The Science of Innovation: Sept 24

The Science
of Innovation
(Facts, the need for systems and best
practices)

Notes to Readers
• This is a presentation was given September 24th in Gent
• It is still work in progress… if you have comments/questions/ suggestions
please send them to bryan@fast-bridge.com
• In this presentation you will discover:
– Key facts on what is driving innovation success.
– Why you need to go step by step to build your innovation capacities
– How to interpret the results of our innovation readiness assessment. You can get your
assessment at this link: http://tiny.cc/Slides_innov_ready
– 10 best practices to build a culture of Innovation
• If you’d like to arrange a talk at your company, contact
bryan@fast-bridge.com

Agenda
• Why study innovation ?
• Key learnings from the research
• The need for systems
• Best practices
• Q & A / Drinks

Targets tonight
• To convince you :
– there is a “science of innovation”
– there is more to innovation than post-its and
brainstorming's
– the right way to do things is step by step
• To provide you with an insight into best practices and
a few things you can do tomorrow

WHAT IS INNOVATION?
CREATIVITY
is about new ideas
INNOVATION
is the profitable
implementation of
these ideas

Why it is important
In Fortune 500 companies…
 New products account for 50% of revenues
 And 40% of profits

companies value
innovation
are classified as
innovative by their
peers

of their customers
would agree
of companies think
they had a major
innovation in the
last 6 months.

of ideas fail when brought
to the market

Why Study Innovation (Scientifically)
• Everyone seems to have an
opinion about Innovation
and there is an enormous
amount of (conflicting)
“information”
• A need for facts instead of
opinions
• A need for fact based
theories to guide action
In Amazon there are 76.579
books on innovation !

We are committed to helping companies move faster and reduce risks
The Fast Bridge Solution
• A fact based approach
• World class content, training solutions and business partnerships
• A network of over 200 freelancers (all with >10 years experience)
with a special focus on mentors from Silicon Valley
 World class innovation solutions in Belgium with a small, flexible team
About us

World class content from
Working together with …

Senior people with grey hair (no hair)
with the tools, expertise and
experience to make innovation
happen

Our Core Interest ..
Innovation is hard work, but
startups are getting it right
more often

Start-ups are about
more successful with new
business projects than
established companies.
Some experts estimate that over
of success in innovation is based on systems.
5x 80%

What should large
companies change in their
systems ?

More importantly..
Why are kids in a garage doing
better than the world’s best
companies …

Over 200 ! Articles/ Books
Research has linked significantly
higher levels of innovation and
business performance to business
philosophies, strategic alignment,
business processes and
organizational learning
Innovation
Performance
Firm
Performance
Attitudes Processes
Learning
Strategic
Alignment
Theoretical Background

Our work so far…
• 42 one to one company interviews to validate questions and test
questions found in over 200 academic articles
• A survey with 71 test companies testing initial questions and
validating links to innovation performance.
• April 2015 we updated the full survey to better analyze disruptive
and ongoing innovation success.

Now we are going to look at
facts, figures on innovation
success

2 definitions to start
1. Sustaining innovations
2. Breakthrough innovations
Sustaining
Keep competitive
Breakthrough
Create future

Our research database : 3 types of variables
1. Dependent Variables
(Innovation / Business
performance)
2. Independent Variables
(company characteristics)
3. Covariates (company size,
country, etc.)
Independent
Var. #1
Dependent
Variables
Independent
Var. # 2
Covariates
Company Characteristics
Habits
Market
Company size
Etc.
Innovation
Business
Results

A simplified view of the data set
1 Desire / Hunger
2 Philosophies
3 Autonomy
4 Competitive
5 Creativity
6 Risk Taking
7 Proactivity
8 Structure Breakthrough Innovation Results Overall
Strategy alignment 9 Strategy alignment Innovation Results Business
10 People processes Results
11 Organizational Design Sustaining
12 Customer Focus Innovation
13 Co-creation
14 Ecosystem Management
15 Speed / Results focus
16 Systems to select ideas
17 Commitment to Learning
18 Knowledge Sharing
19 Open Minded
Dependent Variables
Learning
Orientation
Entreprenuerial
Orientation
Independent Variables
Processes
Attitudes
Note: All the
questions are in
the appendix

