Why does innovation initatives fail?

I see a day when innovation management will be considered a discipline like project management. When a more systematic approach is adopted, more projects will succeed,” says Johan Grundström Eriksson, whose long track record in innovation management includes senior positions at TetraPak Group, Sony Ericsson and Sony Mobile.

The failure rate for innovation initiatives is currently very high, the way to address this is to agree the ground rules, like in project management and for quality, security, and the environment, says Johan Grundström Eriksson that is committed to sharing best practice in a bid to accelerate the success rate in innovation,

Johan is on the nominating committee of Innovationsledarna. He piloted the new ISO 56002:2019 Innovation Management System while it was being crafted and says that it has the potential to provide that guiding framework, as it is captures universal best practice, and is built on the actual and validated experiences of innovation practitioners worldwide.

Leadership is key

Johan’s first experience of creating a global innovation system with mutually reinforcing innovation processes was in 2001, when he was hired by the TetraPak Group. The company was investing in the transformation and mobilization needed to grow organically by 50% in 5 years. This was the start of a digital transformation across the entire Group.

“Innovation managers will always struggle in their endeavours until they are part of a supporting, collaborative system with common goals,” he continues. “Although, it may be the innovation manager that identifies or catalyses an early opportunity, it will probably be a product manager and project manager that are tasked with delivering it. So, to be successful you need to have the direction and leadership to add and align innovation activity with the organisation’s existing and future intent.

The greatest risk not knowing your sources of future revenue

Innovation Management Standard is not the same as a Quality Standard, and that putting the quality manager in charge of innovation would kill it.

“Within the business units there is a quality mindset, that is looking for operational excellence in the current product range. This is achieved by perfecting existing systems incrementally and deflecting any deviation, novelty or risk that threatens this.

“But it can lead the company to a dead-end. It is the antithesis of Innovation, which is looking for new ways to provide value, through different ways of working or exploiting new technologies. “

Capture and validate early signals

Having a systematic approach gives you the ability to capture and validate early signals and the iterative learning to measure the potential impact of investing in innovation.

“At Innovationsledarna we are working to share knowledge and awareness that there is such an approach. To share the good examples and make decision makers curious enough to learn more about the benefits, so that it will be adopted by those with the agency, budget, and…. the headaches!”

“As the innovation management standard gets more widely understood, we will see that the public sector will be asking for evidence that its contractors follow the standard. This will be especially true when consortia are competing to provide new or unknown solutions to large societal problems and needs.

Read the full article at R&D Today

Birgitta Edberg