The Innovator's Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth, 2nd Edition

Part IV

Demonstrate the Innovation

Even great designs or solutions can be thwarted by poor implementation. Most organizations know this, but they still struggle to position their solutions for the activities involved in commercialization. Can your processes make your new product or service easily and cost-effectively? Can you deliver your new product or service to customers consistently with no errors? Will your new business model actually work in the real world?

This final phase of innovation's front edge is when you create, test, and prove the feasibility of your new solution. First, you build a working model of your new solution using Prototyping or Piloting techniques. Just because a design is sound on paper, or sound as a preliminary model, doesn't mean it will perform as expected under all working circumstances at all times. Information gathered from the working model is used to improve or optimize your solution.

When your working model proves ready, it's time to preliminarily map the processes involved in making and delivering it–a task for which you can use the SIPOC Map and Process Map/Value Stream Map techniques.

After processes are documented, it is advisable to see what can be done at this stage to ensure the processes will be as fast, efficient, and flawless as possible–even before you engage in the exploitation and commercialization aspects of innovation (referring back to the two-sided model we presented in the introduction).

Thismeans you optimize the processes ...