W
Strategy
Alignment
Innovation
Performance
Using latent measure to identify relationships
Other Factors
Covariates
How to measure
“Are you strategically
aligned " = different
things to different
people

The solution:
Using multiple measures of an underlying construct.
eg. “Strategic Alignment = “
1. Our innovation strategy is clearly communicated so that
everyone knows the targets for improvement.
2. My organization strategically allocates specific resources
(money, staff, materials and space) for innovation to make it
easier for potential innovators.
3. There is commitment and support for innovation from top
management.
Etc…

Reliability Analysis: all measuring the same thing ?
Measure: Cronbach alpha 0-1 (>.6 good, >.8 great)
Mea
11 questions  Cronbach Alpha .72
Remove 3 questions
1. Our firm is oriented more toward the future than the present.
2. All new product and process decisions in our firm require the approval of the
corporate office for strategic alignment.
3. Few strategic actions can be taken in divisions in our firm until the corporate
office approves these actions.
8 questions  Cronbach Alpha .84

This was done for every question in
the research twice

A validity check (eg Innovation Results)
Self-reported questions
• Rate of growth
• Rate of new product/service introductions
• Success rate of product/service introductions
• Level of product differentiation in terms of
unique selling points
• New product cycle time
• Ability to create new products/services with
real consumer value
• Profitability of new product/service
introductions
• Percentage of revenues from new products
introduced in the last 2 years
Compared with
actual results
for 42 companies

Validity:
Scaled measures / Self
declared measures had a
.8 correlation
Reliability:
The reliability of all scales
was greater than .80 most
higher than .9 (typical
cut-off values .6-.7)
Data Quality Summary
.8 38% >.8Of business
result variation
explained by
Innovation

Top-line correlation analysis
Area
Sustaining
Innovation
Breakthrough
Innovation
Overall
Innovation
Desire Hunger 0.45 0.48 0.49
Philosophies 0.41 0.45 0.52
Autonomy (0.52) (0.37) (0.36)
Competitive (0.37) (0.31) (0.40)
Creative 0.33 0.58 0.54
Risktaking 0.26 0.61 0.58
Proactivity 0.53 0.59 0.59
Structure 0.49 0.45 0.44
All Entrep. Orientations 0.52 0.63 0.70
Strategic Alignment Strategic Alignment 0.54 0.62 0.68
People systems 0.40 0.44 0.55
Organizational Design 0.36 0.29 0.46
Customer Focus 0.36 0.54 0.57
Co-Creation 0.37 0.38 0.48
Ecosystems 0.36 0.28 0.49
Speed 0.52 0.68 0.62
Clear Decision Systems 0.25 0.35 0.51
Commitment to learn 0.45 0.20 0.43
Knowledge Sharing 0.45 0.16 0.46
Open Minded 0.41 0.47 0.44
All Learning Orientation 0.45 0.30 0.53
Overall Score Summary all Areas 0.56 0.64 0.71
Learning Orientation
Entreprenuerial
Orientation
Attitudes
Processes
1.Autonomy and competitiveness
negatively correlated with
Innovation success1
2
2.Entrepreneurial orientation = best
predictor
3
3.Strategic Alignment = critical for all
types of innovation
4
4.Speed is actually more important
5 5.Overall measure is strong

DETAILED ANALYSIS
7 Key Learnings and suggested action steps

1. Strategic alignment is the cornerstone of successful innovation
2. If you want to give autonomy, you need to have strategic
alignment first
3. If you get alignment, attitudes and learning orientation in place,
systems will follow
4. The right balance disruptive/incremental is key
5. Proactivity is the one thing you need to reward
6. Walk before you run (go step by step!)
7. If you are in a big company or a small company you need to act
like you are in a successful start up
7 Key learnings from the research

Not aligned Middle Aligned
bottom
20% 60% top 20%
Sustaining Innovation 22 56 65
Breakhrough Innovation 46 43 72
Overall Innovation 34 47 71
Other measures
Ability to create new ideas 37 47 69
Ability to communicate new ideas 41 49 65
Ability to commercialize new ideas 43 48 65
Confidence in launching breakthrough
Innovations in the future
29 56 57
N =202 companies
1. Strategic alignment is the cornerstone of successful innovation
Action Point: before doing anything, look at how you can build alignment
Details
All participants ranked by
level of strategic
alignment (8 questions)
Avg. Rank orders (0-100)
Presented for other
variables

