Part 1 – Game Changer Innovation : What does innovation mean?

Innovation is a topic that IT professionals are exposed to more and more each year.   Article after article that we review each week continue to mention innovation or differentiation and the role that the IT executive must play in leading the organization into the future.   The responsibility of innovation opens up an entirely new need for employee development.  It leaves the IT executive with a number of questions on how to most effectively deal with the topic of innovation.  1) What does innovation mean?  2) What process should I use to track innovation? 3) How do I integrate innovation into the DNA of the culture?  All very challenging but extremely important questions.  Questions that need to be addressed if IT is going to continue to grow into the role of the Game Changer of the future. 

It would be hard to address all 3 of the questions in 1 blog so we have decided to break up our innovation blogging into a 3 parts series.    Each part in the series will address 1 of the questions we identified as challenging.  The first question that we will be addressing is;

What does innovation mean?  This may seem easy.  The Webster dictionary defines innovation as the introduction of something new.  This is a definition we can’t disagree with but the issue comes when we need to determine the depth and breadth that this term can cover.  It is important for companies to understand the type of innovation that they are striving for.  This helps the IT leader to scope and channel their efforts in the correct direction, identify and target the market appropriately and meet or exceed budget expectations.  

Innovation Quadrants

Recently I was introduced to the 4 quadrants of innovation idea.  The 4 quadrants of innovation idea definitely helped me to identify what innovation meant to our team.  A picture of the quadrants is included in with this blog.   Let’s review it in detail;

Quadrant 1: Existing Offering / Existing Users – Trust Established

This is when you take an existing offer with an existing user base that has high trust with you and make an incremental change.  This limits your exposure and usually the cost of introducing it to the market place.  The adoption rate can be quick if the idea is well received.

Quadrant 2:  Existing Offering / New Users – Trust Not Established

This is when you are taking an existing offering and making a change that will require selling your idea to an entirely new market place that do not know you or have trust built with you.  This can be much riskier than Quadrant 1.  Trust is very critical in building the alliance with innovation ideas. 

Quadrant 3:  New Offering / Existing users – Trust Established

This is when you are taking a totally new offering and working to sell it to your current client set that has high trust with you.  .  This can be riskier that Quadrant 1 but I don’t believe it is as risky as Quadrant 2.  Trust is a very large factor in adoption rate.

Quadrant 4: New Offering / New Users – Trust Not Established

This is when you are taking a totally new offering to an entirely new market place that do not know you or have trust built with you.  This is the most risky quadrant of all.  You have to have a budget that allows for a high percentage of failures with this type of innovation.  In order to achieve in the area you need to be able to generate a large volume of ideas and be prepared to discard a number of ideas based on feasibility.  This is the quadrant that I believe we all think has to be present in order to be known as an innovator.  This is not true this is just a different level of innovation.   It is a very mature level of innovation.

The 4 quadrants of innovation allow leadership to explain what their definition of the term innovation is in more depth and breadth.  It allows individuals to easily see where leadership is positioned on key factors that need to be addressed within a full definition of innovation.  Key factors include;  1)Risk level, 2)tolerance for failure, 3)industry trust, 4)client knowledge and 5)cultural adoption.  The Information Technology game changer of the future will not only know this for their internal client but will be able to define their clients positioning on these key areas.  This knowledge and consistency in definition will make the difference in the companies that will make significant strides toward being the next big innovator of the future.  What is your definition?