20 tips for a developing a flexible innovation process in corporate environments

One of the most profound challenges to surmount in the context of driving innovative thought and deed — particularly in corporate environments — is finding the right balance of creative freedom and process that defines the organisation’s cultural approach to innovation.

Traditionally, incremental innovation is associated with a strong process, while disruptive innovation is thought to emanate from an extremely liberal approach.

Perhaps this rule of thumb is indeed a rule of association created in the image of two countries that shaped our notions of innovation unlike any other — Germany and the US; the former being world-renowned for its engineering, while the latter is inextricably associated with the entrepreneurship powerhouse that is Silicon Valley.

In fact, Peter Hall and David Soskice labelled these two nations as exemplary for incremental and disruptive innovation, respectively, in their classic article on the influence of economic systems on innovation cultures.

However, this is a macro view — at the firm level, it is paramount we treat incremental and disruptive innovation as a continuum, rather than absolute modes. As such, we need a mid-way between structured and unstructured innovation processes.

Design Thinking, a methodical toolbox and mindset for user-centric, design-driven innovation, is perhaps the most promising contender in this space and has been globally embraced in response.

While inherently capable of filling the existent gap between the extremes, the way it is often applied also follows either a highly unstructured or structured approach — thus reinforcing the problem, rather than solving it. A flexible innovation process that adapts to the needs of each project is of paramount importance to any innovation sprint with tangible and useful outcomes.

Having run innovation workshops in various cultures and with a diversity of stakeholders, I’ve distilled a list of fundamental principles that may embed this needed flexibility neatly into the innovation processes.

In accommodating both freedoms for imagination and efficiency, they help to guide the design and framing of innovation projects, ensuring that there is room for visionary ideas and a structure to support them. Precisely this fine balance helps great, impactful ideas emerge — be they more incremental or disruptive in nature — and drives change for the better, in any environment.

Fundamentals for designing flexible innovation processes:

1. Give very strong time constraints — perfectionism is best reserved for the end.

2. Take turns between doing first and thinking first.

3. Forget your expertise for a while, and see what it leads to.

4. Imagine the process as a skeleton, not a flowchart.

5. Build your process around the content, without ever letting it dominate.

6. Know what you are doing, but not entirely how — certainty is an illusion.

7. Tackle a passion topic within your group every now and then to get fresh ideas.

8. Give directions on a technical level — never prescribe the nature of content.

9. Switch work between teams and people, letting other people continue it.

10. Design the process from the challenge — never fit the challenge to your process.

Also read: Design thinking: A superpower for the challenges of modern businesses

11. Embrace existing constraints and search for freedom in the loopholes.

12. Stop and have a break, a cup of coffee or snack, then revisit your ideas.

13. Add, subtract and evolve the components of your project as you complete it.

14. Understand the roles within your groups and deliberately switch and role-play.

15. Change your physical mode, i.e. work standing, sitting, leaning, lying, etc.

16. Trust in the potential of your team, and you will receive trust in return.

17. Account for slack — allow less time than needed to mitigate delays.

18. Embrace your minimum viable product/design, and iterate as early as possible.

19. Gamify your process with mini-competitions, within and between teams.

20. Prototype before you think you should — you need to experience your ideas.

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