Innovation Readiness

How do you know if your organisation has the right culture to support your innovation goals? Are you ready for a customer-centric approach to design-led transformation? Can your teams work agilely and cross-functionally to collaborate on new business directions?

Many organisations are reviewing the workplace to foster greater innovation: relaxed dress codes, modular work areas, pool tables and foosball, hackfests with pizza and beer, even innovation labs. These are all useful initiatives, but focusing on the trappings of innovation rather than the culture and skills is just innovation ‘theatre’. Innovation is more than willing hands and good ideas. It is an organisation-wide approach built on a shared understanding of the value you wish to create. Innovation is not ‘special projects’ – it needs to be ‘business as usual’.

Organisations often struggle with innovation because traditional industrial management practices do not lend themselves to market-led dynamic change. The skills required to turn new ideas into reality were never needed in organisations that operated by top-down control.

The shift from legacy practices to innovative change can be difficult. The pull of past successes, whether at individual, team or enterprise level, can be too strong to let go. Innovation must recognise both the organisational capabilities developed over time and the potential presented by shifting forces in the market.

By spending (at least) a day in your workplace and interacting with different groups, we can develop a snapshot of your ‘innovation readiness’, and identify the steps you can take to make innovation – and its new value opportunities – a part of your future organisation.

Contact us for more information or book in a complimentary session to discuss your path to the innovation opportunities of the digital economy.