How To Speed Up Your Innovation Process

How To Speed Up Your Innovation Process

Evette Cordy (main photo) is an innovation expert, psychologist and co-founder at Agents of Spring. Cordy is also the author of Cultivating Curiosity: How to unearth your most valuable problem to inspire growth. In this guest post, Cordy offer her tips to get any brand or business’ innovation moving…

Many businesses are under overwhelming pressures, including constant deadlines for immediate, short-term results. There is often an urgency to innovate due to revenue shortfalls, portfolio gaps and/or market disruptions. Where organisations once had the luxury of time to work on long-term innovation pipelines, business dynamics have dramatically changed. There is a need to inspire teams to respond and innovate quicker than ever. And if you don’t, your competitors will.

There are three critical aspects that can help you speed up your business’s innovation process:

Assemble a diverse team

Have you ever been in an innovation workshop where one is spouting ideas, another is contending why they won’t work, another is more focused on progressing to how they will implement the idea, and another needs more information before developing their ideas? You are not alone.

There are four key stages to the creative process: get things started, take time to define the problem, turn ideas into practical solutions or get things done. Although, most of us have different preferences for each stage.

There is scientific evidence that cognitive diversity has significant benefits for innovation results if managed well, as confirmed by innovation and creativity author Dr Min Basadur who found that heterogeneous teams perform more innovatively than homogeneous teams.

To better ensure innovation, start by assembling a cognitively diverse team that will consider your problem- and solution-finding from many perspectives.

Use a creative problem solving process

In addition to team members with the right mix of cognitive styles and experience, you need a process to guide your innovation efforts. The creative problem solving process can enable you to compress months of strategy, product and/or service development.

A design sprint is one of the most effective creative problem solving approaches to speed up your innovation process in relation to product or service design. It is a five-day experiment that produces immediate results, but you first need to understand the relevant customer problems. You may need to undertake a customer deep dive before you’re ready to sprint.

Monday: Define the problems

Clarify your most valuable problem to solve by mapping business and customer problems and defining the corresponding solution criteria. Reframe these problems into a ‘how might we …’ statement, which invites multiple ways to solve it

Tuesday: Generate solutions

Co-create solutions for your most valuable problems, using the ‘how might we …’ statement. First, explore all possible solutions, consider using lateral thinking tools to push your thinking, build lo-fi prototypes, and then deliberately and affirmatively converge on the optimal solutions.

Wednesday: Develop prototypes

While you will have identified a list of solutions, you can’t realistically prototype and test them all. Once you have decided to build a prototype think about ways you can bring your solutions to life by making it a realistic enough customer-facing experience.

Thursday: Test prototypes

Conduct one-on-one contextual interviews and observations with customers in their natural environment. Listen with your eyes and ears, and ask open-ended questions such as why, how, what and when to understand how prospective users interact with your prototypes.

Friday: Pitch Prototypes

By the end of the week, you will have created many possible solutions, converged on the most optimal and built and tested realistic prototypes to learn from these interactions. It should now be clear whether your product or service is worth further investment and development.

Teach the innovation process skills

You can have diverse cognitive styles along with an innovation process and tools, but it’s all a waste of time if your team don’t interact well. Imagine you’re in your car and have your foot on the accelerator and brake at the same time. What happens? Nothing – you don’t go anywhere. This is what happens to innovation when we don’t teach team members the two essential process skills.

There are two essential process skills that need to be kept separate, just like your brake and accelerator. The first one is divergent thinking, which is about generating many options without editing or criticising, to defer our judgement. Convergent thinking is about narrowing down and selecting the best options and requires affirmative judgment. When it comes to innovation, the key is to isolate these two modes of thinking.

Are you ready to speed up your innovation process? As the above aspects highlight, the right combination of process, skills and team members can help organisations to unlock breakthrough thinking and deliver faster innovation outcomes.




Please login with linkedin to comment

Agents of Spring Evette Cordy

Latest News

The Works Distills “Question Everything” For Archie Rose Distilling Co.
  • Campaigns

The Works Distills “Question Everything” For Archie Rose Distilling Co.