• Autonomy and competitiveness
were negatively correlated with
innovation results
• Why:
People can get lost in what they are
doing. When customer focus is high.
Both autonomy and
competitiveness are positively
correlated with results.
Innovation Results
Low Cutomer High Customer
71
57
49
21
Low High Low High
Autonomy Autonomy
FocusFocus
2. If you want to give autonomy,
you need to have strategic alignment first

Action Point:
Think about
something
like our blue cards
A story that
excites people
A specific request
Exclusions
Constraints
First ideas

Innovation
Performance
Firm
Performance
Attitudes Processes
Learning
Test: Origin of processes
Strategic
Alignment

2. If you get aligned, the right attitudes and learning orientation in
place systems will follow
Excellence in systems
Predicted by Attitudes, Strategy Alignment, Learning Orientation
1. The model predicts 79% of the explained variance (a good model is anything over 20%)
2. All variables significant with learning orientation / attitudes most predictive
Action Point: Think of these elements as the foundation of your innovation program. Get these right first.
R2 0.79 (1)
Std.Coeffi
cients
B Std. Error Beta
(Constant) .028 .045 .625 .533
Strategic Alignement .125 .069 .135 1.822 .072
Attitudes (ALL) .423 .069 .445 6.150 .000
Learning Orientation .392 .067 .409 5.863 .000
a. Dependent Variable: Systems_ALL Systems_ALL
(2)
Unstandardized
Coefficients
t Sig.

Attitudes Processes
Learning
Innovation
Performance
Firm
Performance
Test: Innovation Mix
Sustaining
Innovation
Breakthrough
Innovation
Strategic
Alignment

4. The right balance Disruptive/ Incremental is key
Std. Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta
(Constant) .896 .108 8.304 .000
Breakthrough
Innovation
0.51 0.15 0.51 3.51 0.00
Sustaining
Innovation
0.29 0.16 0.26 1.76 0.09
a. Dependent Variable: Overall Innovation Results
Unstandardized
t Sig.
The biggest driver of overall innovation success is: Breakthrough Innovation
A 1% improvement in breakthrough innovation will deliver 2 X more than sustaining
innovation (.51/ .26)

A balance portfolio =
85 % sustaining
15% breakthrough
But 50% of profit growth from
breakthrough
Action Point: Build breakthrough innovation capabilities and reallocate funds

A process of building a
model by successively
adding or removing
variables based on their
estimated coefficients
“Throw everything in
and see what remains”
Sideline: Stepwise regression

Testing Everything
1 Desire / Hunger
2 Philosophies
3 Autonomy
4 Competitive
5 Creativity
6 Risk Taking
7 Proactivity
8 Structure Breakthrough Innovation Results Overall
Strategy alignment 9 Strategy alignment Innovation Results Business
10 People processes Results
11 Organizational Design Sustaining
12 Customer Focus Innovation
13 Co-creation
14 Ecosystem Management
15 Speed / Results focus
16 Systems to select ideas
17 Commitment to Learning
18 Knowledge Sharing
19 Open Minded
Dependent Variables
Learning
Orientation
Entreprenuerial
Orientation
Independent Variables
Processes
Attitudes

5. Proactivity is the most important thing you need to reward
Action Point: There is so much to do… use these facts to focus your efforts
Unstandardized
Coefficients
Std
Coefficient
s t Sig.
B
Std.
Error Beta
(Constant) -.996 4.730 -.211 .834
Proactivity .465 .077 .484 6.063 .000
Commitment to Learn .286 .081 .291 3.539 .001
Clear Decision Systems .261 .080 .272 3.264 .002
Speed/Results focus .235 .079 .253 2.989 .004
Innovation Results
All independent variables tested stepwise, 4 factors remained
1.The model predicts 63% of the explained variance (a good model is anything over 20%)
2.Proactivity is by far the most important driver of innovation performance

