An Innovator's Checklist

Innovation requires teams of contributors from multiple functions and disciplines. From our experience, the following items are critical to ensure your organization is ready:

• Culture: advocating & delivering empowerment, teamwork, quality, and excellence, with a strong foundation of trust. 
• Transparency: no hidden agendas. 
• Expertise: strong talent pools fueled from within the enterprise, and augmented with subject expertise that may be outside the firewall. 
• Clarity of Vision: full perspective of current state, alternatives, and objectives. 
• Process: applying innovation science through "paradigm mechanics" to attack problems in new ways, outside the limiting context of current state conventional wisdom.
• Information Architecture: creating a consensus view of the problem/solution domain
• Access: relevant information, data and expertise.
• Secured IP: to ensure intellectual property is clearly tagged and protected 
• Technology: deployed to drive efficient information capture and exchange, valuable social interaction, cross functional integration, and meaningful metrics.

Many find innovation to be difficult.  From the above list, it may be easier to see "why".  Innovation is often encouraged or mandated, but it is just as often unsuccessful.  Focusing on collaboration, we can help you become the catalyst for innovation and problem solving in your organization.