What is “innovation”, exactly?
Defining what innovation means at your business
For most businesses today, innovation has never been more important. By “innovation”, we don’t mean the creative problem-solving that any sustainable business performs, on a daily basis; nor are we referencing incremental product improvements. Rather, we mean a more powerful level of innovation.
But what is “innovation”, exactly? As business leaders, it is difficult to communicate meaningfully about innovation with employees, customers, and financial stakeholders without a concrete and unifying definition.
Innovation comes from the Latin word innovationem (circa 1540), a noun extension of the verb, innovare, which means to “to renew or change”. The Latin root here is novus, or new. Think novel, novelty, novation, etc.
Therefore, innovation can be defined as the renewal, change, and presumably improvement in something that already exists. By this definition, interestingly, it’s not necessarily the creation of something from scratch (which in fact is more a candidate to be an invention). This is good news for the lay innovation leaders among us – we don’t have to be Thomas Edison after all!
By extension, the context for business innovation is a specific problem to solve or opportunity to exploit. Innovation, pragmatically defined, is more than ideas; it’s more than imagination. It is the new job to be done expressed as a project, program, or initiative. A project represents the concrete basis of getting work done with a starting point, an endpoint, a timeframe, and resources and path to get there.
So, how do we define innovation in a few meaningful words? Consider the following definition (building on the thought leadership of Professors Govindarajan and Trimble):
Business Innovation
- Project, program, or initiative with uncertain outcome that is new to the business
- Requires employees to do things much differently to create value for the business and its customers
- Progress and results are measured quantitatively
Let’s dissect this definition to drive home its full meaning and utility.
• The project, program, or initiative is the unit of action. It contains a target, timeframe, and resources. It can be concretely managed.
• Uncertainty is the overriding characteristic of an innovation. Understanding, managing, and eventually eliminating the uncertainty is what the innovation aims to do.
• The business is the locus of the innovation, and it and its customers are the potential beneficiaries.
• Value must be demonstrated and measured – ideally before, during, and certainly after the innovation project is complete.
By implication, it is people who must change to develop and adopt the innovation, improve performance, and create value. Therefore, innovation, at is essence, is change management; and conditions must be created for increase human capacity to act differently.
Every business is innovative to some degree, out of baseline competitive necessity. Agile Innovation, however, goes well beyond day-to-day creative problem solving. A simple and clear definition of what “innovation” is an important basis for communication, alignment, and execution.
© OIC Innovation LLC 2022