Now comes the
most important
thing we learned

When we rank order companies by innovation results
there is a clear evolution of skills..
Innovation
Rank Strategy
Learning
Orientation
Desire/
Hunger
Operational
Excellence
Entrep.
Orientation
Bottom 25% 11% 4% 4% 0% 13%
25-50 42% 44% 24% 48% 44%
50-75 81% 58% 92% 92% 79%
Top 25% 96% 100% 100% 100% 92%
Stage 2 Stage 3Stage 1
Percentages represent the number of companies scoring over 40

Culture and capabilities grow over time
The Basics
Strategy
Hunger
Philosophy
Learning Orientation *
Operations
Speed
Proactivity
General systems
Customer focus
Entrepreneurial Orient.
Risk Taking
Ecosystem
Management
Structure
Creativity
Room to grow
Sustaining Innov.
Breakthrough Innov.
Want it Do it Not scared to do more

How we see this in the company results …
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
Missing Basics Operations EO Core
None over 60%
Breakthrough Innovation 19 44 55 70
Sustaining 25 40 50 64
Overall Innovation 34 50 67 76
> 60th percentile

Action Point:
Find out where you are now…
(Our Innovation Audit is an easy solution and it
is free: www.tiny.cc/Slides_innov_ready )

It takes about 30 minutes
Then you can look at
1. Strengths
2. Basics
3. Procedures
4. InnoPreneurship
1
2 3
4

.
.
Step 2 Get the Basics Right
Pay particular attention to
Strategy First 17 Step 3 Build process and procedures
Hunger 9 Pay particular attention to
Philosophy 37 Speed 28
Learning Orientation * 24 Proactivity 5 Step 4 Entrepreneurial Orientation
General systems 35 Pay particular attention to
If issues, fix Customer focus 42 Risk Taking 16
Strategy alignment Ecosystem Management 62
Innovation training If issues, fix Structure 26
(For management and workers) All Stage 1 activities Creativity 20
Innovation Events Moments of truth
Invite Speakers Ask for ideas If issues, fix
Lean Start-up (learning training) Set up systems All Stage 1/2 activities
External Events Accleration programs Ask for more ideas
Reward Proactivity Create Sessions Hackathons
Coaching Ecosystem development
Tell them it is important and Innovation Sprints Celebrate risk taking
get them to believe … Reward Innovation Bring in Entrepreneurs
Reward Innopreneurship
Ask for ideas, push for speed
Build ideas and systems to test Expect Entrepreneurship, bring in
entrepreneurs/ partners to shake things u
Step 1: Look at strengths to build on:
Competitive, Ecosystem Management,

.
.
Step 2 Get the Basics Right
Pay particular attention to
Strategy First 17 Step 3 Build process and procedures
Hunger 9 Pay particular attention to
Philosophy 37 Speed 28
Learning Orientation * 24 Proactivity 5 Step 4 Entrepreneurial Orientation
General systems 35 Pay particular attention to
If issues, fix Customer focus 42 Risk Taking 16
Strategy alignment Ecosystem Management 62
Innovation training If issues, fix Structure 26
(For management and workers) All Stage 1 activities Creativity 20
Innovation Events Moments of truth
Invite Speakers Ask for ideas If issues, fix
Lean Start-up (learning training) Set up systems All Stage 1/2 activities
External Events Accleration programs Ask for more ideas
Reward Proactivity Create Sessions Hackathons
Coaching Ecosystem development
Tell them it is important and Innovation Sprints Celebrate risk taking
get them to believe … Reward Innovation Bring in Entrepreneurs
Reward Innopreneurship
Ask for ideas, push for speed
Build ideas and systems to test Expect Entrepreneurship, bring in
entrepreneurs/ partners to shake things up
Step 1: Look at strengths to build on:
Competitive, Ecosystem Management,

Now our core
research question…

There is a big difference
in the innovation profile of
small and large companies
No big surprise there…
Small Big
Desire / Hunger 65 39
Philosophies 68 35
Autonomy 35 61
Competitive 48 54
Creativity 58 41
Risk Taking 63 38
Proactivity 56 45
Structure 64 38
Strategy alignment 57 42
People processes 70 39
Organizational Design 67 38
Customer Focus 60 39
Co-creation 62 39
Ecosystem Management 59 41
Speed / Results focus 62 36
Systems to select ideas 58 44
Commitment to Learning 59 40
Knowledge Sharing 67 36
Open Minded 64 37
All