The Works has announced the launch of ‘Question Everything’ a new brand platform and campaign for their newest client, Archie Rose. As a nine-year-old independently owned and operated Australian multi-spirit distillery, Archie Rose has garnered a devoted following among existing customers, with a reputation primarily built on white spirits – particularly gin. However in line […]

farsiight Unveils New Market Positioning Putting Growth for Good Over Growth At All Costs
  • Marketing

farsiight Unveils New Market Positioning Putting Growth for Good Over Growth At All Costs

Brisbane performance agency farsiight has announced the launch of its new market positioning, Growth for Good, in response to a changing business landscape, marking a departure from a “growth at all costs” mentality that has defined the industry in recent years. Agency founders and brother duo, Josh and Ben Somerville, envision Growth for Good as […]

By Land Or By Sea: GoTransit Offers Options Galore For Transit Advertisers In Newcastle
  • Advertising

By Land Or By Sea: GoTransit Offers Options Galore For Transit Advertisers In Newcastle

Australia’s largest privately owned transit media supplier, GoTransit Media Group, now offers unprecedented options for transit advertising in Newcastle – on both land and sea following their successful tender to supply interior advertising inside the popular Stockton Ferries. The national transit media company is already well acquainted with the thriving NSW market, having successfully operated […]

‘People First Bank’ Heritage & People’s Choice Bank Unified
  • Marketing

‘People First Bank’ Heritage & People’s Choice Bank Unified

Heritage and People’s Choice have launched People First Bank, the new name for positive change in banking Australia’s largest customer-owned bank has unveiled its new brand, announcing that Heritage and People’s Choice will be unified under the new name of People First Bank. Chairman Michael Cameron said the highly anticipated new brand offered a compelling […]

L’Oréal Aus & NZ Partner With Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Announcing Large Investments
  • Marketing

L’Oréal Aus & NZ Partner With Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Announcing Large Investments

L’Oréal Groupe Australia and New Zealand have announced one of the largest investments to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to pioneer new coral restoration efforts in the region. L’Oréal Groupe Australia and New Zealand have announced today a new partnership with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF), to help coral reefs withstand the devastating impacts […]

Media.Monks Names Matthew Godfrey EVP, Head Of Content In APAC
  • Marketing

Media.Monks Names Matthew Godfrey EVP, Head Of Content In APAC

Effective immediately, S4Capital’s operating brand Media.Monks, a digital-first marketing and advertising services company, has appointed Matthew Godfrey to lead its APAC Content practice. With over 15 years of experience leading innovative businesses in the Asia-Pacific region, Godfrey will support a best-in-class senior leadership team across the region as EVP, head of content, APAC. He joins […]

How AI Is Empowering Small Businesses With Creative Collaboration
  • Opinion

How AI Is Empowering Small Businesses With Creative Collaboration

Chandra Sinnathamby, Adobe’s director, digital media B2B strategy & GTM, Asia-Pacific, explains how the tech firm is empowering its small business customers with new AI tools, including its Adobe Firefly tools. In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, small businesses face numerous challenges when it comes to creating captivating content that resonates with their audience. Despite the […]

Opinion

by B&T Magazine

B&T Magazine
Candace Warner, Tom Tilly & Harley Breen Kick Off Summer On Triple M
  • Media

Candace Warner, Tom Tilly & Harley Breen Kick Off Summer On Triple M

Summer mornings are heating up with Triple M again in 2023, thanks to the star-studded line-up of Harley Breen, Candice Warner and Tom Tilley, who are joining forces each weekday morning from 6-9 am for Triple M’s Summer Breakfast show. Airing from 4 to 15 December in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and streamed live on […]

Jimmy & Nath, Hamish & Andy And Seany B Light Up Christmas At Hit Network
  • Media

Jimmy & Nath, Hamish & Andy And Seany B Light Up Christmas At Hit Network

The Hit Network has announced its summer line-up for 2023, kicking off on Monday, 4 December, featuring The Jimmy & Nath Show, Hamish & Andy podcast, Nights with Seany B and special return celebrations for Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. Hit’s cheeky radio duo Jimmy Smith and Nath Roye of The Jimmy & Nath […]

AFFINITY Launches Worley Rebrand As A Force In Sustainability
  • Marketing

AFFINITY Launches Worley Rebrand As A Force In Sustainability

Full-service CX, media and advertising agency AFFINITY has completed an 18-month-long global rebranding for ASX-listed engineering powerhouse Worley. The rebrand reflects Worley’s commitment towards being a leading force in sustainable change. Worley, a global provider of professional services in the energy, chemicals and resources sectors working across six continents, has set out on a significant […]

R.M Williams Unveils “The Mark Of An Icon” Installation To Celebrate Opening Of New George St Store
  • Advertising

R.M Williams Unveils “The Mark Of An Icon” Installation To Celebrate Opening Of New George St Store

Highlighting its craft and a world-class shopping experience, Australia’s favourite heritage brand R.M.Williams has announced a consumer competition to celebrate the opening of its new national flagship store at 345 George St. Sydney. Launching on 1 December in line with the new store opening, ‘If The Boot Fits’ invites brand lovers and new customers alike […]