Carry out an Innovation Project

Conducting innovation projects: hurdles and success recipes

A targeted innovation project is the fastest and most reliable way to achieve innovation. The concentrated efforts of a small, cross-functional team accomplish in a few months what others fail to reach in three years. A fully developed solution concept with proof of market demand, willingness to pay, and feasibility.

Typical challenges in innovation projects within companies

• Lack of experience in conducting innovation projects
  Many companies haven’t created a targeted innovation in a long time. New products and business areas emerge when there’s a concrete customer request. Otherwise, they don’t. The approach of creating innovation on one’s own initiative and at one’s own expense is unfamiliar and unpracticed. This is evident in vague project plans, undefined goals, and a lack of a methodological framework. The team becomes disoriented and ends up without tangible results.
• Passive resistance from the organization
  The innovation team is seen as a cost factor, stealing time from employees engaged in operational tasks. Innovation encounters invisible and very visible barriers, up to outright resistance. Employees who perceive changes as a threat to their usual work methods often respond with passive resistance. Requests for support are ignored or declined, meetings are delayed, and decisions are postponed. Technical and sales departments, in particular, often block each other. Sales ideas are quickly dismissed as technically impossible or merely catching up with the competition. Technical ideas, on the other hand, are prematurely deemed unmarketable. This wears down and demotivates project teams to the point of resignation.
• Daily business trumps innovation efforts, and the innovation project stalls
  Customer orders bring money. Innovation costs money, at least in the short term. The strong focus of many companies on what generates revenue makes day-to-day business seem more urgent and important than medium- to long-term future topics. As a result, project members are pulled away from creating innovative ideas towards urgent meetings, customer appointments, and phone calls. Daily tasks quickly consume the day, leaving no mental space for new ideas. Innovation projects stall, operational tasks increase, and ultimately the innovation team struggles to get everyone together. This is the sure end of any innovation project.
• Low degrees of innovativeness and market failure
  Developed ideas and concepts often don’t go beyond what is already known. The reasons why something has never worked before and why it supposedly violates the laws of physics are quickly at hand. Seemingly absurd ideas are withheld or immediately nipped in the bud. A negative spiral of lack of ideas and impossibilities ensues. The result is mediocre concepts that fail in the market, if they even reach the market through sales. The lack of innovation impact is often seen as the cause. Much more often, it’s the lack of understanding of the target group and their needs. Market research remains limited to what sales hears from the customer. Unbiased conversations without a sales pitch rarely take place. Ultimately, the customer reacts to the much-hyped innovation with justified indifference or disappointment.

Success recipes for innovation projects in the company

• Project mandate with support from technology, sales, and management
  A clearly formulated mandate with well-defined parameters is a big step towards the success of an innovation project. Early involvement of technology, sales, and management ensures that the right topics are chosen. The Basecamp Workshop is the perfect format for this. This happens long before discussing technical ideas, concepts, and new products. This ensures that everyone is pulling in the same direction and can count on mutual support over the long term. Support in terms of resources, capacities, information flow, and cooperative collaboration. And far beyond the commonly known “just doing the job.”
• Get away from the desk and out to the target group and future customers
  Leaving the comfort zone of the company and going out to the target groups is a crucial step for successful innovation projects. This means actively reaching out to potential customers, experts, and users. Target group and customer interviews, surveys, and direct observation on-site provide the crucial insights needed to gain a market edge.
• Breaking down mental blocks and thinking bigger
  The blank sheet of paper is a major hurdle to the much-needed creative idea. To foster creative thinking and break down mental blocks, various tools can be used. For technology innovation, it might be the inventive problem-solving TRIZ. In business model innovation, the business model patterns help. The design thinking methodology is useful for coming up with the right ideas for the right customer problems. Breaking habitual thought patterns and creating unconventional ideas is an important goal that alone leads to stronger and more far-reaching ideas. In detail and specific innovation projects, excellent workshop facilitation is the best help.
• Promote entrepreneurship instead of overregulation and micromanagement
  Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial action create the necessary freedom to develop solutions that go beyond the usual. Employees need freedom to make their own decisions and take responsibility. Extensive approval processes and too frequent reporting can be more of a hindrance. To get employees into this role, good initial motivation is often needed, which can be created, for example, through appropriate communication from top management. As a result, employees pursue their own ideas in the interest of the company. The best way and a win-win situation for both employees and the company on the path to a successful innovation project.