Innovation Best Practices
Silicon Valley Inside
EDG has combined insights from Silicon Valley and from clients around the world to create a powerful and integrated innovation system - one that brings together future strategy creation with innovation best practices, training, tools, and leadership. Our 3-phase approach to implementation delivers proof points and results early on. The overall approach produces deep and lasting transformation that ensures continuous and effective innovation over the long run.
Phase 1: Innovate Early
After exploring emerging trends, customer needs, and identifying significant market opportunities:
• The leadership team defines its vision and strategy for the future. They create an Innovation Blueprint that sets direction, priorities, and the overall tone for the effort.
• Leaders charter a committed Innovation Support Team to coordinate the innovation practices, tools and platforms that will guide the next phases of innovation.
• Innovators embrace a new mindset and learn new skills.
• Initial “Beacon Projects” are launched — early initiatives that visibly demonstrate successful innovation and show what is possible.
Phase 2: Innovate Often
Leaders and the Innovation Support Team work together to install a simple and straightforward — and widely understood — innovation architecture.
• The innovation architecture is put in place to enable innovators to create high-impact ideas; gather collaborative and expert feedback; turn ideas into powerful value propositions; pitch for approval and resources; and develop prototypes, pilots, and new projects. (And if you ask innovators throughout the enterprise how this innovation process works, they all could describe it to you).
• Executives and managers throughout the enterprise develop their roles as innovation leaders, mentors, and internal “venture capitalists."
Phase 3: Innovate Everywhere
With the success of the early innovations comes an authentic sense of possibility everywhere in the enterprise, and the motivation and confidence to realize its full potential.
• Leaders throughout the enterprise participate in launching strategic innovation challenges and in nurturing innovation projects.
• Key functions such as Finance, HR, IT, Legal or Marketing align their practices, remove barriers, and accelerate system-wide innovation capability.
• Innovation thrives: bottom-up and top-down as well as inside-out and outside-in – e.g., with customers, start-ups, universities, partners, suppliers, and others. The end result is a powerful and collaborative innovation ecosystem.
Learn the innovation techniques perfected in Silicon Valley to turn your brilliant ideas into powerful value propositions using the proven CO-STAR™ method pioneered by EDG.