The document discusses the importance of strategic innovation for companies to successfully adapt and grow, emphasizing that a lack of a clear innovation strategy often leads to failure. It outlines various approaches to innovation, including lean startup, design-driven, open innovation, and crowdsourced idea management, suggesting that combining these methods can maximize benefits. Additionally, it highlights the need for organizations to utilize appropriate tools that facilitate innovative thinking and collaboration.

1. HOW TO
INNOVATE.

2. Innovation is all the rage today for compa-
nies from small to large, and rightfully so.
Evidence of this pressure to constantly re-
invent and innovate: In a study published
in 2012, Yale University predicted that more
thanthreequartersoftheFortune500inthe
year 2020 will be companies we have not
heard of yet1. The 2014 DMI Design Value
index reported that companies who focus
on “design as an integrative resource to in-
novate more efficiently and successfully”
have maintained significant stock market
advantage, outperforming the S&P by an
extraordinary 228% over a decade2.

3. STRATEGIC INNOVATION
Those firms that are innovating successfully and winning
are those that take a strategic approach to innovation
and align it with their business strategy. HBR reported in
their June 2015 issue3
that despite massive investments
of management time and money, innovation remains a
frustrating pursuit in many companies. Innovation ini-
tiatives frequently fail, and successful innovators have
a hard time sustaining their performance—as Polaroid,
Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, and
countless others have found. Why is it so hard to build
and maintain the capacity to innovate? The reasons go
much deeper than the commonly cited cause: a failure
to execute. The problem with innovation improvement
efforts is rooted in the lack of an innovation strategy.
Innovation Point, a consultancy, reported in their white-
paper “A Framework for Strategic Innovation” that:
“Strategic Innovation takes the road less traveled–it chal-
lenges an organization to look beyond its established
business boundaries and mental models to participate
in an open-minded, creative exploration of the realm
of possibilities. Some organizations may feel that seek-
ing breakthrough innovation is too grandiose a goal,
and would be content in “simply growing the business.”
Experience shows, however, that simply focusing on the
short-term yields short-term results–while teams aspir-
ing to seek significant breakthroughs will both identify
“big ideas” and also generate “closer in” incremental ideas.
Strategic Innovation is not characterized by mundane,
incremental product extensions, the “me-too” models of
close followers, or band-aids for inefficient processes.
It does not consist of simple facilitated creativity ses-
sions or brainstorming new ideas. Instead, it spans a
journey of inquiry and activity–from creative inspiration
at the ambiguous “fuzzy front end” through the detailed
requirements of successful execution that lead to busi-
ness impact4
.”

4. PROCESS
The strategic innovation process, as Innovation Point
asserts, calls for a holistic approach that operates on
multiple levels. First, it blends non-traditional and tradi-
tional approaches to business strategy, deploying the
practices of “Industry Foresight,” “Consumer/Customer
Insight” and “Strategic Alignment” as a foundation, and
supplementing them with more conventional approaches
and models. Second, it combines two seemingly par-
adoxical mindsets: expansive, visionary thinking that
imaginatively explores long-term possibilities; and prag-
matic, down-to-earth implementation activities that lead
to short-term, measurable business impact.
And that’s the challenge. It requires different mindsets
and different skillsets. Many people who are creative
problem solvers and innovators don’t actually realize
or even admit that they have a process. The percep-
tion is that the ideas flow from intuition. This intuition
though is taught over time. It’s learned by following a
process, developing skills and practicing that process
over and over until that process becomes intuition.
How does a firefighter know to leave a building before
it collapses? Intuition. But that firefighter wouldn’t have
known that his or her first week on the job. The intuition
is gained by learning new skills, being in similar situa-
tions and following a process many times over. Once the
experienced is gained, the process doesn’t feel like a
process–it feels like intuition.
AdaptedfromInnovationPointLLC:
“AFrameworkforStrategicInnovation.”
1. Scoping & Planning
Framing, Brief Writing,
Developing Hypothesis
2. Consumer Insight
Listening, Field Observation,
Trendspotting, Empathy &
Exploration
3. Industry Foresight
Researching, Trendspotting,
Listening, Exploration
4. Opportunity Identification
Synthesizing, Pattern-Recogni-
tion, Sense-making, Prioritizing
5. Business & Product Design
Concepting,
Experimenting, Testing
6. Consumer Validation
Listening, Incremental
Experimentation, Evaluating
7. Implementation
Execution

5. FOCUS
HBR in their June 2015 issue3
asserts that an innovation
strategy should answer these questions:
• How will innovation create value for potential
customers?
• How will the company capture a share of the value
that its innovations generate?
• What types of innovations will allow the company to
create and capture value, and what resources should
each type receive?
The answers to these questions posed by author Gary
P. Pisano, help align business strategy with innovation
strategy. Once innovation strategy is aligned, it’s time to
execute. Many organizations have a disciplined approach
or method or even utilize multiple approaches. Others
execute without a disciplined process. No matter where
your organization falls on this spectrum, there are four
common approaches to innovation that companies utilize.

