Brianna Sylver makes some very good points in her article "What does ‘Innovation’ really mean?" about the need to understand the hiring organization or client’s motivation for seeking ‘innovation services’. As we all know from our previous attempts to define the word, ‘innovation’ means different things to different people and this can give rise to mismatched expectations. From the article,
Corporations typically seek innovation services in response to one of three situations:
1. They are currently engulfed in the flames of the "burning platform"
(as Russ Ward, Director of New Product Development at IMP, Inc. calls
it). Their profits are dropping, their products are not selling and
they don’t know what to do about it.2. They have emerged from the days of the "burning platform" and have
come to understand that innovation is not a start/stop process, but an
evolving one that requires constant attention.3. They are a leader in their industry and are determined to stay
there. Failure is accepted within their organization because they
understand and fully embrace the numbers game in product development.
In addition to understanding the motivation, she goes on to write about the importance of understanding the client’s ‘innovation tolerance’ level which in turn helps define the success criteria for the project. This helps ensure that the project and it’s deliverables are relevant and useful to the hiring organization - instead of situations where the consultant offers a ‘blue sky’ radical solution while the client just wanted an incremental product improvement. There’s much more in the article including tips on understanding your client’s culture and effective ways to improve the consultant/client relationship. Go read the whole thing!
One comment so far
Definitely an interesting piece. I feel it would have been better titled by the one you used for this blog post though.
And it left me wondering really how different was this story from one that could be used to describe a designer, or other types of consultant.
Maybe - the problem really lies with the fact than when asking for innovation services, a client is really just asking for design/consulting services but using today’s current term for them. Which could be temporary and replaced by something new in the future.
Good post though, thanks.