Innovation Lab Excellence

Simply put, managing an innovation team is different. The objectives for this team are special and need attention. Think of your new lab as a seedling needing constant attention to environmental conditions or it simply won’t grow. Your existing businesses run by seasoned veterans thrive on benign neglect. This book will be gold in their hands as it

A centralized resource is what’s practical. This also serves a second motive: A company can show off its lab to shareholders, analysts or rating agencies, to demonstrate how innovative the company is and how this will translate into future earnings. It ticks off the innovation box, neatly, cleanly, and with certainty.

In the digital era however, upstarts can topple incumbents with surprising speed. Second, there is the lone wolf manager (who comes along very rarely) who really likes innovation and creates something new and surprises everyone with its success. While these self-directed initiatives are welcome, they are certainly not innovation that you can count

It’s increasingly evident that the metrics of laboratory success are less likely tied to the number of hackathons sponsored per year (the innovation equivalent of a number-one hit), but instead the depth of digital adoption by the parent company.

57% of respondents said their companies do not follow formal innovation processes.

The main problem is how these innovation labs are—or more accurately, aren’t—integrated into their parent.