6. APPROACHES
Many of the most innovative organizations are deploying
a combination of methods in order to solve challenges
in various ways. The combination of these approaches
is a powerful way to maximize the benefits of each. In
order to help think about when and how to take advan-
tage of a specific method, we’ve outlined the four broad
innovation approaches in use today: Lean Startup,
Design-Driven, Open Innovation and Crowdsourced
Idea Management.

7. DEFINITION
An agile process of searching for an innovation that can
be economically viable and technically feasible. By
incorporating user feedback and experimentation early
in the process, the methodology embraces “failing early
to succeed sooner.”
USE WHEN?
• Need to test validate core assumptions early
in the process
• Limited resources, specifically time
• Competitive environment is dynamic
• Threat of disruption of product, service, model
BENEFITS
• Cultivates a fast-moving, learning culture that can
quickly adapt
• Provides nimbleness speed towards minimum
viable product
• Encourages action responsiveness while limiting
risk (agile development pivoting)
• Encourages greater sense of urgency to “ship”
• Elimination of wasted time resources
CULTURE IMPACT
• Agile mindset
• Values customer feedback over intuition
• “Failing fast” mentality
LIMITATIONS/CHALLENGES
• Setbacks can kill projects too early
• Ability to implement in cultures where planning or
“black white” decision making is emphasized
• Challenging to implement ideas at scale due to
embedded infrastructure of organization
• Could pose risk when testing market with current
customers
• More qualitative than quantative in market research/
feedback
• Build-measure-lean aligns with tech better than other
product development workflows
WHO’S GREAT AT THIS?
• 3M
• Coca-Cola (Founders Program)
• Unilever
TOOLS
• Batterii
• Launchpad Central
• Strategyzer
LEAN STARTUP

8. DEFINITION
Design-Driven is a mindset, method, approach and set of
tools applied in order to achieve human-centered inno-
vation, which will add sustainable and meaningful value.
USE WHEN?
• The need or problem is unknown or ambiguous; the
question might not even be clear
• Need for product, service business model transfor-
mation
• Need to develop a consumer or customer-centric
mindset
• Working to understand need vs. finding a market for a
solution that has been created
• Making sense of information
BENEFITS
• Provides experience deep knowledge by being
close to the consumer/customer
• Encourages action while limiting risk: prototyping
iteration loops
• Celebrates inspiration as a catalyst for innovation
• Provides insights to make critical business strategic
choices
CULTURE IMPACT
• Cultivates a creative and human-centered company
culture
• Creates interdisciplinary collaborators: thinkers
doers across business units
• Promotes open-mindedness and curiosity
• Celebrates inspiration as a catalyst for innovation
• Purpose-driven challenges/problems
LIMITATIONS/CHALLENGES
Mindset shift for many cultures and employees, there-
fore initial execution cycle to instill in teams is long and
process is hard until practice becomes habit
DESIGN-DRIVEN
WHO’S GREAT AT THIS?
• Dyson
• Frog Design
• Herman Miller
• IDEO
• Intuit
TOOLS?
• Batterii
• Concept Board
• Murally

9. DEFINITION
Innovating with partners outside the organization to
share risk reward to solve a specific problem. Typically
sourced within a specific community of interest and
often used for RD.
USE WHEN?
• To solve a specific problem with a prescribed solution
• Lack expertise in-house
• Speed-to-market is critical and solution involves
extensive research and possibly trials
• To solve “part” of an innovation vs. development of a
product, service or model
OPEN INNOVATION
BENEFITS
• Enables sharing of risk resources with potential
partners
• Provides ability to leverage proven solutions
• Expands resources capabilities in areas lacking
expertise
• May reduce cost of development
CULTURE IMPACT
• Provides diversity of expertise, viewpoints ideas
• Encourages sharing of knowledge
• Promotes open-mindednessdedness Connectionn
engagement with stakeholders customers
LIMITATIONS/CHALLENGES
• Requires strength in identifying, connecting, part-
nering effectively
• Potential exposure to strategies plans to market
• Requires transition integration process with external
stakeholders
• Potential for IP contamination
WHO’S GREAT AT THIS?
• GE
• Netflix Prize
• Panasonic
• PG (Connect Develop)
TOOLS?
• Innocentive
• Nine Sigma
• QMarkets

