Innovator's Playbook

Over to you – your journey to innovation flow

I hope this book and the framework, processes, tools, mindsets and behaviours it shares will help you master the front end of innovation, so you and your teams can be more successful at innovation. Innovation for too long has had unnecessarily high rates of failure, because, according to Innovation Management expert Robert Cooper, typically we focus 90 per cent of our efforts and resources on the back end of innovation, not the front. Getting the front end of innovation right is the key to unlocking innovation success. Just like you wouldn’t skip laying the foundations when building a house, you shouldn’t skip laying the foundations for successful innovation. You might get to market faster, but with an inferior product that will fall over, and the rework to get it right will be hugely expensive and time consuming.

A repeatable method for innovation success

Using the full suite of customer-centric innovation and design methods such as Design Thinking, Business Model Canvas and Lean Startup in the right way, at the right time and in the right sequence (as shown in figure 7) will help you succeed in the front end of innovation.

Figure 7: integrated design-led innovation

When and where to apply it

Traditionally, the business world has often relied on deductive thinking, where there is only one right solution to a problem. This assumes ...