Who are your innovation players? Getting the right team members involves some legwork, as some high profile staff persons and “HIPOs” may not be the appropriate drivers, and some other staff persons may have hidden talents not readily perceived by management.

Do your employees really understand your customers’ needs? Yes, needs along the lines of existing product sales or services may be easy to identify, yet you may be able to take advantage of unmet customer needs that are closely allied with your existing sales efforts. These opportunities will provide additional sales to your existing customer base and perhaps bring in new customers.

Once you develop a new innovation strategy and process, how will you measure success and reward the key innovators in your organization? This depends on your culture and employee expectation(s).

Stepwise development and integration of new innovation processes can be expected to grow your company.

Brainstorming creat ideas and possibilities. The complexity is how to commercialize that idea, and that is where innovation comes in.

By plugging into the long-term strategy of the organization, providing a perception of transparency of working progress of the innovation team, the ability to characterize the insights to consumer needs properly, not getting punished for taking educated risks, and mitigating upside and downside risks are critical to integrating the innovation team’s work in the organization.

The tactics for launching such an innovation team is getting commitment from candidates for the team, buy-in from senior management, creating clear tasks and goals for the team, clarify communication with senior leadership, and establish milestones for pregress towards the ultimate goal(s).

To outsource your innovation efforts, your organization could seek resources in areas that complement your product or service portfolios. Opening a web portal for vendors to solicit your business whereby you decide your needs.

Mapping your innovation environment is the first step. Determine the products and/or services you need that complement those in your organization. As part of your map, look at the scope of the work in which your organization has been involved and develop a tragectory of where your organization is going. Then populate the map with potential vendors and partners your organization needs. Rank the partners and vendors based on your priorities. Once the innovation environmental map is developed and several in-sourcing and outsourcing tasks have been accomplished, evaluate their value in terms of performance, mutual benefit, complementary and respective core competencies, and respective needs and expectations.

Mr. Forstmann is associated with the following quote: “The entrepreneur, as a creator of the new and a destroyer of the old, is constantly in conflict with convention. He inhabits a world where belief precedes results, and where the best possibilities are usually invisible to others. His world is dominated by denial, rejection, difficulty, and doubt. And although as an innovator, he is unceasingly imitated when successful, he always remains an outsider to the ‘establishment.’”

If organizations have such individuals within their ranks, perhaps they will make productive members of innovation teams.

reference: WSJ, editorial page, Nov. 22, 2011

First, some focus is needed to exert direction and space provided so staff (employees and external consultants) will not be overwhelmed. Second, marketing your wares to existing customers is a no-brainer, but getting new repeat customers is the key to growth and organizational sustainability. So look at what product and services your organization provides, couple your product with a service (or vice versa) to existing and new customers to get repeat business. Even adding some educational piece to your new offerring may interest these customers into providing your organization actionable ideas. Capturing the ideas that staff generate is critical to successfully innovating new technology for your customers.

Whether innovation resources reside as a stand-alone department in your organization, in the human resources or strategic planning department presents the first step to getting focus and applying resources to getting new repeat customers.

The use of human capital outside the organization has been found to actually reduce the risks of hiring ineffective internal resources. Outside resources with proven accomplishments can effectively close gaps in innovation potential and contribute to commercialization often limited by internal resources.

By incorporating the skills of the human resources or strategic planning department in your organization, a framework of complementary talent pools in and outside the organization can be developed to streamline commercialization efforts.

Conduct an audit. Pick a group of people capable of implementing changes, to map the elements of your operation, the satisfaction with internal and external customers, and set long-term metrics and benchmarks for your organization.

What areas are weak and need help? What areas and people can help others via cross-fertilization of ideas and practices? Does IP get lost in the shuffle? Is the bridge worth building to cross the chasm with marketing?

Optimize the environment and the product introductions take care of themselves.

The term ‘innovation environment’ is used to describe your stakeholders, internal and external, as well as the market and cultural drivers for maximizing sales/profit on new products.

An audit can identify areas, organizations, groups, processes, and relationships that need improvement, and to define a roadmap on how to get to the stage of optimization.

Success is not forever, nor is failure, yet we can design systems to maintain sustainable success. Even these systems need refinement over time.