10. CROWDSOURCED IDEA MANAGEMENT
DEFINITION
An open-call for needed ideas or input from large groups
of people, typically online communities of customers,
employees or suppliers. It often takes the form of a
broad-based competition that rewards participants for
the production of ideas or leverages the collective intel-
ligence to pick the best ideas.
USE WHEN?
• Engagement and connection with stakeholders/
public collaborators is seen as an opportunity to
gather a more diverse set of perspectives
• When internal teams are “stale” and want an infusion
of ideas from outside
• A large volume of ideas are needed
• Can be used to validate ideas during the innovation
lifecycle
BENEFITS
• Can generate a large quantity of ideas typically with
low cost and with speed
• Easy to execute relative to other innovation
approaches
• Easy to engage many people with diverse skills,
expertise experiences
• Viewed positively by customers/market when invited
to participate
• An initiative can lead to awareness building and posi-
tive perceptions of the brand
CULTURE IMPACT
• Breeds a culture of ideation idea sharing
• Generates excitement and energy
LIMITATIONS/CHALLENGES
• Stresses quantity over quality of ideas
• Ideas generated are typically incremental vs. break-
through innovation
• Difficult to assess qualify ideas
• Ideas are not always based on true needs, problems
or opportunities
• Doesn’t encourage development of innovation skills
or mindsets
• Crowd quickly becomes fatigued with process lim-
ited participation ensues
WHO’S GREAT AT THIS?
• Cisco iPrize
• Dell IdeaStorm
• IBM Jams
• MyStarbucks Idea
TOOLS?
• Bright Idea
• Hype
• Imaginatek
• MindJet

11. OPEN
INNOVATION
CROWDSOURCED
IDEA MANAGMENT
LEAN START-UP
DESIGN–DRIVEN
CONTEXT
Top innovators know that to problem-solve and contin-
uously reinvent within any given ecosystem, there is no
“one size fits all” approach or methodology. A combina-
tion of the approaches discussed in this paper, may yield
the best results. Using the Strategic Innovation Process
discussed earlier, the diagram to the right demonstrates
when the approaches are best utilized at each step in
the process.
AdaptedfromInnovationPointLLC:
“AFrameworkforStrategicInnovation.”
APPROACHES:

12. Just as the approaches to innovation cannot be “one size
fits all” the tools that support those approaches cannot
be either. Tools that were built and intended for crowd-
sourced idea management will struggle to be useful for
Design-Driven approaches and methodologies and vice
versa. Tools for Open Innovation and Crowdsourced Idea
Management are well known and have been deployed
by most innovation teams. The desire for organizations
to utilize Lean and Design-driven approaches to scale
innovation is becoming more prevalent, but legacy
tools are often still being utilized: paper, markers, post-it
notes and whiteboards to name a few.
Given the imperatives for success and the implementa-
tion of these newer approaches, teams need a tool that
support those approaches. Tools that allow the diverse
thinking and ability to unleash the creative mindset,
while structuring and organizing information in a way
that enables collaboration and develops a repository of
great ideas.
Batterii is that tool. It is the only innovation SaaS platform
that was built on Design-Driven principles. As a result,
Batterii is a key driver in transforming the way the orga-
nization thinks, works and innovates. Use Batterii to
support your innovation and creative problem-solving
processes, whether it’s research, trend spotting, business
model development, product and service design, and
concept development.
… powering your next big idea.
To learn more visit www.batterii.com or contact Shaun
Chokreff at schokreff@batterii.com
TOOL

13. REFERENCES
1. Gittleson, Kim. “Can a Company Live Forever?” BBC
News. bbc.com, 19 Jan. 2012. Web. 1 Sept. 2015.
2. Rae, Jeneanne, and Michael Westcott. “Design-Driven
Companies Outperform SP by 228% Over Ten Years
- The ‘DMI Design Value Index’ - Design Management
Institute.” Design Management Institute Motiv, 10
Mar. 2014. Web. 1 Sept. 2015.
3. Pisano, Gary P. “You Need an Innovation Strategy.”
Innovation. Harvard Business Review, 1 June 2015.
Web. 1 Sept. 2015.
4. Palmer, Derrick, and Soren Kaplan. “A Framework for
Strategic Innovation.” InnovationPoint LLC. Innova-
tion-Point.com. Web. 1 Sept. 2015.

14. NOTES

15. NOTES