Innovation Management: How to Manage Innovation

Innovation management is the process of overseeing a company’s approach to ideating and implementing new products, ideas, and business practices. This form of business leadership encourages brainstorming and adaptation. As companies introduce change, stakeholders rely on effective innovation management to inform decision-making and unique methodologies to push the company forward.

Innovation management invites the opportunity to disrupt the status quo, try out new ideas, and constantly solve problems. Innovation management invigorates a workplace and gives employees the power to flesh out new thoughts to find optimal solutions. This can lead to stronger retention rates, better employee satisfaction, and happier customers as teams find creative ways to solve their problems.

Within the lifecycle of product development, innovation culture involves the following elements:

1. 1. Brainstorming: Innovative ideas require time, space, and resources. Set brainstorming hours and retreats allow for fruitful collaboration and teamwork. These innovation activities should be part of project management.
2. 2. Creating unique prototypes: Innovation strategy emphasizes trying out unique prototypes that pave the way toward successful products. This might mean spending more time and resource allocation on many different prototyping stages to find the best ways to ensure customer satisfaction and create the best possible product.
3. 3. Destabilizing standard practices: Successful innovation depends on the curiosity to pursue new technologies or a new point of view. The roadmap that proved successful for the last campaign does not have to be a template for the next. Customers appreciate a forward-thinking and creative approach so that innovation projects may lead from new methodologies based on team members' ideas and input.
4. 4. Expecting metrics to vary: Innovation may also mean expanding into new markets or partnerships, so the definition of success will vary from campaign to campaign. Allowing metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators) to be different for each project frees a company up to learn from new experiences.
5. 5. Finding new business models: The overarching mission of a brand should stay consistent, but how companies pursue it may vary. New business models can breathe fresh life into a company and help it stay current with changing trends and markets.

The four main types of innovation management include:

1. 1. Architectural innovation: Architectural innovation, also known as recombinative innovation, uses existing technologies and methodologies to create a new market and attract new consumers.
2. 2. Disruptive innovation: Disruptive innovation disrupts current structures and processes to change or eliminate them before trying a new system.
3. 3. Incremental innovation: Incremental innovation works to upgrade and improve existing products gradually.
4. 4. Radical innovation: This type involves making significant changes, creating brand new products, and greater risk with the potential for higher reward. The goal is to enter new markets and try out new plans.

Managers can enact innovative structures in a few ways:

• Change processes mid-way through. If an old way of thinking is not working, change gears. Embrace fluidity and change and know that it can lead to breakthroughs and stronger methods.
• Set aside time for brainstorming. Devoting time to brainstorming and collaboration invites employees to give greater thought to product development and marketing, illuminating new ideas.
• Welcome new ideas and employees. New employees do not have to conform to current workplace ideologies or methods. New team members should feel comfortable bringing their own experiences and ideas to the table to shake up norms.

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