The real news is:
Successful Innovators
big and small, have
similar company
cultures
Small Big
Desire / Hunger 75 79
Philosophies 81 70
Autonomy 27 41
Competitive 45 37
Creativity 72 72
Risk Taking 71 77
Proactivity 62 79
Structure 61 64
Strategy alignment 61 76
People processes 86 79
Organizational Design 70 72
Customer Focus 75 68
Co-creation 72 63
Ecosystem Managemen 67 65
Speed / Results focus 73 67
Systems to select ideas 85 70
Commitment to Learnin 49 72
Knowledge Sharing 81 59
Open Minded 65 57
Winning Innovators

Big Small Big Small
All Leaning Orientation 37 66 67 78
All Basics 37 68 72 77
All Operations 40 60 72 66
All Entrepreneurial Orientation 38 63 78 78
Overall Innovation Readiness 40 70 80 82
All Companies Winning Innovators

Action Step:
Big or small, you need to work on innovating
like a successful start up…
Note:
The solution is step by step and systematic

Ideas to action
A partner with a
shared vision
10 best practices

Our key partner: Innovation Engineering
Why IE
• They share our fact based focus
• They have created systems to manage innovation
• Great training materials
• Flipped classroom technology
• A library with close to 100 training videos
• In collaborattion with 26 Universities (and very fact based)
• Fully updated once per year
• Proven
 Academically validated (see National science report) 26,000 trained
already/ close to 90% repeat rate

The Science of Innovation: Sept 24

“America’s #1 Idea Guru” – A&E
Top 10 !
“America’s #1 New Product Idea
Man” – Inc. Magazine !

In his words..
He sold spark plugs
to Industry
They worked for hundreds of
companies, then the sparks
worked less and less

They analyzed mountains of data…
• PEOPLE Data: innovation benchmarking data on
over 100,000 managers.
• PROCESS Data: 6,000 teams during a day of
brainstorming.
• IDEA Data: market research on over
26,000 innovations.

16 %
ideas
84 %
systems
They identified the share of success due to
ideas and systems to execute ideas

Mission:
To Change The World through Systems
that Enable Innovation by everyone,
everywhere, every day,
resulting in: increased speed to market
(up to 6X) & decreased risk (30 to 80%).

However, unlike many consulting companies we can
pick and choose the best programs
(not just ones we have developed)

A typical program 100 days…
With 30 minutes . . .
Almost 100 hours per minute

Case Study: SNARC
SNARC... A Semantic Social News Aggregator
When you want to know more SNARC helps you discover content by highlighting
what is meaningful in a quick, smart and personalized manner.
SNARC finds relevant content by learning from the content, the social web and
you!
3 people with PHDs in Semantic Search / 2 start up experts
and about 100K to build a traction to get investment
video: https://youtu.be/IagHRT45to8

80% product development
10% getting new users
5% finding a business model
5% other
100%
• We are best in class
• We have 15,000 downloads
this week
• Our server response time is
down to .8 seconds
• We were listed in TechCrunch
last week
• Success is on the way
We built something great, profits will follow

10 Best practices …
The basics Processes/ Procedures/ Skills Entrepreneurial Orientation
Assessment Training Ecosystem Development
Alignment Systems to promote cycles Build Entrepreneurship
Show it is important Moments of truth
Acceleration programs
Ongoing Inspiration

Starting at the end…
Building an entrepreneurial mindset
Building an entrepreneurial culture takes time …
One of the best introductions I know is a discussion about effectuation.
If you want something different, you need to learn to think different.

