether it’s one, several, a hybrid or your own customized process for your organization.

These are the basic fundamentals of all innovation processes.

1. They test assumptions

Innovation processes are designed to test assumptions and generate learnings that give a clearer picture of what the customers’ needs truly are and how they can be met.

There are usually a lot of assumptions made whenever teams come together and start thinking about possible innovative products or services that can help deliver more value to their customers. Such as; what it might look like, how it will deliver its value, how much customers might be willing to pay etc. What is important to note is that these are all unproven assumptions and in order to make any major investment decisions, these assumptions need to be tested.

2. They are iterative

Innovation processes are designed to be iterative, chances are you won’t get it right the first time or the second, because some if not most of your initial assumptions about the prospective innovative product or service will be proven wrong.

Hence innovation processes require iteration, so that, you take what you just learned and build on it, test the next assumption and the next one until you feel fairly confident that you understand your customer’s needs and your proposed product or service is the best fit for them.

3. Customer feedback

Innovation processes are driven by customer feedback, this is the only way that assumptions are tested and either proven or disproven. Assumptions can not be tested by sitting in board meetings and asking each other what everyone thinks, even if you consider yourselves part of the target audience. Asking your fellow colleagues what they think about a solution you all have vested interest in is at worst extremely biased and at best is just standing in a hall of mirrors.

There are different schools of thought on how the customer feedback should drive innovation, for example, in the lean startup methodology; you build a prototype product or service first and get feedback from customers interacting with it, while in design thinking; you ask the customers first about their challenges then build a prototype for them to interact with. But no matter where you choose to start, eventually the feedback loop ends up looking the same.

4. They are built for speed

Innovation processes are designed for speed. There are several reasons why speed is so critical in innovation

1. You need to build your innovative product or service using timely feedback. Building an innovation project on information from a year ago, will not work.
2. The world is moving at an incredible pace and history has shown it to be very unforgiving to organizations that fail to keep up, hence speed is important for both an organization’s competitive edge and innovation risk management.
3. Majority of the innovation process is more geared towards learning than having a finished product or service hence it is important to keep the process of learning as cost-effective as possible, time is money.

To achieve this speed, innovation processes make sure that the tests are small, check for one assumption at a time, and can be deployed quickly… the test-and-learn cycle time should be as short as possible.

TAKEAWAY:

The underlying principles of the innovation process are designed:

1. To tests assumptions
2. To be iterative
3. To use customer feedback
4. For speed

Having understood these principles and you can decide what works best for your organization, be it choosing one of the widely accepted methodologies, creating a hybrid model or formulating your own version. Whatever the case may be, the fundamentals of the innovation process remain the same.