How To Find Innovative Solutions?
In order to find innovation solutions or simply put, digital tools, teams should connect internally and externally.
Awareness of the innovation environment should not be something pursued occasionally during high pressure times but throughout the year. Innovation champions do not require a pre-defined scholarship background or a role title but only a curious sense and desire to continuously learn.
The following highlights some of the connections to be made:
INTERNAL INNOVATION
It is essential to identify individuals that are performing experiments within your company, inside and outside the current department and potentially even in other countries (in a global corporation).
Innovation champions will be surprised to learn how much innovation is already taking place within the company. Personal connections can be made by reaching out to another innovation champions, change teams or even joining internal innovation communities (typically these can be found on the internal website).
INNOVATION SUMMITS AND CONFERENCES
Despite the usual perception within corporations, a considerable amount of innovation conferences and summits are currently free or require a small fee.
Innovation champions should attend innovation conferences and summits to learn more about tools available in the market and key topics in discussion.
EXTERNAL VENDORS AND FINTECHS
If the problem they are trying to solve is clear, innovation champions could and should engage directly with external vendors, fintechs, start ups, etc.
Initial discussions should take place in which the innovation champion explains the pain point and the vendor considers how and if their tool will be able to solve the problem. Note that vendors will have technology expertise and knowledge of the ins and outs of what the tool does while the innovation champion (or the process owner) will have a deep understanding of the issue, making this exchange and collaboration essential in the initial stages.
Due to the ever-changing nature of the innovation landscape, being aware and present in this environment is an ongoing process which will require significant effort and time spent by innovation champions. Management support will be essential to ensure champions can balance day to day activities with the innovation journey.
Find this article useful? Please do like and share to help more people to discover it!
This is a personal blog. Any views or opinions represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog owner and do not represent those of people, institutions or organisations that the owner may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated.