On the basis of our experience with corporate clients, we collected 9 indicators that signal that something is going wrong + 13 clear actions to take! https://www.boardofinnovation.com/blog/2017/05/29/9-indicators-that-prove-your-innovation-program-is-failing/

1. and 13 actions to make it successful today.
curated by @arnevbalen
9 INDICATORS
that prove that your
Innovation Program
IS FAILING

2. 9 out of 10
Corporate Innovation Programs fail.
So bad.

3. 9 sentences
you should
never hear
13 solutions
you can
apply today
in this slideshow
in a Corporate Innovation Program to make it successful

4. “Our Dev/Engineers
have no direct contact
with clients”.
Huston says:
1/
*
* The image is a search result from an image archive. Reality may differ.

5. Sales and customer service
departments are specialized
in solving client problems with
off-the-shelf solutions. Coming
up with an experiment doesn’t
fit their job description and will
have a negative effect on their
performance review.
Product development
and engineers expect
sales and marketing
departments to deliver
them client insights to
design more relevant
products and services.
The innovative solution
doesn’t match customer
expectations. Oh man,
another unhappy customer.
“Our Dev/Engineers
have no direct contact
with clients”.

6. Go Agile
Buddy up an internal project manager with a
sales rep and evaluate them as a team like agile
organizations do.
what you can do“Our Dev/Engineers
have no direct contact
with clients”.

7. “The KPIs in our BU are
linked to Investment
and Return”.
Huston says:
2/

8. Managers have their own KPI’s and
growth objectives. If Manager X decides
to invest in an innovation program (e.g.
Innovation Accelerator) to create new
disruptive revenue streams for his Business
unit, the ideas will be created around
those objectives. Now imagine one of the
accelerator teams realizing that they should
pivot away from the original scope to keep
a viable idea relevant for the company as a
whole. Few managers will allow the team
to pivot in a way that another business unit
takes all the revenues.

9. Choose cross-
departmental funds
Finance uncertain projects with a cross-
departmental-fund (e.g. by CEO office) to
maximize pivot possibilities (and potential value
for the company).
what you can do“The KPIs in our BU are
linked to Investment and
Return”.

10. Thomson Reuters Catalyst Fund funds 30
projects every year and supports them with
lean startup coaching and best practices.
best practice

11. “Our governance
slows down (or kills)
every new initiatives”.
Huston says:
3/

13. Imagine having 7 management
layers between an employee with
a brilliant idea and the director
that needs to allocate the budget
to make it happen. Each manager
will shape the idea to different
KPI’s and personal preferences.
All interesting and differentiating
factors, that make the idea
brilliant, will be gone by the time
an implementation decision can
be made.

14. Micro-finance ideas,
no string attached.
Give your employees some funds they can invest as they
wish. They’ll find the way to make the most of them to
improve their own way of working, or to initiate new
projects. And in the end, regardless the results, this also
incentivizes some healthy intraneurship in the company.
what you can do“Our governance slows
down (or kills) every new
initiatives”.

15. best practice
At Board of Innovation , all employees
have an experiment budget (€50/month)
to be used without questions asked.

16. With its Adobe Kickbox, Adobe gives their
innovation teams a $1000 prepaid credit
card to enable and accelerate intrapreneurs.
best practice

17. “Let’s go on, we already
spent 100k in this
project”.
Huston says:
4/

18. Killing projects is an hard thing to do for both
managers and project teams. Why? Firstly, it
transforms all investments in the project into costs.
Secondly, all people involved will have to accept
that they failed and let go of the project. Lastly, it’s
a challenge to know when a team tried everything
possible to make a project work.
“Let’s go on, we
already spent 100k
in this project”.

19. Create a Lab environment
where failure is part
of the game.
Create sidetracks for innovation projects (e.g. Labs, Accelerators,
Boot-Camps, Pressure cookers, Hackathons, etc.) that allow
intrapreneurs to pitch their results and call to action directly to key
decision makers, possibly top-management.
what you can do“Let’s go on, we
already spent 100k
in this project”.

20. Make the Excel sheet decide
for you.
Lean startup uses evidence-based to proof if a project can or will not
work. Many teams entering our corporate accelerator programs
are working on never-ending-money-draining projects, often
kept alive by internal politics. Using lean startup principles
in a safe environment is a perfect way to either kill or define
first implementable steps for the project.
what you can do“Let’s go on, we
already spent 100k
in this project”.

21. Call it Incremental
Budget.
Would you ever give your children the whole 1-year pocket
money, regardless their future behaviour? Decrease the
budget allocated to new projects, increase the number
of budget rounds and make the governance for budget
requests lighter. This will lower the risk of losing a big
investment and management has more chances to re-
evaluate (e.g. kill a project if necessary).
what you can do“Let’s go on, we
already spent 100k
in this project”.

22. “ROI is my best KPI for
investments”.
Huston says:
5/

23. Everyone knows that
uncertain projects need
more time to reach their
payback time. Most projects
(90%) don’t even reach
break-even. If they do,
though, chances are that the
ROI will be multiples of your
‘low hanging fruits’.
“ROI is my best KPI
for investments”.
Proj 1 Proj 2 Proj 3 Proj 4 Proj 5Proj 1 Proj 2 Proj 3 Proj 4 Proj 5
ROI in regular departments ROI in Innovation departments

24. Innovation has its own
accounting system.
Have a look at innovation accounting and see how to
measure innovation practices on different levels.
what you can do“ROI is my best KPI
for investments”.

25. Time-To-Market is
the new ROI.
Comparing projects based on projected on ROI
doesn’t make sense once the time to market
differs too much as ROI of long-term projects
is far more uncertain. Check out this insightful
article .
what you can do“ROI is my best KPI
for investments”.

26. “We don’t assign a
budget without clear
deliverables”.
Huston says:
6/

27. This investment strategy has been great for heavy
IT implementations, but it doesn’t work for projects
without a clear outcome yet. The push for control
and short term return (often driven by shareholders)
makes it impossible for uncertain projects to change
direction when needed. This increases the chance of
failure and premature project murder.
“We don’t assign a
budget without clear
deliverables”.

28. The progressive marketing department
of Cartamundi, a European board game
manufacturer, gives 10% of their marketing
budget to Pull The Trigger , a growth hacking
agency started by a former Board of Innovation
employee, to challenge their way of working
towards the same goals. This 10% can be seen
as a rule of thumb for experiment budgets and
time investment. It will decrease costs on the
long term.
best practice

29. ForestPlastics by Sappi and other
corporate startups that we support
have budget cycles of 3 months to
realign budget with deliverables.
best practice

30. Bart Remmerie , a former HR manager
of Elia Group, allocated part of his own
budget allowance to an initiative called
the ‘After Hours Guerrilla Club’ . The goal
of the concept was to enable and motivate
intrapreneurs to test new ideas and launch
them from the bottom of the company,
rather than the other way around. A great
way to enforce an innovation culture in the
company.
best practice

31. “We have a prototype
for our new service but
we’re scared to spoil our
reputation”.
Huston says:
7/

33. Don’t get us wrong here. It takes
decades to build a good company
reputation and it should be protected!
What we want to tackle is how risk
managers and corporate communication
departments flag any type of
experiment with clients involved. The
main issue is the difference in both
mindset and context understanding of
lean startup type experiments. Both risk
manager and intrapreneur will have to
meet in the middle.

34. If it’s a Beta,
say it out loud!
Framing the context of experiments
and immature services is key. You won’t
disappoint your current customers, and you’ll
make the early adopters amazingly happy.
what you can do“We have a prototype
for our new service but
we’re scared to spoil our
reputation”.

35. New Android releases are prelaunched in
beta communities (a group of clients that
want to test new products, search for bugs
and give feedback). Beta (or even Alpha)
launch should be all over the place.
best practice

36. Give the new service
a distinct brand.
You’ll get two advantages: not only to bring the attention
away from the parent company when experimenting new
services, but also to diversify your target.
what you can do“We have a prototype
for our new service but
we’re scared to spoil our
reputation”.

37. BNP Paribas launched a new bank (Hello
Bank) targeting only early adopters of
regular banking services to pilot new
products & services.
best practice

38. Ask for a
maximal liability.
Intrapreneurs can use the principle of ‘maximal liability’ when
asking for permission to execute a client experiment. It is the
maximal amount of monetary risk linked to an experiment.
Risk managers aware of this concept can also suggest ways
to decrease maximal liability, rather than saying “NO” to any
experiment with a risk higher than X.
what you can do“We have a prototype
for our new service but
we’re scared to spoil our
reputation”.

39. “Apple invented the
smartphone”.
Huston says:
8/

40. What we hear in every second innovation
session: “We will educate the market, like
Apple did in 2007 when they launched
the first smartphone”. Well, nice to be
challenged as an innovation facilitator,
but let’s face the facts: in the early
90’s, IBM launched the Simon Personal
Communicator. Next to calling, the device
was able to send and receive faxes and
emails. IBM didn’t succeed, but it sounds
like a smartphone to me .
“Apple invented the
smartphone”.

41. Most successful products
launched by big companies
are smart copies of what
others are doing.

42. Taking inspiration
is not copying.
Don’t see smart copying as ‘stealing’; see it as being
inspired by others. The more you copy what works,
the better your offering will be. If you like this idea,
feel free to download our analogy cards for free and
start copying business concepts like an artist.
what you can do“Apple invented the
smartphone”.

43. “Coming up with
innovative solutions is
always on top of the job”.
Huston says:
9/

44. “Coming up with
innovative solutions is
always on top of the job”.
…and “Innovation is only for new
projects” are quotes that we hear
when we have an innovation
workshop with non-innovation
professionals.

45. …and “Innovation is only for new
projects” are quotes that we hear
when we have an innovation
workshop with non-innovation
professionals.
“Coming up with
innovative solutions is
always on top of the job”.
“What new innovation? Can’t you see I’m too busy?!”

46. Put innovation in
your daily routine.
Dear companies, if you really want to be innovative,
you better start experimenting in existing projects.
Start small and create a culture of trying new ways
that question the status quo.
what you can do“Coming up with
innovative solutions is
always on top of the job”.

47. ING recently launched “PACE every day” , their
program to support all employees with everyday
initiatives to use PACE principles. PACE is ING’s
uniform language to support innovation and creative
thinking. It’s a mix of lean startup, design thinking, and
agile development principles.
best practice

48. VRT, a national public-service broadcaster
in Belgium, organises bi-weekly meetups
to tackle new topics in broadly aimed open
masterclasses. Next to that, they created
‘challenge’ cards for anyone to come up with
ideas on user-centered challenges that were
uncovered by the innovation team.
best practice

49. Did we miss anything?
Send your tips to
arne@boardofinnovation.com
That’s all Folks!
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