Do you feel that managing Innovation in your company is hard and no fun?

In many large companies managing Innovation is like being just one of the many risk avoiding grey suits. But working on Innovation supposed to be fun, different, free-thinking. Do you recognise yourself in the following situation:

  • You are responsible for the start of or running a complex and long term innovation program or portfolio with clear innovation objectives and targets
  • This portfolio exits of more complex innovation projects
  • The basics of project management of each separate project is well in place
  • Each project works in parallel to deliver the innovation targets
  • There are (strong or weak) interrelationships between these projects to manage
  • There are different (internal and external) stakeholders to manage

This sounds like one big opportunity. But there are some complications like:

  • The Innovation Objectives and targets are defined in only financial terms: Revenue/Profit growth
  • The Innovation Strategy doesn’t give directions for prioritizing and decision making processes
  • There is not overall logic overview for the portfolio to ensure the overall targets
  • There isn’t framework to oversee the impact of the portfolio on the current Business Model
  • There isn’t framework to oversee the impact of the portfolio on the technology integration needs
  • There isn’t a systematic way to manage the execution of the innovation projects successfully

And you left with the following questions:

  1. Do I really understand the Innovation Strategy of my company? If not how can I?
  2. Have I optimized our Innovation Portfolio to set the right priorities and the take the right decisions? If not how can I?
  3. Am I able to mobilize and manage the execution power in my company? If not how can I?

    And you just looking for some insights to get the answers: