Managing an Innovation Pipeline

Introduction

Innovation: the word conjures up images of creativity, freedom, lateral thinking and ideas generation. It plays to our right-brain, to a sense of being unconstrained and liberated, to casting off shackles and constraints in the interest of having fresh and original thoughts.

This is exactly what Innovation is about - and yet without discipline and process, the very best of ideas will come to nothing. That's why genuinely innovative organisations manage ideas in a pipeline - a systematic and sustainable approach to enable them to manage their innovation effort and direct it towards the greatest and most positive impact.

In this guidance note, we set out the key elements of a pipeline and describe a model that is highly effective in both stimulating creativity and securing these key elements.

Critical Success Factors

These are the characteristics that we see, time after time, in effective and successful Innovation pipelines:

Context and Focus
An innovative organisation will encourage idea generation on any subject but will seek to focus attention on areas of strategic priority. Strong leadership is needed to communicate priorities and to ensure they are understood throughout the organisation.

Pragmatic and Flexible
The pipeline needs to be able to accommodate a wide range of ideas, from the smallest to the world-changing. It's important that it is flexible enough to provide the rigour essential to doing justice to a big idea whilst also being able to quickly process the little ones.

Transparent and Fair
Effective pipelines provide full visibility of content, and of progress of each item, and also enable a fair and effective basis for allocating scarce resource to the areas of greatest potential benefit.

Effective
Ultimately the success of a pipeline will be measured by the extent to which it quickly identifies good ideas and enables them to be nurtured as they progress.

Encouraging Innovation
The existence of a strong and effective pipeline is a great way of actively encouraging innovation within an organisation at all times. A flourishing innovation culture has people looking for good ideas at all times, not just when there is a specific problem or opportunity.

Customer Centric
A good innovation pipeline will have the ability to introduce customer views and opinions in order to influence products and solutions as they develop.

Collaboration and Learning
The innovation pipeline needs to encourage and foster cross-functional collaboration and shared learning, so that the maximum possible benefit is derived across the organisation from the ideas and solution passing through the pipeline.

Early Filtering
In the best pipelines, much resource and scrutiny are focused on ideas in the early stages of development so that only the best ideas are taken forward to development and implementation.

Rigour
Strong decision-making at each stage is vital, to ensure that the highest-potential ideas survive and weak ones do not, and that diversionary factors such as politics and personal preferences are removed, as far as possible, from the equation.

'Over and over, we see pipelines clogged with inconsequential projects while potentially valuable ones expire for lack of resources.' (Boston Consulting Group report, 'A Disciplined Approach to Breakthrough Innovation')

A Pipeline Model

Ignite have developed a pipeline office which includes all of the ingredients that are key to an effective innovation pipeline. It creates the potential to generate, test and stretch great ideas and then to evaluate, prioritise and implement the best of them. At the same time it reinforces and underpins a culture in which good ideas are encouraged and where people can see that they have a voice in the process of idea generation and exploitation.

This model is integral to the success of the overall approach to practical and effective innovation. The purpose of the pipeline is to provide, firstly, a point of reference for ideas as they emerge and are developed, and, secondly, a process for getting as many good ideas to fruition as possible. The pipeline model reflects the four stages through which ideas pass in order to make it to implementation:

• Raw ideas
• Generating innovative solutions
• Proving the concept
• Preparing for implementation

Raw Ideas

This first phase is where a pool of raw ideas is created. In a truly innovative culture this is happening all the time and the organisation is geared up not only to encourage idea generation but to make sure people know where to go for help and support in capturing, challenging and developing their thoughts.

The role of the Innovation Pipeline is to provide a structure for capturing ideas as they are generated, developed and shaped. Typically it will require the initiator to very briefly record:

• Background information
• The outline idea
• Strategic fit
• Potential benefits
• Resources required
• Funding required

It is important that ideas are captured earlier rather than later, even though some of the required information will not yet be available. The information captured will enable users to evaluate questions like:

• Does this idea potentially help address a strategic issue?
• Will it complement or conflict with existing initiatives?
• How much potential is there in the idea?
• Has the challenge or opportunity been fully thought through?
• Is it worth giving initial funding?

An innovative culture will encourage extensive idea generation but will also ensure that the system doesn't become cluttered with no-hopers. For this reason it is very important that there is a robust yet open-minded challenge to raw ideas as they are captured, and also that self-assessment of ideas is encouraged even before they are entered into the pipeline. Also at this stage, simple projects should be identified and fast-tracked so that they do not have to go though an inappropriately demanding process.

Generating Innovative Solutions

Those ideas with the greatest potential are subjected to extensive scrutiny and creative thinking to ensure that they have the potential to achieve the maximum possible impact. The real impact of change is tested in detail, as are implementation barriers and challenges. There is a real need at this stage to stand back and test whether the concept is robust and whether the proposition is high enough priority to take forward. It would be easy for a proliferation of good ideas to result in a loss of focus on the commercial benefits. During this activity, thoughts will turn to matters like:

• What the proposition is
• Whether the potential benefit makes it worth pursuing
• Who it will benefit, externally and / or internally
• How it becomes or supports a customer proposition
• Its operational feasibility
• Whether the business has the capability to exploit it
• Whether it is worth investing time and resource in investigating the idea
• Commercial and financial implications of taking the proposition forward
• Potential investment requirements
• Any IT demands that will arise

A typical outcome for this second phase will build on the information already recorded for the raw idea, and will cover:

• Background information
• Description of the solution
• Strategic fit
• Customers / customer groups who will benefit, externally and internally
• Predicted benefits
• Predicted implementation resources and costs
• Predicted operational resources and costs
• Investment required for implementation
• Risk assessment
• Resources and funding needed for next stage (Proving the Concept).

Once again, some information will only be available at a sketchy or high level at this stage but by capturing it in this way there is a clear basis for adding greater detail as it emerges.

Proving the Concept

At this stage a solution will typically be piloted with a view to understanding whether and how it will work in practice. This is an essential precursor to developing a full business case which, again building on the information already held in the pipeline, will typically capture:

• Background information
• Key points from the proof of concept
• Strategic fit
• Customer impact
• Target benefits
• Full financial case
• Summary implementation plan
• Summary operational plan
• Investment required for implementation
• Source of funding
• Accountability for benefit delivery
• Implementation resources and costs
• Operational resources and costs
• Timetable
• Full risk assessment

Preparing for Implementation

At this stage the proposal has been fully evaluated, the practicalities of implementation have been weighed up along with the commercial benefits and the associated risks, and the plan is ready to be taken forward to implementation. The innovation pipeline has by this time done its job. What remains has more to do with sound project management than managing the pipeline - factors like:

• Validating the implementation and rollout plan
• Ensuring there is a reliable method of benefits realisation and measurement in place
• Securing the necessary resources and funds • Detailed implementation planning
• Establishing appropriate reporting and monitoring processes
• Engaging key stakeholders
• Building the project team and establishing working relationships with key operational people
• Launching the project

Summary

An effective and transparent innovation pipeline is a vital element of the infrastructure of any organisation that is serious about embedding innovation capability in its ways of working and thinking. It gives a very clear message to everybody working in and around the business about the importance of innovation not only as a source of good ideas but as a genuine driver of business benefit. It helps anybody who is willing and able to contribute to the innovation process to focus on areas that are likely to achieve the highest impact as well as providing essential visibility to the progress of individual initiatives and being a rich source of learning from projects and initiatives that have gone before.

Guidance note courtesy of Ignite: http://www.igniteacademy.com