External video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=TIXVe4nEDEE

The 5 principles of effectuation

Effectuation Training
How to think like an
Entrepreneur
Deliverables
Participants will
understand how
successful entrepreneurs
think differently and
how to build these
thinking skills
Option 1:
A grouped program with other
Companies
Early November …
(to be confirmed)
Option 2:
A company specific program

1. Assessments
You need to know where you are, to decide what to do next…
1 Overall Score 11 People processes
2 Desire / Hunger 12 Organizational Design
3 Philosophies 13 Customer Focus
4 Autonomy 14 Co-creation
5 Competitive 15 Ecosystem Management
6 Creativity 16 Speed / Results focus
7 Risk Taking 17 Systems to select ideas
8 Proactivity 18 Commitment to Learning
9 Structure 19 Knowledge Sharing
10 Strategy alignment 20 Open Minded
Our Assessment:
http://tiny.cc/Slides_innov_ready
How Innovative Is Your
Company’s Culture?
http://tiny.cc/bainassess
http://tiny.cc/tellisassess

3 Options
1. FREE On-line versions from diferent companies
1. MIT: http://tiny.cc/tellisassess
2. Bain: http://tiny.cc/bainassess
3. Fast Bridge: http://tiny.cc/Slides_innov_ready
2. A facilitated audit (5-20 K)
1. Completation of the on-line audit
2. Manager Interviews
3. Premiminary assessment
4. Company presentation
5. Action plan development
3. A talk with a friendly expert

The most important question a scale
up needs to ask
“If this business fails, why would it
fail ?”

5 Whys
Why is no one paying for our service ?
We never asked anyone to pay
Why have we never asked anyone ?
We haven’t found a pain someone is willing to pay to resolve
Why no pain to resolve ?
We haven’t focused on a specific segment yet
Why no segment yet
We have spent too much time at our desk
Why too much time at our desk
We are scared to meet clients because we don’t have ideas to sell
We need ideas for
things we can sell

Executive alignment
Executive program
1.5 day
C level focus
Indiv. company or several
companies
Day 1: “How to”
Day 2: “We need”
Deliverable: skills to
manage, 4-6 blue cards
KSFs: Strategy from within, linking alignment with actions
Option 1:
A grouped program with other
Companies
19/11 and 20/11
Option 2:
A company specific program

Snarc’s blue card (just one)
Make it a
story
Be honest
Be specific
Define your Request for
help
Let's get paid
Why it is important (the
story)
If we can't find a way to get people to pay
for our service, we have no business
regardless of how great our technology is,
how many people download our product
or how useful it is.
Request 3 ideas to make money that we can test
We are not interested in
A fee for use of the plug-in
Why: people will not pay
Constraints
We have around 100 K to grow the
business, so the solutions need to be low
cost. AND we need to work with partners

3. Show innovation is
important

3. Show innovation is important (and supported !)
Tell them it is important, but more importantly show it !
A few quick ideas
• Start a training program
• 555 program (5000 * 5 people * 5 days to make a prototype)
• Adobe: 1000 and a box
• Events (about 30 K each)
• Start-up weekend (Participate in one or organize one at
your company)
• A hackathon

4 Options
1. A University program (usually hands off/ lack of on-site)
2. A International Training program (lack of follow-up)
3. A Belgian training program (often issues program depth)
4. Innovation Engineering in Belgium
– A 5 day black belt program in the US (2 weeks prep + 5 days + 10
days follow-ups)
– A grouped green belt program (in Belgium)
– A company program

95
2 Hours
Leadership
Meeting CREATEStimulus
Mining
2 Hours
IE Workshops
CRE<ATE
COMMUNICATE
COMMERCIALIZE
2 Hours Each or I Full Day 4 Hours
- Choose and Finalize Blue Card
- Those Already Trained Join Here
Watch Video Before
Mine on VIP or VIO
Week 7 - 12
MonthlyWeekly
Weekly Project
Updates
Fail FAST
Fail CHEAP
‘work’
Quarterly
Decide on Next
VIO/VIS Wave
GREEN
BELT
Certification
Celebration
1.5 Hour
.5 Hour
Week 1 Week 2,3,4 Week 5 Week 6
Process Check In
1 Hour
What’s Working?
What’s Not?
Innovate Process
2 Hours
Define Ideas
Green Belt Training

MU = S
F
D
Meaningfully
Unique Ideas!
Leverage
Diversity
Drive out Fear
=
Explore Stimulus

Best practice 3 Steps
Step 1: Define your needs (already done)
Step 2: Get stimulus (Stimulus mining)
Step 3: Mix and match (Association)
Today steps 1 and 3 (because we have limited
time)

Stimulus Available # of practical ideas invented
Low Stimulus
Medium Stimulus
High Stimulus
22
38
47
Value of Stimulus
Stimulus Feeds The Brain

COMPUTER
Stimulus sets off a CHAIN Reaction!!!

Traditional Model
Individual Brainstorming
draining
Before After
Suck Method
Uses Your Brain Like A
LIBRARY

At Their Most Basic,
IDEAS
are Feats of Association

You can use tools and
systems to force new
associations
(there are hundreds of tools)

666: forced associations
•8 Min: Random combinations (look for ideas)
•2 Min: Pick top ideas and write them up..
• Headline
• Problem / Pain
• Promise
• Proof

Red
Mindset
White
Target
Blue
Method
1 Apple Students Substitute something
2 Starbucks, Journalists
Combine it with
something else
3 Amazon, Bloggers
Adapt something to
it / Modify or
Magnify it
4 Ben&Jerrys, A search company
Put it to some other
use
5 Prius Data company Eliminate something
6 Nike Publisher
Reverse or Rearrange
it

Forced Associations…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
4 6 6 4 3 3 5 2
Round 1 1 5 4 6 3 5 3 4
2 1 3 1 4 4 2 5
3 5 4 1 3 2 1 6
Round 2 6 5 2 4 5 6 4 2
2 6 6 1 3 5 4 6
5 6 5 1 5 2 5 1
Round 3 4 2 2 2 6 3 4 1 4
4 2 5 4 2 4 5 1
Group

Red
Mindset
White
Target
Blue
Method
1 Apple Students Substitute something
2 Starbucks, Journalists
Combine it with
something else
3 Amazon, Bloggers
Adapt something to
it / Modify or
Magnify it
4 Ben&Jerrys, A search company
Put it to some other
use
5 Prius Data company Eliminate something
6 Nike Publisher
Reverse or Rearrange
it
1/ 1 / 1
Apple = design and simplicity
Students love music
Substitute instead of showing the
internet, show things to buy
A fancy music mix trial list anytime
someone visits a music site with an
option to buy on ITunes

Suggestions
Agree:
– Group #
– Facilitator
– Writer
– Timer
Use template
Work 8 minutes
then decide…

If people don’t understand you
can’t ask them for feedback

There are 2 really big questions
26,000 New product
Introductions
70% of success
F (Meaningful
/ Unique )
112
A million dollar formula
.6 * Meaningful + .4 * Unique = the best
predictor of success
Cut-off = 6 or better

Sugging to real information …
Hey mom what you think…. ? That’s great son…
3 reasons you’d buy this product
Please tell me
If this business failed
Why did it fail
3 ideas for
improvement

3 ways to reduce risks
1. Learn to think like an
entrepreneur managing
risks (what can I do with
what I have.)
2. Stop talking upside, start
talking affordable lost
3. Focus on death threats first !

And reduce risks !
When there are
no death threats left
You can’t help but
succeed !

An example of world class (not Snarc)
Objectives A weekly learning cycle every week for 10 weeks
10 ideas for new users/ uses of their product
At least 80 new ideas, with 60 killed, 10 merged and 10 in progress
Alignment Every Monday… what next now
Build ideas Each Friday a brain-storming session (with new external people)
Communicate
Check
Systems Identify death threats/ work on death threats
Kill all weak ideas where death threats not resolved in 2 weeks
An 10 minute standing meeting every morning
Write and document work done each week
One person writes up the ideas/ Another lists the death threats
External experts to validate/ give feedback on all ideas

How this worked in practice
Weeks 1 – 3 : all the old ideas
Weeks 3-4: better ideas
Weeks 5-7: desperation
Weeks 8-10: real, better ideas
Maybe why
traditional
one off
braininstorming
doesn’t really work

7. Moments of truth
Almost anything works faster with a
deadline
• Inspiration days
• Pitch events (with internal / external
judges)
• Hackathons
Up and running in
82 cities. Moments
of truth (they call
them forcing
moments) are the
foundation.
Graduates 80%
success, 52%
funding

Building urgency for better ideas
Friend and Family
Day
Really Ugly
Meetup
Event
Still Ugly
Speak at
Conference
Less Ugly
Investor
Presentation
Good Enough

8. Ecosystem development
If you want to move fast, it is usually not what you know,
but who you know that makes the difference
• Meet and greet sessions with Entrepreneurs
• Events with entrepreneurs pitching ideas for your
business challenges
• Attendance at external events (eg Inacademy, The
Founder Institute)

9. Ongoing inspiration
• Lots of content
• Lots of diverse content and people
• = A recipe for new ideas
• If you’re a bank don’t ask banker to s
peak, ask artists
• Best in class google talks
(inspired from P&G)
• Search “google talks” in YouTube

The Talks at Google
brings directors, actors/actresses, artists, authors, musicians,
innovators, and speakers of all stripes

3 Options
1.Use/ build your local network (usually
the best solution)
2.Use free on-line resources
3.Paid external speakers

Summary …
The basics Processes/ Procedures/ Skills Entrepreneurial Orientation
Assessment Training Ecosystem Development
Alignment Systems to promote cycles Build Entrepreneurship
Show it is important Moments of truth
Acceleration programs
Ongoing Inspiration

Goldilocks and Innovation
Source: Inventuring: Why Big Companies Must Think Small
Step 1: Want it
Step 2: Do it
Step 3: Not scared to do more
Tight on targets
Loose on methods
You gotta get is just right

Remember, sometimes
“ The hurrier you
go, the behinder
you get…”

Smart Speed
A study by Economist intelligence with 312
companies split into 2 groups:
1. Go, go, go
2. Think, go , think, go (paused at
strategic moments)
The companies with strategic pauses
achieved: 40% higher sales, 52% higher
profits
Take some time
Make a rough plan
Then exceute with
speed and urgency

You have to build things step by step !
The Basics
Strategy
Hunger
Philosophy
Learning Orientation *
Operations
Speed
Proactivity
General systems
Customer focus
Entrepreneurial Orient.
Risk Taking
Ecosystem
Management
Structure
Creativity
Room to grow
Sustaining Innov.
Breakthrough Innov.
Want it Do it Not scared to do more

Recommendations
There is lots you can do.. The important things is to do something and if possible
do things step by step
4 Key recommendations:
1. Start before you think you need to start.. It takes time to build cultural
change (there are no miracle solutions !)
2. Think systems and long-term solutions
3. Don’t reinvent the wheel… copy best practices don’t try to invent
everything yourself
4. There are many, many companies selling Innovation solutions, try
working together first

Moving Forwards
Easy / Free Mini-Investments Getting Serious
Free Resources
Free Events
Free Innovation Audit
A talk together (free)
Effectuation Training
Executive training
Green Belt training
Innovation Certification In
depth Innovation Assessment
A la carte activities 10 best
practices
Innovation as a system
Trial run (25K)
1/2 Day Strategy Activation
1 Day Innovation Training
2 half day create sessions
Coaching for 8 weeks
Train the trainer programs
Accelerator programs
Company change programs

10 things you can do tomorrow … (with no budget)
1. Share this presentation with a few colleagues
2. Visit a few of the links in this presentation
3. Sign up for a few events to learn more/ meet different people
4. Write up a blue card for a project you’re working on ask for 5 yellow cards
5. Take an honest look at where you are in the innovation process (our audit is free)
6. Read a bit more about Innovation (check out our site)
7. Look into executive and executional innovation training programs
8. Arrange some external speakers
9. Instead of a KSFs list, put together a KDTs (key death threats list) and work on it.
10. Give us a call to arrange a talk together

Contact Information
For questions about this presentation or request for a meeting please contact
Bryan Cassady
Bryan@fast-bridge.com
+32-475-860-757
Links to external company references in this presentation:
Innovation Engineering www.innovationengineering.org
The Founder Institute www.fi.co
European Innovation Academy www.inacademy.eu
AFCE www.afce.co
Get an Innovation Readiness Assessment for your company:
http://tiny.cc/Slides_innov_ready

Appendix: all questions
In the research survey

The Science of Innovation: Sept 24

The Science of Innovation: Sept 24

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